What's Going On In Suwannee

9/10/26 Budget Meeting

• Millage Rate Set at 9.25 with Rollback of 8.9651
• Total Budget $46,51,388
• Final Budget Meeting September 22 @ 5:30PM

9/8/26 City Council Meeting

• Vanessa Robinson appointed to the Regional Planning Council by a 5-0 vote.
• Florida City Week will be October 19-23 with a celebration on the 23rd @ 5:30PM most likely at Heritage Park.
• (9/11 Memorial Service at the Fire House 8:15 AM
• Recreastional fire ordinace first reading passed 5-0.
• A vote of 5-0  was passed to have Flock Cameras removed  and the current contract which ends on January 2027 terminated.
• Council member Owens brought up the possibility of constructing a splash pad at the John Hale park. No clear direction was taken at this time.
• Mr Sessions introduced a member of the Police Bargaining team to discuss and inform the council that he and the Chief have proceeded to find ways to retain officers.
• County Manager Jason Fury brought up the Regional Shelter being in design and the possibility of having city water, sewer and gas supplied as the county being a customer. The council appeared to be in favor of the idea and would work with the county to make it happen by January 2029 opening.
• An agreement between the county and city that describes the obligation of each for the Historical commision was passed 5-0.
• A revision of the city alcohol code to allow businesses to serve alcohol in downtown was passed 5-0
• Bids for infrastructure for waterman ave were all approved 5-0.
• Tentative Budget hearing is scheduled for 9/10/26 at 5:30 PM.
• See Articles Page for more detail.

8/25/26 Budget Workshop

• It appears the city manager is trying to move as much money to do infastructure repairs as possible.
• Flock cameras were discussed again and there is a move toward not funding them and the attorney is looking into what it will take to get out of their contract.

8/11/26 City Council Meeting

• In the budget meeting prior to the regular meeting it was suggested and appeared to be a consensus to not fund Flock Cameras. See meeting scheduled for 8/17/26 at the library for the Sheriffs version of why we need them.
• During public comments three people talk about the homeless problem in the city and wanted the council to take some type of proactive measures.
• Annex renovation was removed from the agenda.
• Mr. Campbell talked about fire pits and the vague language in the existing codes. It was decided to have the City Attorney draft and ordinance for the next meeting to be discussed at the next meeting.
• Tentative budget hearings was moved to Thursday 9/10/26 at 5:30 PM
• Don Chandler was approved to take seat 5 on the zoning board through 2027.
• Alicia Redish was approve to remain on the zoning board thru 8/2029
• Jimmy Cherry was approved to continue serving for seat 1 on the zoning board.
• A very lengthy discussion took place mostly by Ms. Robinson regarding the city manger requesting an assistant. The final vote was 3-2 with Owens and Robinson voting no.
• The remainder of the agenda was just too much to sit through however you can view the meeting on our City of Live Oak page. 

7/14/26 City Council Meeting

• Adam Collins, Matt Campbell, Frank Davis and John Gill sworn in.
• Elected Venessa Robinson as President and Alford as Pro-tem
• Public comments were: A citizen questioned that the burn ordinance does not include recreational burning such as fire pits, Adison Snyder presented the negative facts about Flock Cameras and they should be taken down, Kat Sharp explained Grants and how they should be applied for along with offering her services to the city, Alford Smith spoke about potholes that need to be repaired along with Linda Williams and her concerns regarding burning in the city
• The city manager announced that the fire chief was retiring as of this Friday, he may have done a good job but certainly did not give much notice.
• The maximum millage rate was set at 9.5
• The council approved the grant for a small fire retardant vehicle which is a 75/25 split which cost approximately $50K
• A work schedule change for the fire department of 48 on 96 off was approved
• The new public works director, Samson Edwards was introduce and approved 5-0 by the council
• A lengthly discussion regarding an audit of the finance department procedures took place and ultimately it was decided by a 4-1 vote to rebid the RFP with Robinson a nay.
• The city attorney gave a lengthly discussion regardint the ordinance banning data centers within the city, A vote was to table the ordinance until further information was available by 5-0
• The Expansion of the CRA was discussed and voted 5-0 to go ahead with expansion. 

9/3/26 Update

• Columbia County BOCC now wants to renegotiate the interlocal agreement. If left up to their attorney it would take place behind closed doors, but the commissioners decided it all has to in the open with selected parties  to represent each county. At the same meeting Columbia commissioners decided to only raise rates 10% not the NFWUA suggested extrem rates that Suwannee approved. SEE NFWUA Page for Details.

9/2/26 Update See NFWUA Page

8/24/26 Regular Meeting

• New citizen board member from Columbia County Jock Phelps was sworn in.
• The second Columbia citizen Walt Graham evidently resigned prior to the meeting. A replacement search is ongoing.
• Although Commissioner Ford and Murphy were present neith took their seat on the board. Not sure why not since  without a fifth member some items were deferred till the next meeting.
• It was announced the clerk's office would no longer be doing meeting minutes and administration would be doing them from this point forward (the temp person from an agency?)
• Franklin White was elected as the new chair.
• Mr. Phelps had manny questions especially regarding the companies check were written to and what each did. He questioned how many employees the authority had and Shannon responded 5, whic he corrected latter in the meeting as 4 and one temp. Phelps questioned how many trucks were in use and Shannon replied 5 so he asked if each employee had a truck Shannon replied no but one was for an admin person to run errands.
• A long discussion took place regarding meeting dates which ended up to be on page 37 of the meeting backup.
• The 9/21/26 meeting will be moved to 9/28/26 for a final budget.
• There are 7 plants being managed by NFWUA.
• This was not the meeting most expected especially with the intercounty feud going on regarding replacing commissioners with citizens.

• For more detail turn to NFWUA Page. 

07/20/26 Regular Meeting

• Tentative budget and rates for customers were approved 4-1 with Mr. Murphy voting no on each.
• Each county will chip in $520,648 with an additional Emergency fund in the amount of Columbia County $100K, Suwannee County $50K, *the budget and rates are tenative and need to be approved by each county along with Ft. White approval of rates which might trigger another debate from citizens that are paying attention.
• An evaluation form was distributed for the Executive Director to be completed by each board member and returned to the attorney for tabulation. 
• See meeting agenda 7-20-26 on NFWUA Page for details.

07/09/26 Update

• Columbia County appointed two citizens to replace county commissioners on the board.

For more detail click on MAIN PAGE BREAKING NEWS

05/18/26 Regular Meeting

• Three citizens spoke about the utility and asked does it really make sense anymore with Columbia County not really committed due to the fact that they just sold their mega site plant to the city of Lake City.
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