Help writing apache htaccess for nginx

[anagio]

I have this htaccess file that's used in my zend project. We just moved
from apache to nginx

# Rewrite rules for Zend Framework
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/public.*
RewriteRule !\.(js|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$ index.php

# Security: Don't allow browsing of directories
Options -Indexes

#RewriteBase '/'
Part of my nginx server file has this

            location /public {
            }
            location ~ \.(js|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$ {
            }
            location /not_found {
            }
            location /404.html {
                    internal;
            }
When we were on apache the /public folder would be
domain.com/public/js/ColVis.min.js

Now nginx is making the URL's like this, it appends /public to whatever
URL you are on the site
domain.com/billingpreferences/public/js/ColVis.min.js

This is breaking the entire site, what can I change in the nginx config
file

Posted at Nginx Forum: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,220493,220493#msg-220493