It's not just about BBQ, get together with friends, It is about the brave soldiers that gave their lives for our freedom!

 Memorial Day is a solemn federal holiday in the United States dedicated to mourning and honoring all military personnel who died while serving in the Armed Forces. While widely recognized as the unofficial kickoff to summer and a long weekend for family gatherings, the true meaning of the day centers on the ultimate sacrifice made by American service members. Here is a quick overview of what the holiday represents:

• Fallen vs. Living: Memorial Day specifically honors those who died in service. It is often confused with Veterans Day, which celebrates all living and past U.S. military veterans.
• National Moment of Remembrance: At 3:00 p.m. local time on Memorial Day, Americans are encouraged to pause for a one-minute moment of unity to remember and reflect on the fallen.
• Decoration Day Origins: Originally known as "Decoration Day," the tradition began after the Civil War when citizens would decorate the graves of fallen soldiers with spring flowers and flags.
• Traditional Observances: Americans typically visit cemeteries and memorials, and volunteers place small American flags on the graves of the fallen at national cemeteries. 

So lets take a moment to remember what the day is really for: A day on which those who died in active military service are remembered, traditionally observed on May 30 but now officially observed on the last Monday in May. 

Stew Lilker’s

May 21, 2026  11:25 am | 5 min read
AI Summary in a minute

SUWANNEE COUNTY, FL – The North Florida Water Utility Authority met at 9:30 am Monday in Live Oak. The helter-skelter utility authority is composed of two county commissioners, each from Suwannee and Columbia Counties, and one citizen member. Pre- and post-meeting issues, while out of the public eye, highlight the Authority's core trust and transparency issues.

The Utility Authority Board members have canned their bowling team shirts, as things have become more serious.

One of the structural problems that the North Florida Water Utility Authority (NFWUA or Authority) has had from its sub rosa beginnings is trust and transparency, e.g., its meetings are intentionally not recorded for public view; board minutes are not available on the Authority website; agenda materials are late, or so late that the Authority board and the public are entirely left out of the loop.

Monday’s May 18 North Florida Water Utility Authority meeting was no exception, with the Executive Director outdoing his normal last-minute agendas and 12th-hour agenda web postings.

At 4:44 pm on Saturday (May 16), the Executive Director had still not posted the agenda, nor the supporting material. This prompted your reporter to text Authority Executive Director Shannon Roberts to ask whether the meeting was canceled.

The Executive Director didn’t know the agenda never made it to the Authority website. Apparently, neither did anybody else connected to the Authority, from the Board members on down to the County Managers.

Mr. Roberts sent along the agenda, posted it on the website, and explained in an email, “There was a process breakdown in the upload notification.” Your reporter asked what that meant. There was no answer.

Suwannee County resident Wayne Hannaka has appeared at most Authority meetings.

The Authority Charter, passed by both Columbia and Suwannee Counties just over two years ago, provides for the establishment of bylaws. Bylaws are “The secondary, internal rulebook detailing how the company [or a municipality] operates on a day-to-day basis. Bylaws must always comply with the articles of incorporation and higher statutory laws.” [1, 2]

The NFWUA has no bylaws. As a result, the executive director has no rules for agenda preparation, deadlines, supporting information, or other day-to-day operations. The Authority Charter (ILA) mentions a few responsibilities.

As the board meeting drew to a close, Wayne Hannaka of Suwannee County told the board:

 "There was no agenda available until yesterday [Sunday], I look every day to see when the agenda comes out, so I can do a little research and figure out what's going on. Unfortunately, things get dragged out to the very last minute, and there's not any communication."

It is likely that, before Monday’s 9:30 am board meeting, none of the Board members had seen the finalized agenda, which was not available until 8:05 am on Friday morning (the 15th), less than one business day before the meeting.

Local Florida governments are heading into budget season. This is the time of the year when counties, cities, towns, and special districts begin planning their finances for the coming year. In Florida, for these public entities, the budget year begins on October 1. Planning is characterized by preliminary budget workshops, where elected and appointed boards publicly flush out sometimes complex and controversial financial issues. While not always pretty, the process allows for citizen oversight, input, and official transparency.

The Utility Authority is responsible for at least $100 million in public assets and an operating budget of $1.77 million. Over $1 million of that is direct subsidies from the taxpayers of Columbia and Suwannee Counties.

To confuse the public, the Authority calls the subsidies "grants."

County Manager David Kraus spends a lot of time dealing with Authority business.

After the meeting was adjourned, County Manager David Kraus and Exec. Dir. Roberts discussed the Authority's budget for next year. Mr. Roberts told Mr. Kraus that he was trying to get a preliminary budget done by the end of the month.

The Authority's financial agenda includes new rates. It also covers revenue projections based on those rates and new expenses from both Columbia and Suwannee Counties.

Mr. Roberts mentioned that he was trying to have a draft budget completed by the end of June.

Mr. Roberts said he was going to meet with all the board members separately and “go over the budget. When we’ve had our meetings, they’ll be able to approve and ratify it.”

Your reporter was packing up his equipment and asked, “Why don’t you have a budget workshop – everybody has those?”

Mr. Roberts said, “I don't want to have a budget workshop. I want them to have the ability, on their own, by themselves, to go through it on their own without anybody else.”

Your reporter said, “You give them no credit. Are you telling me they can't mentally sit at a meeting? Everybody has budget workshops except this authority? That's part of the problem, not having government experience. I don't know anybody who doesn't have budget workshops.”

County Manager Kraus added, “We’re having one on Thursday.”

Mr. Roberts said, “That’s how I want to work this.”

Your reporter said to County Manager Kraus, “You need to talk to him about that, before he sinks his feet in concrete.”

Mr. Kraus agreed.

Mr. Roberts said, “You must presume, I’ve never heard of that before.”

Your reporter replied, “I’m presuming you're digging in.”

Mr. Robert said, “I'm not talking to you about that. I'm done with it. Buzz off.”

Your reporter buzzed off and finished packing up.

Utility Authority Vice-Chair Franklin White. Here he is listening to Executive Director Shannon Williams.

After your reporter packed up his car, he had a few words in the parking lot with Authority Vice-Chair Franklin White about Authority budget workshops.

Mr. Robert’s "no budget workshop" remarks were relayed.

Mr. White was puzzled, “What do you mean?”

Mr. Robert’s “no budget workshop(s)” was repeated.

Mr. White didn’t beat around the bush: “Bull Shit.”

During a discussion about the NFWUA at the Suwannee County Commission meeting on Tuesday evening (May 19), Mr. White said, “We have to have a workshop with the Water Utility for a budget.”

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.

By JAMIE WACHTER on Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Senate pulls funding for recharge plan after Simon letter.

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.”

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