What made you want to run for county commission?
Well, through a lot of prayer and situations coming down the pipe, you know, with the property tax legislation and and just a lot of change that’s bound to happen. I prayed about it and and kind of paid attention to what was coming out with the other two candidates and I guess we all have different ideas and I felt like it was necessary to to just step forward to serve the community that shaped who I am.
What makes you qualified to be a county commissioner?
Everybody has gifts and talents, and I personally have been in the business world my whole life, and I feel like a lot of government entities lack that. I think that that’s lacking to a degree in our current commission, and I feel like the ability to communicate, the relationships that I have that are in and around Tallahassee, that could be beneficial to our community as far as grants and different things are concerned, could start some serious conversations. I think definitely, you know, opens the door for my, I guess you would say qualification, and just having a heart for the people, you know, and willing to get up every day and go to work on their behalf. This isn’t clickbait for me. This is real, and it impacts the lives of my children and the countless children his age and and otherwise. So I’m committed. If I’m elected by the people, I’m committed to getting up every day and going to work on their behalf. I’ve always said if you’re going to draw a salary, if you’re going to draw a wage from somebody, you need to be willing to put forth the work to earn it, and that’s where my heart’s at is for the people of this community.
What’s your stance on the proposed property tax reform?
There’s a lot of elements to it. You know it’s it’s not just a one and done. So there’s a lot of different ways to look at it. I think that the way that it was passed is detrimental to fiscally constrained counties like our own.I definitely don’t see it as a benefit. Do I think that property tax had run amok? Yes, I do. I do. I don’t think that it’s fair that myself or any other landowner, homeowner, have to pay tax on an unrealized gain.
I think that’s completely and totally unfair, and there was a lack of accountability there. I was more in favor of the way that (Governer Ron) DeSantis originally drew it up, with the safety nets and the guardrails in place for fiscally constrained counties. The way that it was passed removed those safety nets, removed the trust fund, and all the things that were going to enable us a time frame to find our financial footing. All of that’s been removed; it’s non-existent. So, it’s to the detriment of of small communities like ours, and that’s why it’s incredibly important that we have a commission that is willing to get up every morning, and it’s not hard questions, you know. I’ve heard people say, “Well, I’m going to ask the hard questions, and I’m going to do this.” They’re not hard questions. They’re just necessary, you know? It’s just necessary questions. It’s not personal. It’s business, you know? And and we’re conducting business on behalf of the people of this county, and we need to treat it that way. We need to treat it like our own savings account, our own checking account. And it’s not to a degree. So, I think that’s something that I bring forward. I don’t view it as controversy. I don’t view it as anything personal. It’s just business, and it’s the future of my son and and my other children, as well as everybody else’s children, and I want to do that appropriately.
How would you handle the likely decrease in revenue that would occur if that reform is passed?
In my professional life, I builtdtimber companies and rebuild timber companies. Timber companies, they operate on really small margins; high risk, high reward, right? So, I learned through my experience, and the ebbs and flows of learning and being taught by some incredibly wise men, that you really don’t know until you get in it. You have to step off it, and until you get there to where you can see things for what they are, you can look at all the budgets. You can you can look at where redundant costs are, you can look at double services, doing things twice, doing things inefficiently. You can actually identify those areas. I can’t tell you specifically, you know, “I’ll save money on motor graders,” but identifying redundant costs. I would make a motion to have a performance audit done. You can have the financial audit done, and that shows that the money’s been spent legally, but it doesn’t show the effectiveness of it. It doesn’t show how efficient it was spent and what the benefit of it was. That’s where a performance audit comes in. And you know, does it cost a little bit of money to do so by a third party? It does, but it’s a necessary expense if you really want to know where your inefficiencies are financially, and where you are efficient, and be able to identify them and deal with them accordingly. You can’t just go into something ignorant per se, and say, “Well, I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do that.” We have to find out where those are. I know they exist. I’ve had several things brought to my attention by some concerned citizens that that I was unaware of that are incredibly concerning to me, but until you can put it in black and white, it’s opinion. So identifying those areas and streamlining them and eliminating the redundancy and and the inefficiency that’s number one. As far as our public safety is concerned, people have had conversations in Tallahassee about the the possibility of putting first responders and you know deputies and all that on the state health insurance. I mean, just at the sheriff’s department, you know, that’s like $700-and-something thousand a year. That’s a large amount of money that, if lobbied appropriately, and the right doors were knocked on, and they opened and they were stepped in, and you could have the right conversations with the right people, you know, that’s money that could ultimately go back into those budgets, so you know that that’s a that’s a big deal. Is it a reach? Some people say it is. It just depends on how committed you are to going to work and making it happen.
What are your thoughts on AI data centers?
I think that AI data centers that are a constant draw on our natural resources are awful. We already have a groundwater issue. We don’t need anything depleting our natural resources further. However, you know, however bad data centers are, that’s a battle we can fight right now. That’s with moratoriums and pushing back and holding local government accountable. And we should. However, if the state decides, like they did with solar fields, that hey, this is what’s going to happen, they force it down your throat. So, I think that whenever you look beneath the surface, there’s always smoke and mirrors, right? There’s always look here while I do this over here, and I think that data centers are totally in that realm of operation right now. So, I would say yes, we need to push back on data centers right now. We need to keep them at bay, but we also need to be proactive and intentional about future land use maps, putting guardrails in place, zoning, and all that kind of stuff, so that if the day comes that the state does say, hey, you’re doing this, we can steer where they go, and they don’t just put them in our backyard. There’s ways that that we can push back now to keep them away, but use that time that we have so that we can protect ourselves in the future. If the state, if Tallahassee, and they’ve done it before, solar fields, prime example, come in and and say hey this is what’s happening and preempt anything that we’ve already done that’s the the war that we really need to be waging is a real comprehensive plan, future land use maps. We have a good representative right now that is from a rural community for the first time in I don’t even know how many years. So we have an ear, a sounding board in Tallahassee, and somebody that I believe will go to bat for us. But you have to be intentional and thought out, and and realistic in how you can do this thing legally, because we can all throw a fit and throw a sucker in the dirt and raise cane, but at the end of the day, how effective is that? If we do that with intention and we do that effectively, now we’ve done something for Gilchrist County, and that’s what I’m about. I want to do something that’s effective and that actually works. We got a year right now. They put the one year moratorium in place. I think it was smart, and educate yourself, find out what’s going on, keep everything at bay, give yourself some breathing room, but at the end of the day, it’s the five and 10-year mark that we need to be looking at, and we can so easily get caught up in inflamed rhetoric that we lose sight of the five and 10-year mark, and then next thing we know, they put it where they want it, and and that personally is not OK with me, and I don’t think that’s beneficial.
What are the biggest issues you you think the county commission needs to address?
I think we need to get them go to work. Economic growth, having a real economic development plan. I talk to a lot of people, and there’s one common thread, because everybody that are parents, they they want to give their kid better than they had, that and that’s our calling. I have three children that I love immensely, and I want nothing more than to give them better than I had, and everybody has the same common thread. Like my child has to leave in order to be able to reach their goals and their dreams. They can’t afford to commute from Trenton to Gainesville. I mean, gas at $3 and whatever a gallon is just not conducive, right? Economic development isn’t going to save the day right now, but if we broke ground tomorrow on a real industry, I’m talking about something that’s cohesive. I’m not talking about another fast food restaurant or gas station or any. I’m talking about a real industry just like Newberry, they just broke ground on a on an agricultural industry over there, you know where the I think the median salary is $60,000 a year. Think about what that would do for the young people of this community and agriculture. We pride ourselves on agriculture, so those type of industries and those conversations that, again, the future land use maps, you can with your zoning and different things, you can attract them here and also steer where they go where it’s all cohesive with our way of life instead of otherwise when these children have to leave to go. I have a cousin that has a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness and can’t find a job within an hour and 15-20 minutes of Gilchrist County and she’s not the only one. I mean, there are countless others that that experience the same thing. So, if we can keep them here, you know, everybody talks about our values, and the people are who make up those values. So, whenever our young people have to leave in order to build a sustainable life and and have success, we deport those values. So we’re ultimately diluting the very thing that we hold so dear. I think that that is a very important thing for the commission to begin to look at is what’s for the next generation? It’s not about us anymore.
What are other issues in the county you’re concerned about?
Lack of proactiveness in a lot of different areas, just like with this transfer station deal, it dragged on too long. I don’t agree that land to put a garbage facility on’s worth $25 or $22,000 an acre. I don’t. I don’t know how you negotiate those things with landowners.
I know how to negotiate, but you have to work transparently. And for us to already be in an extension period for the grant money that they’re going to use, that tells me that there was people were asleep at the wheel at some point. That’s not a dig on anybody. That’s just what it is. And now we’re in a position where you you have to fish or cut bait, because the grant is fixing to go away, and we need that. You know, I think that it’s. I don’t know all the details of it, but I find it hard to believe that now all of a sudden we figured out that our garbage intake is through the roof. You know, I mean, where have we been the last five or 10 years? I mean, was nobody paying attention, or what’s the deal? And there may be a a really good explanation for that. I just haven’t heard it. So, paying attention to the operation, not just you know going to two meetings a month. It’s about more than that, and and having to have those conversations.
What makes you the best candidate in this race?
If a person wants to see, you know, Gilchrist County, I was born and raised here, and you know, I don’t like to put myself above anybody, I really don’t. I think that I have a more proactive approach to sustaining a future for our county because if the property tax thing does pass, our future is in jeopardy. As far as our operational means, no, the state can’t come in and mandate. Hey, you have to do this or you have to do that. But when you don’t have the money to operate, people’s roads deteriorate. Their ability to have an ambulance show up in time, which is already, you know, I mean, they get there in time, but I mean, we’re it’s however long to Gainesville, you know, sheriff’s deputies. When everybody’s budgets start to get depleted because this money isn’t generated out of the atmosphere, people tend to to trend to relief. That’s just what people do, and I think that I bring forward the ability No. 1 to identify savings to hold people accountable. Anybody that’s drawing a check of Gilchrist County taxpayer money from commissioners or I can’t really say anything about a commissioner, but county administrator down. I’m going to hold them accountable. I’m going to talk to them multiple times a week to know that business on behalf of people of this county is being conducted in in an appropriate manner and moving it forward. Mitigating urban sprawl. Look at the Villages. I have a really close relationship with a person that sold a large tract of land to them in Sumter County. It was supposed to stay in Sumter County. Now it’s in Sumter, Marion, and Lake. That can happen here if we’re not careful and we’re not proactive with our future land use maps and all of that stuff. So I have an eye for the details, not just the big blinking lights. I pay attention to details because it’s the details that cost you in the end.
What can the citizens of Gilchrist County expect from you as a county commissioner?
Honesty, transparency, and hard work.
I own my own business, and I’ve already put things in place, if I’m elected, that three or four days a week, I’m going to be actively in county offices, having conversations with road superintendents, different people, just finding out what do we need to do to be better. How do we save Gilchrist County taxpayers’ money so that we can ensure to continue to operate? How can we make their atmosphere better? You know, people perform better whenever they’re in an atmosphere that they they feel like supports them. So having it here for not just the citizens, but the employees and so on and so forth, I’m going to go to work. You know, it’s not about $37,500 whatever it is and health insurance for me. I can afford my own health insurance. I want to make sure that our county, our community continues to hold the values and retain those values. All the while making it sustainable. That’s important to me, and I’ll get up every day to do that.
Is there anything we didn’t cover that you feel like everyone needs to know?
No, I think in a nutshell we covered it. I love Gilchrist County and the people in it, and I have their best interest at heart. Not here for the, like I said, the clickbait and the, you know, all the theatrics of it. I’m here for the people, and and I wanna, I wanna represent the people, and and I wanna do so in a, in a way that’s honorable and pleasing to my Lord and Savior, number one, because that’s how I conduct myself every day. Been blessed with the opportunity to teach ministry at the jail and watch that grow and to see the change that that’ll implement or has already implemented throughout this community is one of the most humbling things ever, and servant leadership should humble a person because it’s it’s not about us and and that’s how I live my life every day.