PCC Family,
Many of you have seen activity recently on Facebook about our sanctuary. Additionally, this week, an online publication called the St. Pete Catalyst used an AI Robot to publish an article saying:
A prominent St. Petersburg landmark has landed on Florida’s annual list of endangered historic places.
The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation has named Pasadena Community Church to its 2026 “11 to Save” list, citing concerns over the future of the church’s iconic sanctuary following damage from Hurricane Milton.
This article was generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Had the journalist been a human reporter, she/he might have called PCC to learn the facts that we all know so well. A human journalist might have also gotten the name of the architect of the sanctuary right. It was Bill Harvard, not Bertwin Moore as the Catalyst’s imaginary reporter wrote. The robot reporter even has a made-up name, “Cora Quantum (AI)” and describes herself/itself as “an artificial intelligence jouranlist.” Spelled, “jouranlist” not a “journalist.” Indeed.
There are other issues to clear up.
First, Pasadena Community Church is not designated as a “historic place” as the article refers to. A few years ago, an inactive member tried to impose that designation on us, which would have prevented our church forever from making significant changes to our buildings. There is almost no advantage for a church to be so designated since churches already do not pay property taxes and that is the key benefit for “historic sites”. When it became clear the application was filed with the city government against our will, and that the whole church property did not meet the criteria to be “historic,” the application was withdrawn and dismissed.
Second, “The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation” is a small nonprofit. They never contacted our church about being on the list. The “Trust” has a total annual budget of about a half million dollars and offers ONE single micro-grant of $5,000 once per year. The “Trust” publishes the list each year to stir public sentiment to “preserve” buildings that are largely already in severe disrepair. The Trust is not offering to revive the old buildings, but does stir people up to complain about them.
Finally, PCC members have the facts. We have documented those facts in numerous churchwide meetings and videos. We have provided detailed engineering reports, photos and videos explaining how the sanctuary is badly damaged and even without the hurricane damage would need in excess of $15 Million to repair the façade, the roof, the basement, the AC, and many other issues. Even if we went into debt to spend millions repairing the Sanctuary, we would have a building that can seat 2,000 people and is structurally unique, but would not serve the future needs of our 450-person congregation and its mission.
We have been blessed for more than 60 years to worship in our sanctuary. In February, 90 percent of our voting members made the tough and emotionally draining decision to move forward to embrace the mission of this church that we believe God is leading us toward.
If anyone asks you about what is going on at PCC, please point them here, to our public website: www.pccforward.org. Better yet, invite them to join us and see for themselves that we are alive and serving our community in important, even vital ways. We are shaped by our proud past and are moving forward with purpose and determination.
Please keep an eye out for misleading information on social media and the internet. Keep an eye out for AI-generated “information.” Please continue to forward what you find to the church office so we can keep an eye on it.
Al Tompkins (yes, I know my name looks short for artificial intelligence)
PCC Lay Leader
pccforward.org 