05/09/26

Get out and vote for a better City of Live Oak

 Early voting for the City of Live Oak  Runoff election Jun1 thru June 6th. The polls are open for early voting through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily at the Suwannee County Judicial Annex, 218 SW Parshley Street in Live Oak. Election day for the municipal election is Tuesday 06/09/26 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Election day voting will also take place at the Judicial Annex. Tommie Jefferson is being challenged by  Adam Collins, an engineer who currently serves on the city’s planning and zoning board.

04/21/26 BOCC Meeting 

At this weeks BOCC meeting County Manager Jason Furry announced the new Emergency Management Director is Sharon Hingson. This is a new start for our EOC operations which is now under county control, after being removed from the Sheriff's Department. A group of citizens praised the decision stating she is professional and will serve with integrity.

Click on Articles for more detail on the meeting.

04/14/26 City Council Meeting

After seven people spoke opposing the project including council candidate Collins who stated this is not responsible growth and the only person who thought this was a good idea being the attorney for the property owner the item was presented for council consideration. Councilwoman Robinson made a motion to approve the annexation and no second was received therefore the motion died and annexation was stopped.

By JAMIE WACHTER on Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Senate pulls funding for recharge plan after Simon letter.

• State Sen. Corey Simon (left) speaks with Water First North Florida meeting attendees outside the UF/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center Suwannee Valley’s educational pavilion in March. (FILE)

The project to pipe treated wastewater from Jacksonville to the Suwannee River Valley has been “canceled,” according to a state Senator.

Sen. Corey Simon, a Tallahassee Republican who represents Suwannee, Hamilton and Lafayette counties, sent a letter Tuesday to “neighbors” that said the project is off as currently designed.

“After careful review and continued conversations with local leaders, water experts, property owners, and concerned citizens across North Florida, the Water First North Florida project is being canceled in its current form,” Simon wrote in the letter. “While the need to address low water levels in our aquifer remains very real, it has become clear that this proposal is not the right path forward for our communities at this time.”

Late Tuesday afternoon, the $20 million allocated for the project in the Senate’s budget proposal was removed. The House has not earmarked any money for the aquifer recharge project.

Rep. Chuck Brannan (R-Macclenny) told the Reporter on Tuesday that he has been 100% against the project since first hearing about the $1.1 billion plan to take 40 million gallons of wastewater a day from the Jacksonville area and treat it to reclaimed standards and then pipe it to wetlands for further treatment before putting it back into the aquifer somewhere in the Suwannee River Water Management District.

Brannan said he didn’t hear about the project until the SRWMD started making presentations on Water First to local commissions.

“I was blindsided by it and once that happened I immediately made sure there was no funding,” Brannan said, noting the water management districts are independent districts. “But, obviously, in the end we control the purse strings. If we control the purse strings, we control what happens and what doesn’t happen.

“I didn’t take the public approach, the Facebook approach, the Twitter approach, I took the budget approach because as long as we can keep it zeroed out, no pun intended, it’s dead in the water.”

That, along with concerns about the impact the project would have on the aquifer and the springs in this area, led to Brannan working to not provide funding for it. The House has never set aside any funding for Water First while the Senate funding disappeared Tuesday following Simon’s letter.

“The reason there is zero in the House is Chuck Brannan has made sure there is zero in the House,” Brannan added as the Legislature began a special session Tuesday to work on the budget. “It’s a little early and the budget is never over until the fat lady sings and the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. So we’ve got to try to keep it out.”

Troy Roberts, the SRWMD’s communications and outreach office chief, said the district didn’t have comment about the project’s status Tuesday afternoon.

“The District is aware of the letter,” Roberts said in a statement provided to the Reporter. “At this time, we do not have additional comment regarding the project. Any additional questions can be directed to Senator Simon’s office.”

Charlie Keith, a Lake City businessman who sits on the SRWMD board, told the Reporter on Tuesday afternoon that he was unaware that the project had been canceled. Keith noted the district’s governing board met Tuesday morning but the only comments or questions on Water First came from members of the public.

“There was nothing in our meeting about it,” Keith said. “We had people ask us about it, so apparently the word is out there somewhere. But we didn’t have any knowledge of it.

“We’re just on a fact-finding mission here. Nothing’s been approved other than we approved to look at it. We have the same questions everybody else has and we’re trying to work through them.”

Simon, in his letter, agrees that there needs to be work and research done to try to protect the aquifer as well as providing water to the growing state. But Simon also said whatever solution comes about needs to be “practical, transparent, locally informed, and built with the trust of the people will be most affected.”

The SRWMD had previously said it and the St. Johns Water Management District had considered nearly 800 different plans over the past decade to address the need for additional aquifer recharge before settling on the reclaimed water piping proposal as the most cost effective way. That plan had support from JEA, which was committed to funding $400 million toward its inception over the course of the next 13-15 years. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which had requested the funding for the proposal in the Senate’s budget, and other utilizes like GRU, have also supported the plan. The SJRWMD had also committed $125 million in future funding for the project.

“I asked that all parties go back to the drawing board,” Simon wrote. “That means bringing stakeholders back to the table, listening closely to residents, evaluating the science, and working toward a better long-term solution to restore and protect our groundwater. North Florida deserves a plan that safeguards our natural resources while respecting our communities, our economy, and our way of life.”

Both Tim Murphy, the Columbia County Commission chairman, and Don Hale, the Suwannee County Commission vice chairman, were pleased to hear Tuesday that Simon called the project “canceled.”

“It was a big of a surprise,” Hale said of the letter from Simon, adding that he believed the ongoing public pushback against the plan, especially from local governments, helped turn the tide. “I knew there were some talks going on, some reconfiguring if you will but I wasn’t expecting that.

“It was gaining a lot of momentum and just wasn’t popular with anybody, wasn’t being welcomed by any community.”

Murphy added: “I’m tickled to death at it. Hopefully they’ll bring stakeholders to the table and actually have some input. The approach seemed to be a bit aggressive, letting us know what they were going to do without any say so to speak.”

Here is a link with the full story and a petition to sign https://c.org/2zKV6QndZ8

At the January 13th City Council meeting Ms Robinson requested that an additional form be used for the city manager review, even though it duplicated the existing review and appeared not to be relevant. This discussion, if you want to call it that, all started when she voted to not renew Mr. Session's contract  and councilman Jefferson made a second. The issue appeared to be that Robinson wanted to use an evaluation form produced by ICMA, which Mr. Sessions is not a member which he stated this is the first he has heard of the organization and that she felt he should be a member. Mr. Jefferson stated he did not want to talk about Sessions contract when his review was not completed although Mr Campbell and Alford had completed their review and met with Sessions to discuss. It was not clear if  Ms Owens had completed her review since she was out sick at the meeting. After multiple attempts to resolve the issue by the city attorney and chairman Ms Robinson continued giving her opinion until the chairman slammed the gavel multiple times to try to gain control but she continued . If Robinson and Jefferson had done their duty of completing a review perhaps the issue could have been resolved without disruption. In the middle of a heated debate about what form to use Mr Jefferson got up from his chair, no can we have a recess or excuse me for a minute and motioned to the audience for former councilwoman Owens to come forward and spoke in secret to her and returned to his seat asking where are we now. Did he need direction or advice what to do next, none of us will know. Two citizens spoke about council respect and decorum at the beginning of the meeting , but evidently not all of the council were listening especially the two that are the worst offenders.

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11/25/25 Previous Sheriff's Office Finance Director arrested today.FDLE proceeded with its investigation using agency records, criminal subpoenas, and financial documents obtained from multiple sources. As a result of the independent investigation, FDLE determined that probable cause existed to seek a capias for Ms. Corbin’s arrest.

On November 25, 2025, Megan Leigh Corbin, 38, of Live Oak, Florida, was arrested in Taylor County as a result of FDLE’s investigation. She faces eight counts of Grand Theft and two counts of Fraud: Unauthorized Use of a Credit Card.  Click on articles button for full  story