The signs are down and the case is over. The St. Johns Citizen reports St. Augustine has removed the signs prohibiting firearms at its public buildings, will pay $40,000 to settle the lawsuit Florida Carry, Inc. brought over them, and saw the case dismissed this week.

The vote was 5 to 0 on Oct. 26, the Citizen reports, after the commission met behind a closed door on litigation costs and strategy. That session is the one this paper reported the day before it happened. The notice set it for 3 p.m. in the Alcazar Room, estimated fifteen minutes, and named all five commissioners, the city manager, the city attorney and a certified court reporter.

Nobody else.

The notice called Case No. CA26-1218 “the pending eminent domain matter,” which is fine. The case was about gun signs. The notice never said the words. Florida Carry argued the city’s signs and the way employees enforced them ran into section 790.33, the statute in which the Legislature declares it occupies the whole field of firearms regulation, to the exclusion of every county and municipal ordinance. The existing ones it declares null and void.

What the city bought for its $40,000 is an ending. City Attorney Isabelle Lopez told commissioners the payment covers Florida Carry’s attorney fees, the Citizen reports, and the group agreed in exchange to dismiss with prejudice. The same claims cannot be brought again. No refiling and no sequel. A city spokesperson declined to comment Thursday.

The group’s own timeline runs about five months, as the Citizen carries it. Florida Carry says it wrote the city in late February about a sign at the Visitor Information Center on South Castillo Drive, and later learned of similar signs at other municipal buildings. It sued in St. Johns County Circuit Court in July. The complaint held a photograph of the visitor center sign and alleged more signs at City Hall.

One document comes due because of the ending itself.

Everything said behind that door was taken down, because the statute allows no portion of a shade session off the record. Under paragraph (8)(e) of the Sunshine Law, the transcript becomes part of the public record upon conclusion of the litigation, and that condition is now met. The Tattler will read the transcript when the city files it, and will report what the room was told the case would cost against the $40,000 it did.