After representing residents in the Panhandle for nearly a decade, Republican Congressman Neal Dunn isn’t seeking reelection.

“The time has come to pass the torch to new conservative leaders,” Dunn wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “I am deeply grateful for your trust, support and prayers over these years.”

Dunn, who’s also a physician and Army veteran, wrote that he plans to return to his hometown of Panama City and spend time with family. In 2016, Dunn was first elected to represent Congressional District 2, which has always favored Republicans even after the map lines changed to include all of blue Leon County almost four years ago.

Since Dunn’s announcement, two GOP candidates have said that they’re running for the district: Keith Gross, a former prosecutor who now owns a private law firm in Panama City, and Florida Republican Party Chairman Evan Power, who’s making his first run for federal office. Gross ran and lost in the GOP primary for Congressional District 1 after former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz stepped down in 2024.

Dunn has been a Trump loyalist since the president’s first term, siding with the president 100% of the time on votes he took in Congress last year. Power and Gross have both vowed to carry on that legacy of devotion to Trump’s agenda if elected.

In a campaign announcement, Power touted his work for the party, helping to deliver major wins for Republicans during the last election cycle. “I stood with President Trump then,” Power wrote, “and I’ll stand with him in Congress to stop the radical left, secure our border, strengthen our military, grow our economy, and always put America First.”

Gross describes himself as a “dedicated advocate for America First policies” on his campaign website.

Three Democratic candidates are vying for the seat: former child-welfare and ethics attorney Yen Bailey, entrepreneur and product manager Nicholas Zateslo and Amanda Marie Green, who spent nearly a decade working for a Washington D.C.-based private consulting firm.

Primary Election Day is on Aug. 18. Election Day is on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Congressional District 2, in its current form, is the state’s largest U.S. House district by land, stretching across mostly rural communities in the eastern Panhandle, from the edge of Walton County to Madison and Taylor Counties and covering all of Panama City and Tallahassee.

The district’s current shape has only been in effect since the 2022 election cycle and could change ahead of the midterm elections after state lawmakers redraw the state’s congressional map in April.

Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis called for the legislature to reconvene April 20- 24 to draw new U.S. House districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Because 2026 is now a redistricting year in Florida, state Secretary of State Cord Byrd has ordered that congressional candidates may collect signatures from voters registered anywhere in the state, regardless of party affiliation.

Congressional candidates must collect 2,564 signatures to get their name on the 2026 ballot

The candidate qualifying period this year is scheduled to begin at noon on June 8 and close at noon on June 12.

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Hundreds of citizens working to remove Lynn Haven Mayor Jesse Nelson from office are facing a setback in their effort to get a recall election on the ballot.

In a letter addressed to interim City Manager Chris Lightfoot on Thursday, Bay County Supervisor of Elections Nina Ward explained that the recall committee failed to get the “requisite number of signatures” to move forward to the next round of petition-gathering.

Unless the decision is successfully challenged, the recall committee will have to draft a new petition and start the process over or give up on their effort.

The group claims Nelson should be removed from office for “incompetence,” one of several possible legal standards for removing a local elected official.

The petition states: “Mayor Nelson has actively opposed oversight and auditing measures that would safeguard the city treasury. Mayor Nelson has publicly opposed hiring or appointing an independent city clerk to audit city spending and contracts, and he has failed to enforce basic city financial reporting requirements set forth in the city’s charter.”

The complaints stem from $5 million that the city lost as a result of a “mismanaged vendor contract, which was attributed by the FBI to criminal activity by the city manager and failings by the city staff,” the petition states.

Nelson, who was first elected in 2021, wasn’t yet in office when the corruption involving federal Hurricane Michael recovery funds occurred.

In an interview with The Panhandle Press last week, Nelson said he felt “singled-out” because he’s only one of five votes on the City Commission.

“At least three votes have to happen in order for us to accomplish what we are objecting to do in the city of Lynn Haven,” Nelson said. “I'm not the only one that either voted for or voted against a particular issue.”

Throughout the month of July, the group collected hundreds of petitions from residents who oppose the mayor. On Monday, they submitted 1,615 signed petitions to the interim city manager who then forwarded those petitions to Ward’s office for verification. The minimum requirement needed to advance past the first round of petition-gathering is 1,535.

The recall committee advertised on social media that its push to collect signatures got underway on July 4.

In an interview with The Panhandle Press last week, recall committee chairman James Finch explained that they had until Aug. 3 to gather signatures.

Members of the recall committee notified local news outlets this week that they had gathered enough signatures to advance to the next round of petition-gathering, putting them one step closer to getting a recall election on the ballot.

But that announcement came before the petitions were officially verified by the supervisor of elections’ office.

Letter from Bay County Supervisor of Elections Nina Ward

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Supervisor Ward explains why she was unable to verify the requisite number of petition signatures to recall Lynn Haven Mayor Jesse Nelson.

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While reviewing the petitions, Ward found that the first petition with a verified signature and witness was dated in early June.

Under state law, petitions to recall a local elected official must be gathered within 30 days after the first signature is obtained.

Because the first verified petition was dated on June 7, the committee had until July 7 to gather enough signatures, Ward explained in the letter. Only 226 valid petition signatures were gathered within that time frame.

A spokesperson for the recall committee has declined to comment at this time.

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Lynn Haven City Manager Vickie Gainer is at risk of losing her job over allegations that she purposefully blocked a local company from doing business with the city.

“It’s time for it to be straightened out,” said James Finch, who owns the company that Gainer allegedly took steps to disqualify from competing for two construction projects, during a special City Commission meeting held earlier this week.

The meeting was called to discuss possible disciplinary action against Gainer after a deposition accusing her of saying she wanted to exclude Finch’s company Phoenix Construction from taking on a road project in 2021 and a paved trail project in 2022 was shared online.

“If anything in that deposition is true, she should be kicked out of the building,” Finch added before leaving the podium.

Instead, the City Commission voted (4-1) to put Gainer on paid administrative leave until an investigation is completed and final action is taken. A decision about her future with the city is expected to take place at another special meeting on Friday at noon central time.

Lynn Haven, which is home to about 21,000 residents, sits adjacent to Panama City and has undergone a major transformation since Hurricane Michael devastated the area nearly seven years ago. Gainer, who accepted the city manager position in November 2019, oversaw the reconstruction of city buildings and infrastructure and was in charge during an active FBI investigation into the city’s handling of federal recovery funds.

Today, her actions are at the center of a lawsuit against the city.

In 2023, Finch filed a complaint seeking more than $50,000 in damages over allegations that the city intentionally shut him out of the bidding process by changing the requirements that companies must meet to win a contract.

The city’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit is still pending.

At the time that Gainer allegedly excluded Finch, he had recently been arrested as part of a federal probe into local corruption involving hurricane recovery dollars.

Finch was ultimately found not guilty.

Despite his legal troubles at the time, he argues that the unfavorable treatment against him was in response to his criticism of Gainer and calls for her firing.

A city contractor claims Gainer wanted to ‘exclude’ Phoenix

The lawsuit has gone on for the last two years, but public outcry about the allegations against Gainer has recently erupted.

About a week ago, a deposition made by Chris Forehand, a design contractor for the city, was shared on a private Facebook group for residents. His testimony contained allegations that Gainer directed him to change the contract bid requirements on a roadway construction project in 2021 in an effort to prevent Phoenix from qualifying.

“She wanted us to add language to the bid documents that would exclude Phoenix from being able to be the prime [contractor],” said Forehand, who was tasked with drafting the documents as part of his work for the city.

Forehand, whose company has done business with several local governments in the area, said that the new requirements added by Gainer weren’t normal.

First, she directed him to increase the amount of work that a contractor must do with their own equipment and labor from 50% to 75%.

Local governments typically require contractors to complete at least half of the work using their own labor and equipment, and that was always the case for prior contracts with Lynn Haven, Forehand said.

Finch’s company was able to meet the 75% labor and equipment requirement and still offer the lowest bid.

But Phoenix wasn’t awarded the contract after Gainer allegedly intervened at a City Commission meeting and said that the offers were all over-budget and needed to be “re-bid.”

Starting the process over, Gainer allegedly directed Forehand to add a new requirement: Any company competing for the contract must complete all paving work with its own equipment and labor, instead of hiring a subcontractor.

Forehand testified that Gainer told him and at least two other city employees who were in the same room that this new requirement was meant to exclude Finch’s company.

And it worked. Finch was unable to compete for the project.

Instead, it was awarded to another company that bid an even higher amount than what Phoenix originally quoted.

Another project, known as “Rails to Trails,” was also unavailable to Phoenix because of the pavement equipment requirement, Forehand said. “It was implied to leave that requirement in the bid documents.”

City commissioners weigh Gainer’s removal over allegations

At the recent special meeting, City Commissioner Jamie Warrick (Seat 3) initially sought to fire Gainer immediately, but later withdrew his motion and proposed placing her on paid administrative leave until commissioners complete their investigation.

But the investigation’s outcome might not make much of a difference to him.

Even if they find no wrongdoing, Warrick said, he supports firing Gainer. “I don't think she's the best person for the position,” he said. “I’ve found things where policy and procedures were not followed.”

City Commissioner Judy Tinder (Seat 4) said she’s gotten an “overwhelming response” from her constituents in support of taking some kind of action against Gainer. “Like Commissioner Warrick said, it’s not just this incident.”

The city’s lead defense attorney Chad Dunn, who works for the Pennington Law Firm in Tallahassee, cautioned city commissioners that firing Gainer while the lawsuit is ongoing could jeopardize the case.

“My advice is to let the legal process play out a little bit more,” Dunn said. “It may impact the strategy of the case because it seems you believe those allegations.”

City attorney Amy Myers agreed that commissioners should wait until all testimony is gathered before making a decision. “There were several people in the room. This is not a straight ‘he said, she said,’” Myers explained. “There’s several other stories and testimonies yet to be given to paint a more complete picture.”

City Commissioner Sam Peebles (Seat 1) said he didn’t want to make a “premature decision” to fire Gainer based on allegations alone when there’s more evidence they haven’t reviewed.

“If we do gather information and it proves to tell the whole story and it’s a fireable offense, then sure,” Peebles said. “We’re not truly at that point yet.”

Mayor Jesse Nelson, who’s facing calls to step down in part due to his loyalty to Gainer, was the lone dissenting vote on whether to suspend her with pay until the issue is resolved.

Nelson said staff should try to find any written evidence that could verify the claims against Gainer.

“Right now, we're just looking at a deposition,” he said. “But I don't know if there's any documentation to support or deny what has actually been said.”

Before reconvening on Friday, commissioners are expected to have interviewed at least two city employees who Forehand said were in the room when Gainer allegedly directed him to exclude Phoenix. They include: Bobby Baker, the chief infrastructure director, and Chris Lightfoot, the city’s director of public works.

Gainer says allegations are ‘blatant lies’

Several residents spoke during the public comment period, and most of them called for disciplinary action to be taken against Gainer, while a few defended her record.

When it was Gainer’s turn to speak, she described the allegations contained in the deposition as “blatant lies.”

She also defended her accomplishments since taking office, including increasing revenues, lowering the city’s debt and overseeing a major transformation since Hurricane Michael made landfall in October 2018.

“The city has been rebuilt,” she said. “It was totally destroyed.”

If she keeps her job, she vows to continue showing up to work everyday for the residents, despite the negative backlash she’s received from the community.

“I am very distraught, and my family is distraught,” she said. “They’ve had to endure all of these things. I still love the city, and I will work hard for this city.”

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Florida’s environmental officials have shut down a Louisiana company’s plans to drill near the Apalachicola River, delivering a major win to residents and business owners along the state’s “Forgotten Coast.”

“This is a win for the river, the bay, and the floodplain that buffers the Apalachicola River,” explained Apalachicola Riverkeeper Cameron Baxley in a press release. “It’s also a win for the people whose livelihoods are connected to the water.”

On Monday evening, the state Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] issued a final order denying Clearwater Land & Minerals’ application for an exploratory drilling permit about a mile from the riverbank in Calhoun County.

DEP's Final Order Denying Drilling Permit

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The move comes after Administrative Law Judge Lawrence Stevenson found that the environmental risks outweighed Clearwater’s right to look for oil at that location and recommended against granting the company a drilling permit.

In the recommendation, Stevenson explained that the evidence against the likelihood of finding commercially-viable oil at the site was “persuasive.”

“A spill would have catastrophic consequences due to the proximity of the well to nearby streams, wetlands and ponds,” he wrote.

Clearwater can still appeal the DEP’s final order to the state’s First District Court of Appeal within 30 days.

Over the last year, residents in Gulf, Franklin and Wakulla Counties have expressed concerns about the harms that drilling could cause to the local economy and their livelihoods.

A bipartisan ban all oil and gas drilling within 10 miles of the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve has passed the legislature, but hasn’t yet been sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis. If enacted, the measure would stop future attempts to drill near the river and bay.

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Oyster farmers are inviting the governor to sign a proposed ban on oil and gas drilling near the Apalachicola River and Bay at a local seafood restaurant.

Earlier this week, the Florida Shellfish and Aquaculture Association sent a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis asking him to join local elected officials, oyster farmers, fishermen and other local business owners at a signing ceremony in Apalachicola after the bill reaches his desk.

“It would afford us the opportunity to formally recognize your dedication to the economic wellbeing of the Forgotten Coast and the preservation of our way of life,” wrote Adrianne Johnson, the association’s executive director, in a letter that was sent on Monday.

The measure — HB 1143 — would ban drilling for exploratory and extraction purposes within 10 miles of the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve, which covers 52 river miles and the entire bay.

The legislation doesn’t specifically name the Apalachicola reserve, but instead protects rural, cash-strapped counties located within 10 miles of any “national estuarine research reserve.”

Right now, every county within 10 miles of the Apalachicola reserve — Franklin, Gulf and Calhoun Counties — are “designated as rural areas of opportunity.”

That designation is for counties that have no more than 125,000 residents and have certain indicators of “economic distress,” such as high unemployment or underemployment, high levels of poverty, limited year-round job opportunities and low per-capita taxable values.

After the legislation is sent to the governor, he has seven days to take action on it if lawmakers are still in session. If it’s sent to his office before they adjourn, then he would have 15 days to sign or veto the measure.

DeSantis’ office hasn’t said which action he’ll take. But the bill’s primary sponsor state Rep. Jason Shoaf (R-Port St. Joe) told The Panhandle Press in a text message that he’s “confident” it has the governor’s support.

“I’m confident Governor DeSantis will continue to lead in protecting our environment and that he will sign this bill to protect Apalachicola Bay from the threat of future oil spills.”

DeSantis has backed increased funding to restore Apalachicola Bay’s oyster habitat and improve water quality.

Several local elected officials who support the legislation are listed in the invitation to the signing ceremony, including Franklin County Sheriff AJ Tony Smith, County Commissioner Ottice Amison, Apalachicola City Commissioner Anita Grove and Mayor of Port St. Joe Rex Buzzett.

Invitation to a Ceremonial Signing of HB 1143

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Others who plan to attend the proposed event include: Captain TJ Saunders, owner of LuckyFly Charters and Florida Guides Association Big Bend Regional Director; Jeff Wren, owner of Rattlesnake Cove Oyster Co. and Guy Harvey Foundation CEO Steve Roden.

The ceremony would likely take place at the Half Shell Dockside, located at 301 Market Street in Apalachicola.

Urging the governor to accept their invitation, the letter states: “Nothing would give us greater pleasure than to celebrate, with you, the protection of the years-long investment the state of Florida has made under your governorship in the future of the Apalachicola Bay, its cultural heritage, and the working men and women who depend upon it for their livelihoods.”

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Local officials along the “Forgotten Coast” are worried that the next state budget won’t include enough money to help reverse major declines in Apalachicola Bay’s oyster stock.

“This funding is crucial,” said Franklin County Commissioner Otis Amison, who’s spoken with state wildlife officials about the need for tens of millions of dollars over the next year to deposit rocks that oysters can latch onto as they grow.

“You’ve got to have material in there to grow these oysters,” Amison added. “Without that, then this is nothing but a sand bar out there, and oysters don't grow on sand.”

For generations, wild oyster harvesting was a key economic driver in Apalachicola and the surrounding communities, and local residents say the activity is part of their culture and heritage. But the bay has been off-limits to catching wild oysters for nearly five years, as state wildlife officials work to rebuild its habitat.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has asked state lawmakers to set aside $19.5 million in the upcoming fiscal year’s budget — which takes effect on July 1 — to expedite work on rebuilding oyster reefs across most of the bay. Additionally, the agency wants permission to spend $10 million in National Wildlife Federation funds on those efforts.

Altogether, wildlife officials estimate the cost of restoring and maintaining the bay’s oyster population is between $30 million - $55 million annually.

DeSantis and legislative leaders are at odds over bay funding

Gov. Ron DeSantis’s proposed budget would ensure $30 million in state and federal funds would go toward oyster restoration in Apalachicola Bay, but spending plans approved by the state House and Senate don’t include the entire amount.

“The governor has been a huge supporter of the Apalachicola Bay,” said Amison, who has expressed disappointment in legislative leaders for not matching DeSantis’s spending proposal.

“I just feel like we’re going to wind up being the collateral damage of some infighting that's going on, and it's a shame because we were really headed in a great direction.”

Instead, the Senate’s more than $117 billion spending plan would allocate $5 million for “oyster restoration and recovery,” but it doesn’t specify which estuaries would benefit from the funds.

The House’s proposal — which totals more than $112 billion — includes no funding for oyster restoration efforts.

It’s unclear when the legislature is going to pass a final budget to send to the governor, as legislative leaders haven’t yet reached an agreement on tax policy and spending amounts. The deadline to pass a budget before the session ends on Friday has already passed, and formal budget negotiations haven’t yet begun.

“Until all that gets handled, I don’t think we’ll know anything,” said Franklin County Commissioner Jessica Varnes Ward.

It’s likely lawmakers will reconvene in a special session sometime before the June 30 deadline to enact a budget before the July 1 fiscal year begins.

In the meantime, local elected officials in Franklin County are hoping to receive good news about funding for oyster restoration in the bay.

In April, county commissioners approved sending a letter to lawmakers, requesting that they add the nearly $20 million to their final budget before sending it to the governor.

Bay reopening is set to happen next year, as work on restoration continues

Meanwhile, local residents have been anxiously awaiting the state’s reopening of the bay to oyster harvesting, which is scheduled for Jan. 1, 2026.

“They felt the best thing to do would be to shut down the bay,” said Varnes Ward, referring to state officials. “That put a lot of people in our community out of jobs and put a strain on our economy.”

Though the bay is scheduled to reopen at the start of next year, oysters aren’t yet thriving like they were there more than a decade ago, explained Devin Resko, an FWC biologist, at a wildlife commission meeting in February.

In Florida, estuaries have lost 80-90% of their oyster fisheries, he said. The use of oyster shells for driveways and parking lots and unsustainable harvesting practices are two major factors contributing to the decline, he said.

Historically, ninety percent of the state’s wild caught oysters — and 10% nationwide — came out of the bay. But since 2013, its waters has seen a “dramatic loss of oysters,” he added. “This system will not recover without intervention through successful restoration.”

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An administrative law judge has sided with the Apalachicola Riverkeeper in a dispute over whether the state has legal grounds to allow exploratory oil drilling in the river’s floodplain.

On Monday, Judge Lawrence Stevenson recommended that the state Department of Environmental Protection deny an exploratory oil drilling permit request made by Clearwater Land and Minerals, LLC to look for oil about a mile from the riverbank.

Stevenson wrote that the recommendation came after “balancing environmental interests against the right to explore for oil.”

It will now head to the DEP, which has the final say over whether it issues a permit to Clearwater.

In the ruling, Stevenson explains the Riverkeeper’s arguments against the likelihood of finding commercially-viable oil at the site were more “persuasive” than Clearwater’s evidence.

Additionally, he explained, the site’s location surrounded by swamplands and within a mile of streams and two ponds connected to the river should be taken into consideration.

“A spill would have catastrophic consequences due to the proximity of the well to nearby streams, wetlands and ponds,” Stevenson wrote.

The Panhandle Press previously reported that environmental law experts cast doubt on the legality of issuing an exploratory drilling permit in that particular area.

“Apalachicola Riverkeeper and our supporters are encouraged by the order,” wrote Riverkeeper Cameron Baxley in a press release. “We’re hopeful that DEP will adopt the well-reasoned recommended order and make a final decision of permit denial.”

The judge’s decision comes following an outpouring of opposition from residents, small business owners and elected officials along the “Forgotten Coast,” which largely covers Franklin and Gulf Counties.

Facing pressures from constituents, state lawmakers representing the area — state Rep. Jason Shoaf (R-Port St. Joe) and state Sen. Corey Simon (R-Tallahassee) — are sponsoring legislation that would protect the area around most of the river and the entire bay from future drilling threats.

“I believe that we should not have any drilling near our critical waterways,” said Shoaf, who works in the oil and gas industry. “Everything that happens upstream impacts us at the coast.”

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Widespread opposition to the threat of exploratory oil drilling near the Apalachicola River has resulted in legislative victories for the “Kill the Drill” movement in both the Florida House and Senate.

On Wednesday, the state Senate passed (37-1) a proposed ban that would protect the area near the river that’s under threat of drilling, with a last-minute change added by state Sen. Corey Simon (R-Tallahassee).

The original House bill would’ve prohibited drilling within 10 miles of any of the state’s three National Estuarine Research Reserves, while the Senate’s amended version would limit that area to cover only state-designated rural and cash-strapped counties that fall within the 10-mile buffer zone.

In the Panhandle, the new areas off-limits to drilling would lie in Gulf, Franklin, Liberty and Calhoun Counties, Simon explained to his colleagues in the Senate.

The Apalachicola National Research Reserve covers 52 river miles and the entire bay, stretching into parts of Franklin, Liberty and Calhoun Counties. And a 10-mile buffer around the reserve would extend some of the protected area into Gulf County.

But counties surrounding the state’s two other research reserves, located in northeast and southwest Florida, wouldn’t be protected from drilling threats.

“This amendment would limit the area in which drilling is prohibited to reduce exposure to potential takings claims,” said Simon, who was referring to possible litigation over property rights that could result from the legislation.

With less than two weeks left in the regular lawmaking session, the amended bill is heading back to the House for a final vote.

If Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the measure, it would take effect on July 1.

The legislation would also require state environmental officials to consider additional potential harms to ecologically sensitive areas when deciding whether to issue a drilling permit.

“It will safeguard Florida's critical coastal ecosystems,” said state Rep. Jason Shoaf (R-Port St. Joe), who sponsored the House version of the bill. “It enhances oversight.”

‘Kill the Drill’ movement pressured state lawmakers to act

Last year, the state Department of Environmental Protection approved a draft permit to allow Clearwater Land and Minerals LLC to look for oil in a wooded area of Calhoun County that falls within the Apalachicola River’s floodplain.

The move got pushback from environmental advocates, small business owners, local elected officials and residents who live along the Big Bend coastline.

More than a thousand letters were sent to the governor’s office and state environmental officials, a protest was held outside DEP’s headquarters in Tallahassee and a legal challenge was filed — all in an effort to stop the exploratory drilling plan.

“It was an organic response by people here in this area who just were devastated by this possibility,” said Rep. Allison Tant (D-Tallahassee), who co-sponsored the original House version of the bill.

The grassroots movement behind the opposition is known as “Kill the Drill,” which got underway last summer at a fundraising event for Sen. Corey Simon hosted by Republicans in Franklin County.

For the last several months, yellow, orange and blue signs with the slogan “Kill the Drill” have been displayed in yards across the region, including in Tallahassee.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Simon explained that Franklin and Gulf Counties along the state’s “Forgotten Coast” have struggled fiscally due to the closing of the Apalachicola Bay to oyster harvesting and the tourism slump following the 2010 BP Oil Spill.

The last thing residents want to see is another threat to their local economy in the form of drilling near the waterway, he said.

“This will go a long way in making sure that the Apalachicola Bay can return back to its former self.”

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The Florida House has unanimously passed a measure that aims to protect the Apalachicola River and Bay from the threat of oil and gas drilling.

“We have thriving estuary businesses and thriving aquaculture businesses that need to be protected,” said state Rep. Allison Tant (D-Tallahassee) who’s co-sponsoring the measure. “This bill does that and more.”

Last April, the state Department of Environmental Protection signaled its intent to allow Clearwater Land and Minerals to conduct exploratory drilling within a mile of the riverbank in Calhoun County.

The move led to widespread pushback from residents, small business owners and local elected officials in the Big Bend region. “It was an organic response by people here in this area who just were devastated by this possibility.”

The bill — HB 1143 — would prohibit drilling within 10 miles of the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve, which covers 52 miles of the river and the entire bay. That would protect the area where Clearwater wants to look for oil, potentially frustrating its plans to drill.

After clearing the House without opposition on Tuesday, the bill is now heading to the state Senate for a vote.

If enacted, it would take effect on July 1.

“On the Forgotten Coast, we know about the dangers of oil spills,” said the bill’s sponsor state Rep. Jason Shoaf (R-Port St. Joe) referring to the 2010 BP Oil Spill. “The BP Oil Spill devastated our economy. We’re still carrying those scars.”

Though oil from the spill never reached the shores of Franklin and Gulf Counties, the threat of it polluting the water was enough to deter tourists from visiting the area, Shoaf explained. “And now we face another threat that is really starting to scare the entire community.”

The legislation would also ban drilling within 10 miles of the state’s two other National Estuarine Research Reserves, as well as requiring state environmental officials to consider potential risks to natural resources before approving drilling permits.

“It will safeguard Florida's critical coastal ecosystems,” Shoaf said. “It enhances oversight.”

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A proposed ban on oil and gas drilling near the Apalachicola River and Bay is heading to the Florida House floor after clearing two committees with unanimous support.

“This will safeguard Florida's critical coastal ecosystems,” said state Rep. Jason Shoaf (R-Port St. Joe), who’s sponsoring the measure. “It is so critical for the local economy and the local environment.”

The bill — HB 1143 — is set to get a vote by the full chamber after recently passing the House State Affairs Committee (23-0) and the House Natural Resources and Disasters Subcommittee (16-0).

The legislation offers a glimmer of hope to opponents of a plan to allow exploratory drilling about a mile from the riverbank. It would prohibit oil and gas drilling — for exploratory and extraction purposes — within 10 miles of any of the state’s three National Estuarine Research Reserves, including the Apalachicola Reserve.

“These ecosystems are so incredibly fragile that we must do everything we can to protect them,” Shoaf said.

Before filing the measure, he consulted with the Apalachicola Riverkeeper, a nonprofit organization that works to protect the river, and others who are advocating for clean waterways. “We had a groundswell of local support,” he said.

Last April, the state Department of Environmental Protection signaled its intent to issue an exploratory drilling permit to Clearwater Land and Minerals LLC for an area located in the river’s floodplain in Calhoun County.

The move drew hundreds of opposition letters to the department, a protest outside state environmental offices and a legal challenge brought by the Apalachicola Riverkeeper.

While an administrative law judge weighs the legality of issuing a final permit to Clearwater, opponents to the drilling plan are urging lawmakers to pass the proposed drilling ban.

“We’re really counting on him [Shoaf] to try and push this through,” said Apalachicola Riverkeeper Cameron Baxley. “This would be a big benefit to protecting the river and the bay.”

If the measure passes the House, it would still need to clear the Senate before heading to the governor.

Differences remain between House and Senate drilling bills

State Sen. Corey Simon (R-Tallahassee) has sponsored a companion bill — SB 1300 — which would require state environmental officials to take a closer look at the potential harms of a drilling accident before issuing a permit.

But Simon’s bill doesn’t include the proposed drilling ban.

“I’m looking forward to working out the details with him,” Shoaf wrote in a text message. “We have discussed it and are trying to iron out the differences.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment on whether he supports Shoaf’s legislation.

DeSantis also hasn’t taken a public stance on the department’s plans to issue an exploratory drilling permit to Clearwater.

Instead, he’s allowed the state to fight the Riverkeeper’s legal challenge and has refused to exercise his executive authority to intervene and block the permit.

“Why has he used taxpayer dollars to fight this lawsuit?” asked Shannon Robinson Barbuto, who lives in Franklin County and has been speaking out against the possible permit. “The ultimate authority is with the governor who could have stopped the Clearwater project.”

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Florida lawmakers could help remove the threat of drilling near the Apalachicola River, as a Louisiana company seeks permission to look for oil about a mile from the riverbank.

“I'm just not willing to risk the beauty of our region or the health of our economy for a chance at finding oil,” said state Rep. Jason Shoaf (R-Port St. Joe), who’s sponsoring the legislation, during a recent committee meeting. “These ecosystems are incredibly fragile.”

Shoaf’s bill — HB 1143 — would ban “drilling, exploration, or production of oil, gas, or other petroleum products” within 10 miles of any of the state’s three National Estuarine Research Reserves. That includes the Apalachicola reserve, which covers more than 234,000 acres, including the bay and 52 miles of the river.

“There won't be any more drilling within ten miles of any of these,” Shoaf said. “We’re wanting to shut it down.”

Legal experts say a literal reading of the bill could frustrate the state Department of Environmental Protection’s plans to allow Clearwater Land and Minerals LLC to conduct exploratory drilling in the river’s floodplain, and it would certainly stop the company from ever extracting oil at that location — if any exists.

Last week, the bill passed the House Natural Resources and Disasters Subcommittee — its first committee stop — with unanimous consent (16-0). The measure is now awaiting a vote in the House State Affairs Committee, with three weeks left in the legislative session.

If enacted, it would take effect on July 1.

So far, the only public opposition to Shoaf’s drilling ban has come from the oil and gas industry.

“We have issues with the ten-mile setback,” said Erik Hamilton, associate director of the American Petroleum Institute’s Gulf Coast region, during a recent committee meeting. “It seems kind of far to us.”

Shoaf’s bill could stop plans for exploratory drilling

About a year ago, state environmental officials issued a draft exploratory drilling permit to Clearwater, signaling its intent to allow the company to look for oil in the river’s floodplain near Dead Lakes.

The move has received pushback from residents across the state, but especially from locals whose livelihoods depend on the river and bay.

“Hundreds of businesses, thousands of voters,” Shoaf said, “oppose the drilling.”

Right now, a judge is weighing the legality of DEP’s plans to issue a final permit after the Apalachicola Riverkeeper filed a challenge in administrative court last summer.

“A spill in the wrong place at the wrong time would be absolutely catastrophic,” said David Guest, a Tallahassee-based environmental attorney who’s researched and written about the potential impacts of drilling in that area. “It's one of the most important estuaries in the world.”

If the judge sides with the state, the department would likely issue a final exploratory drilling permit to the company before the proposed legislation would take effect, Guest explained.

But if Shoaf’s legislation is enacted, it could prevent Clearwater from ever conducting exploratory drilling, based on a “literal reading” of the bill’s text, he added.

“It certainly has the capability of stopping it,” Guest said, “by making it unlawful to drill in that location before they drill — even if they have a permit.”

If that happened, then there would likely be litigation, he added.

Terrell Arline, another Tallahassee-based environmental attorney, said the legislation would definitely stop exploratory drilling from happening if it takes effect before DEP issues a final permit. But if the permit comes first, then it’s less clear whether it would stop Clearwater’s plans, he added.

But even if any is found, the company wouldn’t be able to get a second permit to actually extract the oil because the legislation would’ve already taken effect.

“If they wanted to pump oil, they'd have to get another permit to drill,” Arline said.

A similar measure in the Senate doesn’t include the proposed ban

Republican state Sen. Corey Simon — whose district includes communities that rely on the Apalachicola River and Bay — is sponsoring a similar measure that also received unanimous support in its first committee stop.

But Simon’s bill doesn’t include the proposed ban on drilling within 10 miles of any national estuarine research reserve.

“We're hoping that Simon would add that,” said Apalachicola Riverkeeper Cameron Baxley. “That would be very clear and definitive in helping us out with preventing oil and gas exploration on the Apalachicola River.”

Like Shoaf’s legislation, the bill that Simon filed would require state environmental officials to consider “potential impacts” that a blowout or spill would have on the “ecological community’s current condition, hydrologic connection, uniqueness, location, fish and wildlife use, time lag, and the potential costs of restoration.”

“We're definitely counting on him to try and push this through,” Baxley said, referring to Shoaf. “This would be a big benefit to protecting the river and the bay.”

DeSantis remains mum on possible drilling permit, proposed ban

In recent years, Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed for increased funding to help improve water quality and restore the wild oyster habitat in the Apalachicola Bay.

But DeSantis has remained silent when it comes to the possibility of drilling near the river, even though thousands of residents have sent emails to his office opposing the plan.

“Why are you giving that money if you're also, on the on the other hand, just letting somebody come in and drill in this fragile ecosystem,” said Franklin County resident Julie Boisseau, who has called and emailed the governor’s office, but hasn’t received a response. “It doesn't make any sense.”

DeSantis could stop DEP from issuing a final permit, but he has refused to step in and prevent it from happening.

The governor’s office hasn’t responded to requests for comment on whether he supports Shoaf’s proposed drilling ban or whether he opposes the plan to allow Clearwater to drill near the river.

“I want the governor to do more,” Boisseau said. “He needs to intervene.”

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Florida lawmakers in the Panhandle are working on legislation to protect the state’s critical waterways from oil and gas drilling after a proposed plan to drill near the Apalachicola River received widespread pushback from coastal residents.

“I believe that we should not have any drilling near our critical waterways,” said state Rep. Jason Shoaf (R-Port St. Joe). “Everything that happens upstream impacts us at the coast.”

Over the last year, thousands of residents have sent letters to the Department of Environmental Protection and the governor’s office, calling on them to halt a proposed plan to allow exploratory oil drilling near the river, which empties into the Apalachicola Bay.

“There's a large portion of the fisheries in the Gulf that spawn, hatch, start their life off in Apalachicola Bay,” Shoaf said. “Even though it's a very small chance for something to happen, any chance at all at wiping out that entire nursery is unacceptable.”

Right now, state law prohibits drilling of any kind within a mile of the state’s critical waterways, which includes the Apalachicola River and Bay.

Shoaf says the legislation he’s working on with state Rep. Allison Tant (D-Tallahassee) would increase that mandatory distance, but it’s unclear how far it would go.

“It’s not a mile,” Shoaf said. “But it's not three miles because then there is no drilling anywhere in the state.”

Shoaf, who works in the oil and gas industry, says he doesn’t support an outright ban on drilling in the state, but he wants to make sure that the state’s critical waterways are protected.

In April, the department signaled its intent to allow Clearwater Land and Minerals LLC to look for oil a little over a mile from the riverbank. A final permit hasn’t yet been issued, and an administrative law judge is weighing the legality of such a move.

It remains unclear if the legislation would prohibit DEP from issuing a final permit to Clearwater for the proposed drilling site, Shoaf said. “We really need to get an attorney to opine on this.”

Gil Damon, founder of the Downriver Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for clean waterways, described the proposed legislation as “a strong start.”

“Rep. Shoaf is showing what it means to stand up for our fishing and hunting tradition, for our seafood economy, and for our way of life on the Forgotten Coast,” Damon added in a text message. “That’s leadership.”

The Downriver Project has worked to mobilize residents and bring other environmental advocacy groups together to oppose the drilling proposal.

Through the organization’s website, residents can submit a form email to the governor’s office to speak out against the drilling plan. So far, more than 3,200 people have sent a letter. Those letters of opposition are in addition to more than a thousand emails that have been sent to DEP since early last year.

Tallahassee Republican state Sen. Corey Simon — whose district also includes counties along the Big Bend coastline — is finalizing draft legislation that would bring more transparency to DEP’s permitting process.

Simon says the goal is to make sure “that the folks in these communities are aware of what DEP is going through and how they're making these decisions on issuing permits in the future.”

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Gun safety. Distracted driving. Utility disconnections.

These were among the issues that Tallahassee-area residents spoke about on Friday during the Leon County Legislative Delegation meeting.

“Everybody that takes the time to come up here and sit in a meeting for two and a half hours – they all believe their issues are pivotal,” said state Sen. Corey Simon (R-Tallahassee). “It’s my job to listen and find ways we can advocate for them.”

More than a hundred residents attended the meeting, which was held inside the Knott building at the state Capitol. Dozens of them spoke on a range of issues that could come up during the regular legislative session, which begins on Tuesday, March 4.

In addition to Simon, the county’s legislative delegation members include: state Rep. Jason Shoaf (R-Port St. Joe), state Rep. Gallop Franklin (D-Tallahassee) and state Rep. Allison Tant (D-Tallahassee).

On the issue of gun safety, local members of Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action called on state lawmakers to oppose proposed legislation that would lower the age to purchase a gun from 21 to 18.

Chloe Wilcox, who’s in the 10th grade, spoke on behalf of Students Demand Action, a gun safety advocacy group.

“I’ve grown up in the school shooter generation,” Wilcox said. “We’ve grown accustomed to active shooter drills and lockdowns.”

After the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, state lawmakers worked together across the aisle to pass a series of gun safety measures, including raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21.

“We urge you to avoid attempts to go back on this progress and put us where we were seven years ago.”

Democrats have filed identical bills in the House and Senate that would prevent residents who are behind on their utility bills from losing power within 48 hours of extremely hot or cold weather.

Tallahassee resident Laura Pinto Alton, 19, spoke in favor of the proposal on behalf of ReThink Energy Florida, a nonprofit organization that advocates for affordable, clean energy.

“Tallahassee just had its hottest summer in recorded history last year,” she said. “It is predicted that these records will continue to be broken over and over again in years to come — extreme weather is a persistently growing threat to the lives of Floridians.”

It’s already a crime to text and drive in the state, but lawmakers will also consider whether to ban motorists from using handheld devices in any way while driving.

State Rep. Allison Tant (D-Tallahassee) plans to file a measure that would require hands-free driving. Other members of the local delegation expressed their support.

Demetrius Bronco’s son was killed by a distracted driver more than a decade ago. Now, he’s urging lawmakers to pass legislation “making it mandatory that people put their phone down while they're driving,” he said.

“Nobody can imagine what it's like to lose a child, and I don't want anybody to lose a child, and this will help,” he explained to lawmakers.

Another issue that came up during the hearing was the need for more funding for public schools.

A few local teachers spoke about the need to keep qualified educators in the state.

“It’s rooted not just in the salary stuff, but also the tone,” explained Scott Mazur, president of the Leon Classroom Teachers Association. “We know that we love them, we know that we value them. We have to figure out a way to work together.”

The state continues to rank at the bottom in the nation for teacher pay. According to the National Education Association, average teacher pay is $53,098, which ranks 50th lowest in the U.S.

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Uncertainty about the future is nothing new for the artists and shop owners who rent space at Tallahassee’s only arts and culture district, known colloquially as “Railroad Square.”

“For the last number of years, it has been under threat of being sold,” said Terry Galloway, co-founder and director of the Mickee Faust Club, a small community theater that was located in the Railroad Square Art District for more than three decades.

Galloway is working with existing tenants to find investors who are willing to help them purchase and revitalize some of the colorful mid-20th century warehouse buildings that make up the former industrial park-turned-art district.

“We've been doing a lot of work on this for a year, trying to come up with different plans that would involve the city, that would invite private funding,” she said. “All of this to revitalize it, not to keep it as it is.”

They formed a group of nonprofits called the Railroad Square Revitalization Cohort, which has advocated for a new-and-improved art district, one that preserves some of the historic warehouse buildings and gives local artists and entrepreneurs rental space they can afford.

“Artists are always moving out onto the fringes because that's where affordability lies,” she added. “We cannot become sleek. We don't want to be too brand-new.”

Last spring tornadoes tore through the district, leaving some of its galleries, shops and venues in shambles and putting more pressure on the district’s owners to sell the property, which has been difficult to insure.

Most of the district’s tenants have recovered since the storms, but a few were left without a home, including Mickee Faust, which lost its stage and theater seating when the

building’s metal roof was peeled off and rain poured down inside.

“We do want to renovate these buildings,” she said. “We want them to be safe. We want them to be beautiful. We want the plumbing to work.”

Galloway says they’re hoping that a small community theater will someday have a home inside the district.

One idea is for the 621 Gallery to “anchor the western corner of the square” and a performing arts theater for Mickee Faust and other local acting troupes to “anchor the western corner of the square,” she explained, “as the two major art entities.”

Railroad Square could incorporate housing into the district

Adam and Lily Kaye — siblings who inherited the property from their mother about two decades ago — have long been open about their desire to sell most of the land.

“It’s likely there will be some residential development on around half of the property,” said Lily Kaye.

The siblings ultimately want to sell about 6.8 acres of the roughly eight acres that they own — or about 85% of the land. They would keep the rest, including the district’s art park and the surrounding buildings, which they’ve already invested in renovating.

“The property we would be keeping will continue to be used in the same way it is now,” Kaye said, “to rent to local businesses.”

After the storms caused widespread damage to the district, they reminded the public of their intention to sell and gave the city another opportunity to buy the property for a public art district. But city leaders have repeatedly refused.

In recent months, they’ve been talking with a residential developer about purchasing the northern half of the district — but they haven’t yet reached the final stages of negotiations, Kaye said. Right now, the idea is for the project to include apartments for people of all ages and lifelong learning classrooms.

“The developer is researching the project’s feasibility,” she said. “When we have a sales contract in place, we will let everybody know.”

If they reach a deal, that would leave parts of the district still up for sale, which the cohort could purchase if they find investors.

“I hope that they’re able to get the funds,” Kaye said. “They would have to do it quickly. We’re not going to wait around for years — they are going to be for sale.”

The Kayes have wanted to sell parts of the property for the last several years — and the only new development that’s come out of their efforts so far is the Hyatt House hotel near the district’s Railroad Avenue entrance.

In recent years, renderings of affordable housing developments have been published in the press, but none have ever materialized.

“We have seen so many renderings over this process that they bleed together,” said Josh Johnson, president and CEO of 621 Gallery and a member of the cohort.

Johnson said the cohort itself has produced possible designs to give potential investors an idea of what might best serve the interests of tenants and visitors to the district.

“A rendering is just an idea for the time,” he said. “Our next moves must be more concrete by going out and soliciting and trying to keyhole some investors.”

City leaders agree to help with planning, but won’t buy land

In a 3-2 vote, city commissioners recently ruled out buying nearly seven acres of the property, and instead directed Community Redevelopment Agency staff to help the cohort draft a plan to preserve and revitalize it.

If the proposal involves public dollars, it would then go before city commissioners for a vote at a later date.

“We do value this,” said City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow, who was among the ‘yes’ votes. “We do want to keep it.”

Matlow, along with City Commissioners Jack Porter and Curtis Richardson, voted in favor of the proposal to help the cohort. Mayor John Dailey and Commissioner Diane Williams-Cox said they opposed it because they didn’t want to commit staff time to the issue and expressed disappointment in the Kayes for not attending some recent public meetings.

City CRA staff have given the cohort some help already. For instance, the city hired an assessor who determined that the art district is worth about $6.4 million — how it’s used now — but could be worth more than $10 million if the land is used for housing or hotels.

“The assessment showed us things we needed to know in order to put forth the best proposal we could put forth for a private-public ownership of an arts district,” said Terry Galloway, who’s helping to lead the cohort.

But even if they find funders, they’d still have to negotiate a deal with the Kayes to purchase some of the property, and it’s unclear how much money the owners would accept.

Still, that’s not deterring them from continuing to try and secure public and private investment from funders who’d want to preserve a “city landmark,” Galloway said.

“There is hope — if the community comes together.”

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Hundreds of local residents who oppose drilling near the Apalachicola River gathered outside state environmental offices yesterday to send the following message: “Kill the Drill.”

“If there is one clear, land-use principle, it’s that you don't put heavy industrial uses adjacent to the most pristine environment that we have — one of the most pristine environments we have left in the entire world,” said Susan Anderson, executive director of the Apalachicola Riverkeeper, a nonprofit organization that works to protect the river and bay.

Anderson was among about 350 people who crowded together in front of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection headquarters on Monday afternoon after a week-long court hearing over the proposal got underway on the other side of town.

“Write letters to the governor,” Anderson reminded the crowd, which included coastal residents, small business owners, environmental advocates and dozens of elementary and middle school students from a nearby private school. “Write letters to your representatives.”

In April, the department signaled its intent to allow Clearwater Land & Minerals FLA LLC to look for oil in a wooded area in Calhoun County, about a mile from the riverbank and in the river’s floodplain, by issuing a draft permit.

There are two ponds and two streams located within a one-mile radius of the proposed oil drilling site, and one of those ponds connects to the Apalachicola River, according to the company.

Local and state elected officials and residents along the “Forgotten Coast” — which stretches across Gulf, Franklin and Wakulla Counties — have voiced concerns about possible harms to local economies and the river, bay and other connected waterways.

A judge will weigh in on the legality of the drilling permit after a week-long court hearing ends

In a petition filed in June, the Riverkeeper asked an administrative law judge to recommend the department to deny Clearwater’s permit application on the basis that it would violate state laws.

“There’s a hundred percent evidence of no oil, and no clear evidence of finding oil,” Anderson said.

Attorneys for the Riverkeeper, Clearwater and the state are presenting evidence in front of Administrative Law Judge Lawrence Stevenson throughout the week at the Division of Administrative Hearings in Tallahassee.

Judge Stevenson will issue a recommendation to the department on the legality of the permit, but the department has the final say on whether or not to issue one.

Either side has the option to challenge the department’s decision in the Florida First District Court of Appeal.

Attorneys for Clearwater argue that they have demonstrated that there’s a likelihood of finding oil “on a commercially profitable basis” and that the plan complies with all state laws and administrative rules governing drilling.

The department’s attorneys have also said that the drilling permit application meets all requirements under the law.

David Guest, an environmental attorney who wrote arguments against allowing drilling in that area on behalf of the Riverkeeper in 2018, said he thinks the Riverkeeper filed a “well-thought-out” petition and he agrees that allowing the company to look for oil would violate permitting standards.

The legal standard that’s used to determine whether or not drilling is permissible in Florida is based on a balance of considerations outlined in state statute, which include the “proven or indicated likelihood” of finding oil on a “commercially profitable basis”; the nature of the lands involved; and whether there’s a risk of an adverse event to health and public safety, Guest explained.

Over the decades, 70 exploratory oil wells have been drilled in Calhoun County and five surrounding counties, but all of them have come up dry, state permitting data shows.

“Not a mouthful, not a teaspoonful [of oil] has been recovered — and it's been drilled like a pincushion,” Guest said. “If they were honestly applying the legal standard of the likelihood of commercially-recoverable oil, they wouldn't do it.”

Additionally, he said he thinks the drilling plan would violate other criteria within the law

“You're really in a pretty sensitive area that's really, pretty inappropriate for drilling,” Guest said. “It's surrounded by water at high water, the entire drilling pad is surrounded by that.”

In 2018, the department granted a permit to Cholla Petroleum, allowing them to look for oil where Clearwater wants to explore. The draft permit was never challenged in court before the final authorization was issued, but drilling never happened and the permit expired. The drilling pad and other infrastructure, however, remained at the site.

“Just because they issued a permit previously for another applicant that was never challenged doesn’t necessarily mean another applicant gets to come along and automatically get a permit,” explained Terrell Arline, a land use attorney with experience in environmental law.

The drilling proposal has received widespread opposition from local residents

The press conference, which was organized by a coalition of 67 small businesses and environmental groups — including the Riverkeeper and the Downriver Project, a nonprofit coalition that advocates for protecting waters in the region — is the second gathering this year where the “Kill the Drill” mantra was prominent.

In June, state Sen. Corey Simon (R-Tallahassee) voiced his opposition to the drilling proposal at a fundraising event in Apalachicola hosted by the Franklin County Republican Executive Committee.

If oil is discovered, drilling opponents say they fear the risk of a leak or spill that would devastate the river and bay, and the local economies that rely on its health, for years to come. Even if there’s no blowout, they say the perception of oil drilling near the water could hurt tourism and small businesses.

Crawfordville resident David Damon, who owns a hurricane shutter business, recalled the hit to the tourism industry that the area took after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“You don't even have to have tarballs watching up on the beach, just a threat that that oil is there,” said Damon, while speaking during the press conference. “And people cancel, people go home, they don't want to come to a place like that.”

Hundreds of Gulf County residents, the board of county commissioners and the leaders of every town in the county have sent letters to the department voicing opposition to the drilling permit, said Deb Mays, who spoke on behalf of the Gulf County Citizens Coalition.

“I'm here today to plead with the powers that be, whoever they may be, that makes this decision to recognize not only one county, but two counties, have a stake in this and to please stop this drilling, not just this time but forever,” Mays said.

Local elected officials in Franklin County have also sent letters to the state in opposition to the drilling plan.

Republican state Rep. Jason Shoaf has also expressed his concern about harms that nearby drilling could bring to the river and bay.

Despite the widespread opposition to the plan, the governor’s office hasn’t responded to a request for comment on the issue.

Susan Anderson, with the Riverkeeper, says that she hopes the governor will use his political power to pressure DEP to deny the permit. “The governor is the governor of the people of the state of Florida,” she said. “Clearwater is a Louisiana Company that’s coming in.”

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Newly released videos from the Wakulla County Sheriff’s Office shed more light on an investigation into an alleged scheme to unmask an anonymous local government critic online.

The Panhandle Press has obtained videos of detectives questioning former County Commissioner Mike Kemp, local resident Becky Whaley and sheriff’s Dep. Donald Newsome.

In early May, Whaley posted the name, address, birth date and voter registration number of a random local resident — whose name has been redacted from court records under Marsy’s Law — because she believed he was behind the anonymous account “Thunder Lightening” [sic].

But she identified the wrong person.

In early May, Whaley posted a screenshot of the victim’s voter information on a Facebook group called Wakulla Citizens, while she was volunteering as one of the page’s administrators.

Detectives say County Commissioner Ralph Thomas downloaded the victim’s voter information card from a website called webElect and gave it to Kemp, who then shared it with Whaley.

Kemp and Whaley are each facing a third-degree felony charge of publishing personal information online in an effort to harass someone.

Kemp, who stepped down last month after losing his reelection bid in August, is also facing a more serious, second-degree felony charge of witness tampering.

Both defendants are expected to appear in front of Judge J. Layne Smith for arraignment on Jan. 9 after the judge postponed their plea hearings for a second time.

Newsome, who allegedly helped Kemp track down the name of the person they believed was Thunder Lightening, is facing a third-degree felony charge of unauthorized access to a computer system or electronic device. He has pleaded not guilty, and a review hearing has been postponed for Feb. 6.

Thomas was never interviewed by police and isn’t facing criminal charges.

Whaley told police that she never ‘harassed’ anyone with doxxing post

Whaley was interviewed by detectives twice with her attorney David Kemp, who’s not related to Commissioner Mike Kemp, at the sheriff’s office.

During Whaley’s first interview, she expressed surprise that she was under investigation. “Are you telling me this is a felony or a misdemeanor?” she asked. “I’m a little shocked I’m here.”

Whaley, who volunteers for multiple local charities, has no prior criminal record. “I’ve never even had a speeding ticket,” she told police.

Detective Chris Ormerod told Whaley that the victim and his wife were “adamant” about pursuing charges if the state attorney’s office found that she had broken the law by posting their address and other personal information online.

“I wish he would have accepted my apology,” said Whaley, who was referring to the victim. “I never had any intention of hurting anybody.”

Whaley told police that she spoke with the victim over the phone after the post was deleted. “He said, ‘Well if you got that information, why didn’t you just pick up the phone and call me to verify it’s me?’” Whaley said. “He didn’t give me any slack, none whatsoever.”

“I just said ‘Yessir, yessir. I’m sorry, sir,’” she added. “That’s all I could say.”

She also denied that she had harassed the victim by posting their information online. “I haven't harassed that man,” she said. “There's nothing harassing in that post.”

Whaley told police that she set out to “unmask” Thunder Lightening, who’s been identified as 70-year-old Crawfordville resident Lonnie Walton, after he called her “pro-commissioner,” “pro-growth” and “pro-law enforcement.”

“He attacked me in a way that I thought was personal,” she said.

When asked who gave her the information that she posted online, she at first refused to answer, then wrote the name “Mike Kemp” on a piece of paper.

Walton had used his account Thunder Lightening to criticize actions taken by county commissioners, including Kemp and County Commissioner Ralph Thomas.

Detectives obtained text messages between Kemp and Whaley in which he sent her the voter information card after she said she planned to “bust him out.”

During Whaley’s second interview, she again denied that she and Kemp wanted to harass or antagonize the owner of the Thunder Lightening account and said that she only wanted people to know who he was.

“Come out from behind the keyboard,” she said. “That was the only reason.”

Police say Kemp lied about his role in the doxxing incident

Kemp was questioned once by detectives and had his attorney Stephen Webster present during the interview.

Like Whaley, Kemp expressed surprise that he was under criminal investigation, and advised officers that there was no state law against doxxing.

When officers explained that he was under investigation for a different charge involving using personal information to harass someone, he defended himself.

“It was never done for ill intent,” Kemp said. “Posting one time is not harassment.”

Police say text messages between Whaley and Kemp indicate that he was aware that she was going to post the voter information to Facebook, but he denied this during the interview.

“Be honest with you, no, I did not think she would post that,” Kemp continued. “No, I did not, no, not in a million years. That actually really shocked me.”

Police say they believe Kemp was lying about not knowing that Whaley planned to post the information.

When asked who gave him the voter information, Kemp refused to name Commissioner Ralph Thomas.

“I prefer not to get anybody else involved in it.”

Kemp asked his former subordinate to help him track down the victim’s name

Police say Kemp got the victim’s name from Dep. Donald Newsome, who looked up an incident report that the victim had previously made about a white pickup truck.

Kemp asked Newsome for the name of the person who’d made the report after he saw that Thunder Lightening had complained about the same truck on Facebook and said he’d filed a report with the sheriff’s office.

But Newsome pulled the wrong incident report, which led Kemp to misidentify Thunder Lightening as the victim.

During Newsome’s interview with police, he denied recognizing the name “Thunder Lightening” and said he believed Kemp was asking him for the name of the person who filed a report about a white pickup truck because he wanted to help a resident.

“I don't know any political problems that Mike Kemp’s having with his people or anything like this,” Newsome told police. “I thought I was doing a favor — a low-end favor — something that wouldn't be against policy.”

Before Kemp served on the county commission, he worked in the sheriff’s office, where he climbed the ranks to captain. Newsome told police that he’d worked under Kemp and that he’s known him for about 25 years.

“He was my sergeant here, he was my lieutenant here, he was my captain here,” Newsome explained to detectives. “We've been friends for a long time.”

Body cam footage shows Kemp drove past the victim’s house when they made the complaint

Detectives questioned Newsome about calls that took place between him and Kemp the morning that officers responded to the doxxing victim’s home to take statements.

At approximately 8:34 a.m., the two spoke on the phone for just over five minutes, after Newsome had logged into the Computer Assisted Dispatch or CAD system which could’ve shown him that an officer was at the victim’s house, detectives explained.

Newsome told officers that he was checking on an incident at Kemp’s request and added that he doesn’t remember informing Kemp about the active call to the victim’s house at that time.

About ten minutes later — at 8:45 a.m. — Kemp is captured on body cam footage driving by the victim’s house while an officer is standing outside.

“Does it not seem strange to you that on an off-day, Commissioner Kemp would call you and ask you to do things for him?” asked Detective Ormerod, during the interview.

“I see him respond to a lot of stuff on Facebook where he tells people ‘Hey, call me, I’ll look into that for you,’” Newsome explained. “I thought that’s what he was doing.”

During the latter part of the interview, Newsome told officers he didn’t understand why he was under investigation.

“You have put the shadow of conspiracy across this entire sheriff’s office,” Ormerod informed Newsome. “There have been other employees have been subject to interrogation, who otherwise shouldn’t have been, because of this.”

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Lonnie Walton has often spoken out on Facebook against the Wakulla County Commission’s handling of many issues, from growth and development to roads and sewers.  

“If nobody speaks up, nothing gets fixed,” the 70-year-old retiree said.

For years Walton made his complaints anonymously under a Facebook account he called “Thunder Lightening [sic],” and drew the attention of Wakulla commissioners Mike Kemp and Ralph Thomas, who were among those he singled out for criticism.

“It’s an election year,” said Walton, speaking publicly for the first time. “I’m going against the grain because I don’t like what’s going on over here. As far as I’m concerned, they’re ruining our county.” 

He became accustomed to counter-attacks online, but on the afternoon of May 6, the backlash went to another level when a local Republican activist named Becky Whaley tried to unmask Walton. The 65-year-old Whaley tagged Thunder Lightening in a post containing a screenshot with a name, home address, birth date, voter registration number and party affiliation of a person she claimed was behind the anonymous Facebook account. 

“Introducing Thunder Lightening,” Whaley wrote at the top of the post. “Registered to vote in 2022 according to the records and data shows he’s never voted! Show your face and own your truth.” 

But Whaley got it wrong. The person she outed was not Walton, but a random citizen. Walton removed the personal data from his own site and set out to find the individual who’d been wrongly singled out. 

In Florida it’s a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, to post someone’s personal information online in order to harass someone, a practice commonly known as “doxxing.” After a criminal complaint was made by the doxxing victim, the Wakulla County Sheriff’s Office opened a criminal investigation that revealed Whaley didn’t act alone – she had help from none other than county commissioners Kemp and Thomas. 

The series of events that culminated in the errant doxxing began after Walton posted on Thunder Lightening a photo of a white truck he complained almost hit his wife in a grocery store parking lot. Hoping to discover the person behind the Facebook page, Kemp enlisted Wakulla sheriff’s Dep. Donald Newsome to find out if anyone had filed any complaints with the sheriff’s office involving the white truck. 

According to sheriff’s reports, Newsome improperly used his agency’s “Computer Aided Dispatch” (CAD) system to learn that a man had recently filed a complaint involving a white truck. That complaint, however, was not made by Walton, but by the doxxing victim, whose identify has been withheld. 

Armed with the name, Commissioner Thomas then used a political software program called WebElect to access his voter information profile. He shared that information with Kemp, who sent it to Whaley, who posted it to Facebook. 

“I suspected it was going on like that,” Walton said of the apparent conspiracy. “I always thought it was a good old boys network – I just didn’t know how extensive it was.” 

The sheriff’s office charged both Whaley and Kemp with using personal identifying information to harass someone. Kemp also faces a more serious second-degree felony charge of witness tampering. The deputy, Newsome, was charged with a third-degree felony of unauthorized access of a computer or electronic device.  

Whaley and Kemp are set to appear in front of Judge J. Layne Smith at the Wakulla County Courthouse at 9 a.m. on Dec. 5 for arraignment, while Newsome is scheduled for a review hearing. Newsome has pleaded not guilty, while the other two defendants haven’t yet entered a plea.

Thomas, however, was neither charged nor even interviewed by deputies, a fact Walton finds curious.

“For the life of me,” Walton said, “I can’t understand why he was never questioned.” 

Questions raised about investigation

The investigation found that Thomas accessed the victim’s voter information from WebElect twice – once in late April, and again on the day of the May 6 doxxing, about 20 minutes before Whaley posted the information online. 

When detectives asked Kemp who gave him the voter information profile from WebElect, he refused to talk about his elected colleague Thomas. “I’m not going to answer that,” Kemp said in the recorded interview. “The person don’t [sic] need to be involved.” 

Deputies didn’t press Kemp for more information about his discussions with Thomas and reported they found “no indication” Thomas knew Whaley intended to post the voter information profile on Facebook when he gave it to Kemp. 

Unlike the three criminal defendants, Thomas’s phone records were never subpoenaed or requested and he was never questioned in the investigation. Thomas, who was first elected to the commission in 2012, hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment from the Florida Trident.  

“He runs [the commission],” Walton said of Thomas. “He’s been there longer than anyone.” 

The lead investigator in the case, sheriff’s Dep. Chris Ormerod, didn’t respond to emailed questions from the Trident about his handling of Thomas. State Attorney Jack Campbell, of the Second Judicial Circuit, refused to comment on the facts of the ongoing criminal case as well. 

Campbell’s office intentionally waited until after the August primary – which Thomas won and the outgoing Kemp lost – to bring charges. Campbell explained that choice was made because the arrests would have come too close to the vote.

“If I charge somebody within sixty days [of an election], they’re not going to have adequate time for due process,” Campbell explained. “I’m going to be tipping the scales of the election on something, and they’re not going to really have sufficient time to respond.” 

Kemp’s last day as a commissioner will come on Nov. 19, when his opponent Valerie Russel is set to be sworn into office. 

Investigators say defendants attempted to “cover up” alleged crime 

When Walton contacted the doxxing victim’s wife on Facebook, she told him they’d moved to Wakulla County from out of state a couple of years ago and were clueless about local politics. And because she’s a former correctional officer, her address and her husband’s personal information are exempt from the state’s open records laws. 

“Where he [Kemp] screwed up was going after a correctional officer,” Walton said. “Their stuff is protected.” 

According to the arrest reports, the victim’s wife messaged Whaley at about 10 p.m. on the day of the doxxing and told her to remove the post. Whaley didn’t take it down until the next morning, May 7, at 6:20 a.m. Eighteen minutes after that, the doxxing victim called the sheriff’s office to make a criminal complaint.  

The investigation found that Kemp, Thomas, and Whaley were in phone contact that same morning. Kemp also called the off-duty Newsome, who used a law enforcement database to learn about the doxxing victim’s criminal complaint and, according to deputies, tipped Kemp off that a sheriff’s deputy was responding to the victim’s house. Shortly after that call, body camera footage shows Kemp driving by the victim’s house while a deputy was on the scene. 

In an interview with his own agency, Newsome denied any intentional wrongdoing. 

“We’ve been friends for a long time, but I have no knowledge of any criminal conspiracy [Thomas] is involved in whatsoever,” Newsome said. “I thought I was doing a favor, a low-end favor, something that wouldn’t be against policy.”

When detectives asked Newsome if he alerted Kemp to the fact that the victim had filed a report about the doxxing, the deputy said he didn’t remember checking the CAD system regarding the victim in the case. Despite claims of innocence, investigators determined Newsome was the only person who could’ve notified Kemp that there was an officer on the scene at the victim’s home. 

After he drove by the victim’s house, Kemp reached out to the victim’s wife on Facebook and falsely claimed there was another person with her husband’s same name he was targeting in the posts, according to sheriff’s reports. Kemp also offered to take the couple to dinner and advised them to contact him if they ever needed anything. 

Deputies said in their report that Kemp’s “attempted manipulation” only made the doxxed man “extremely angry.” 

“They don’t want anyone to talk against them” 

In her interview with sheriff’s investigators, Whaley explained why she tried to expose the person behind Thunder Lightening.

“He wants every commissioner unelected,” she said. “He wants the sheriff unelected – and it’s just constant. And it’s like, just go vote – shut up and go vote.” 

Whaley said she “set out” to uncover his identity specifically after he accused her of being “pro-growth” and “pro-commissioner.” 

“He had been booted from my group,” she told deputies. “And he has been giving me a lot of trouble.” 

Walton said there’s “nothing out of line” in what he posts. “They don’t want discontent,” he said. “They don’t want anyone to talk against them.” 

Kemp also complained to deputies about Thunder Lightening’s posts and contentious exchanges he’d had with Thomas. “He has been on Facebook, bashing us and putting out misinformation and lies nonstop,” said the commissioner. 

In text messages, Whaley told Kemp to send her the victim’s name because she was about to “bust him out.” Yet Kemp told investigators he didn’t know Whaley was planning to dox Thunder Lightening. 

“I did not think she would post that,” Kemp told police. “No, I did not, no, not in a million years – that actually really shocked me.”

While citizens doxxing public officials is nothing new, government officials unmasking anonymous citizens for expressing dissent is less common and far more worrisome, said Aaron Terr, public advocacy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonprofit free speech advocacy organization. 

“If government officials are retaliating against citizens who criticize them by releasing their personal information or identities, that’s extremely concerning from a free speech perspective,” Terr said. “It could reasonably discourage people from criticizing government officials and attempting to hold them accountable.” 

The right to anonymous speech, said Terr, is essential in any democracy. 

“Anonymous speech is tightly connected with freedom of speech in this country, going back to the founding,” Terr explained. “A lot of people online speak anonymously or pseudonymously, so that they can speak freely without having to worry about retaliation or harassment from the government, from their employer or from other people.” 

Walton, who created the anonymous account to avoid getting suspended by Facebook for his posts about national politics, said he sees no problem with people posting anonymously, even if he doesn’t agree with them.

“If it’s your opinion, an honest opinion, then you ought to be able to make it any way you can,” he said. “I am a concerned citizen, trying to make a point while protecting myself from a good old boys group that believes in doxxing those who don’t agree with them.”

This report was done in partnership with the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a non-profit organization that publishes the Florida Trident and does investigative journalism across the state.

Scenes from the Florida Panhandle will hit the big screen this weekend at the Tallahassee Film Festival.

“We have a lot of local interest, and a lot of local filmmakers that share their work at our festival,” said Chris Faupel, the festival’s creative director. “It's important that we are able to do that for this region.”

More than 50 independent film screenings will take place during the two-day festival, which runs Saturday through Sunday. The festival will give people the opportunity to see films that they otherwise wouldn’t see anywhere else. “If it’s streaming, we generally aren’t going to show it,” said Steve Dollar, the festival’s artistic director. “The idea is to give people films they haven’t seen.”

Most of the festival takes place downtown at the IMAX and Vivid Sky Theaters inside the Challenger Learning Center, located at 200 S. Duval St. Screenings will also take place inside Cap City Video Lounge, located at 675 Industrial Dr. in Railroad Square.

Tickets cost $10 per showing and can be purchased at the theater where the film is screening or at the box office in the Challenger Learning Center. Festival-goers can also buy a $50 festival pass for access to any showing.

Some films will make their first public appearance, while others have been shown at other festivals within the last year. The only exception is a special release of the 1984 modern classic film “Paris, Texas,” which the festival will show in 4k digital cinema, Dollar said.

Several films have local ties, including a true-crime and historical documentary about racism in a town near Pensacola, several short films about the Tallahassee area, a documentary about an alternative spiritual group in California by a local director and nature documentaries set in the Big Bend region.

“We’ve got beautifully-photographed nature films that reflect very much on the place we live here,” Dollar said. “To be able to get some things here that we've gotten,” he added, “has been pretty impressive.”

“Welcome to Jay” aims to inspire dialogue about racism

“Welcome to Jay” is a true crime and historical documentary set in the small town of Jay in Santa Rosa County.

“It's a story about the area and the history of the area, past and present, that I think they'll find emotionally resonant and interesting.”

The film, which premieres at the festival, tells the story of the murder of Gus Benjamin, a Black teenager, by Robert Floyd, a young white man. Morgan, who spent 13 years working on the documentary, filmed Floyd’s trial in 2011 and interviewed family members of both men, the town’s mayor at the time of the shooting and other key figures. “There's twists and turns,” he said. “If you read about the case in the media, and you think you know what happened, you're going to be surprised.”

The documentary takes viewers back in time to 1922 when a Black farmer shot a white farmer in self-defense, leading to the entire Black community — nearly 200 residents — being forced to leave town. Today, U.S. Census data shows only four of the town’s nearly 500 residents are Black.

“The film is is a courtroom drama, to a certain degree, like the courtroom is kind of what you follow as one of the threads,” Morgan said. “And it also goes back in time, and it tells the story of the Black and white farmer, which we did probably thousands of hours of research to dig up that story.”

Until the 1970s, there were signs posted in the town threatening Black people that they’d be harmed if they were in town after dark. For this reason, Jay has long had the reputation of being a “sundown town.”

“The Black community still perceives it as a sundown town,” Morgan said. “A lot of people still wouldn’t come after dark. The film explores whether the town lives up to its reputation.”

Morgan discovered Jay while working on his first documentary film “Lily and Leander” in neighboring Escambia County. “We kept hearing about this town called Jay,” Morgan said. “There was a tangible fear in the Black community.”

Morgan says he later learned about Benjamin’s death in the news, giving him an idea for a film and an opportunity to use the interviews he’d gathered about the town. “Those tapes kind of sat gathering dust, but it was like it stuck in my mind, because it was these very sad stories that were going to be lost.”

Morgan, who lives near New York City, traveled to the region to film the documentary on his work vacations.

Recently, the documentary received the Levine Fellowship, which is from the Better Angels Society, an organization affiliated with famous documentarian Ken Burns.

Morgan says he finished making the film earlier this year, and chose the Tallahassee Film Festival for the film’s first screening partly because it’s the closest festival to the town where the documentary is set.

The film should appeal to audiences beyond North Florida, Morgan said. “The town of Jay is not unique,” he said. “There were towns like Jay that have these kind of reputations all over the country, in every region.”

The film screening will take place at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday at the Vivid Sky Theater.

Big Bend wildlife documentaries will hit the big screen

The festival will give viewers a chance to view wildlife footage on the big screen, with “Florida Gone Wild” a series of nature documentaries, including two that were shot in the Big Bend region.

In “River Obscura,” viewers will get a rare encounter with the critters that live below the Sopchoppy River. “It’s got a lot of underwater footage of fish, turtles, otters, alligators,” said local filmmaker and musician Sammy Tedder, who made the documentary. “I really want people to understand better what this river here is about.”

The Sopchoppy River is a blackwater river, making it difficult to see beneath the surface. “You can’t see what’s underwater half the time,” Tedder added he’d often wondered what lives below the surface. “I started filming,” he said, “and just seeing what would come through.”

“From above, it's black,” he said. “From underwater, you look up, it's red.”

Tedder also composed and produced musical scores that accompany the film’s wildlife footage. The documentary also includes some narration.

“I just hope people will feel like they want to take care of it.”

The documentary runs about 55 minutes and will begin screening on Saturday at 6:51 p.m. at the IMAX Theater.

“Tigers of the Sky” takes viewers to the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to the great horned owl.

“Great horned owls are known as tigers of the sky because they're fierce predators,” said Ian Weir, a documentary film professor at Florida State University and the film’s director.

Weir says he followed a particular owl for about a year and a half and filmed its life after getting some rare shots of a baby owl in its nest.

“Last year around March, there was a baby in the nest,” Weir said. “That was the first footage that I shot, and then the mother was kind of close by, and the father, and then I went two weeks later, and I got some shots, and then I went about two months later, and there's a sequence in my in my film that is just it's pretty mind boggling.”

The documentary short runs just over 18 minutes and includes narration. It will screen on Saturday at 6:33 p.m. at the IMAX Theater.

“Welcome Space Brothers” is filmed by a local documentarian

Documentary filmmaker Jodi Wille, who recently moved to Tallahassee from California, is showing her documentary film “Welcome Space Brothers.”

“It's a documentary, but it feels like, almost like a far-out science fiction film,” Wille said.

The documentary is about the Unarius Academy of Science, “an extraterrestrial channeling spiritual community who became a wildly prolific creative collective of filmmakers in the late 70s into the mid 80s.” Wille said.

The group “made their own elaborately conceived videos and four feature films that were process-oriented films made in order to heal themselves and transform themselves.”

Wille says she discovered one of the group’s shows on public access television and “was completely blown away by the costumes and the pageantry.”

“They just looked like kooks to me at that time, but there was something that felt really positive about it too, and uplifting. I couldn't explain it, but I was drawn to it.”

Wille’s documentary shows footage from the group’s massive film archives. The film’s executive producer is Elijah Wood.

The Tallahassee Film Festival isn’t the only place where the film is showing, but it’s not yet streaming anywhere. “It's been making its way through a number of film festivals.” That includes the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia.

The film screening will take place Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at the IMAX Theater.

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About two weeks after Sandra Maddox qualified to run for county commission in Santa Rosa County, a campaign sign for the frontrunner in her own race — incumbent Republican James Calkins — oddly popped up in her own yard. 

“The sign was right in front of her mailbox,” said Diane Warner, a retiree in the area who spends her free time investigating elections. “I drove out there, and I just stopped by and took pictures.” 

The connection between Maddox and her on-paper political opponent goes deeper than just yard signs. The Florida Trident learned that Maddox’s son, Roger Belanger, did work for Calkins’ campaign, ostensibly in league against his own mother, who is 80 years old and has been almost entirely absent from the race.

Belanger received $5,000 from Calkins for “advertising,” campaign finance records show. In 2022, Calkins described Belanger as a “good friend” in a social media post. 

“It’s incredulous,” said Warner, a Republican voter. “They walk right up to the line of slimy, and it gets old.”

Maddox’s candidacy may seem absurd on its face, but her entrance as a write-in for District 3 had a profound impact. If Calkins had run alone as an unopposed Republican for the seat, the primary would have been open under Florida law, allowing Democrats and and independents to vote. When Maddox filed to run, however, it closed the primary to everyone except Republicans, disenfranchising everyone else. 

The bad news for non-Republican Santa Rosa County voters doesn’t end there: Write-in candidates have closed all three county commission races there, meaning some 52,000 registered voters in the county will not have a voice in who is representing them.  Maddox, Belanger and Calkins did not respond to requests for comment from the Trident. 

The problem is prevalent statewide. A Florida Trident analysis of candidate filing information and voter registration data found that more than 2 million voters across Florida have been shut out from at least one state or local election this year because of a loophole in the Florida Constitution that allows write-in candidates to close primaries. 

“They’ve been used as ghost candidates,” explained Ben Wilcox, research director for Integrity Florida, a nonpartisan research institute and government watchdog. “It’s a tactic that both parties use.” 

“Ghost candidates” are candidates who aren’t serious about winning an election, but want to influence the outcome. Wilcox explained there are two types of these candidates: write-in candidates who run to close primary elections and candidates whose names appear on the ballot in an effort to siphon votes from another candidate.

“One thing that both of those types of candidates have in common,” said Wilcox, “is that they’re being used to manipulate elections.” 

None of the write-in candidates in Santa Rosa have raised or spent any money on their campaigns, and most don’t live in the district they’re running to represent. 

Those are “red flags” of possible ghost candidates, explained Wilcox. “For the most part, they don’t campaign; they’re just not serious candidates.” 

Florida is ‘infested’ with ghost candidates in 2024 

Write-in candidates have closed at least one local race in 20 counties across Florida. Write-in candidates have closed three legislative races in Duval County, including Senate District 5 and House Districts 13 and 14. 

“Florida is infested with ghost candidates,” Wilcox said. “They’re everywhere in local races [and state] legislative races. It’s just a real problem.” 

The Trident reviewed candidate filing information and voter registration data from the state Division of Elections and all 67 county supervisor of elections’ websites in the state. The findings show write-in candidates have disenfranchised 2 million registered voters in these counties: Brevard, Charlotte, Collier, Duval, Escambia, Flagler, Gadsden, Hernando, Indian River, Lake, Lee, Manatee, Marion, Martin, Putnam, Santa Rosa, Sarasota, St. Johns, St. Lucie, Sumter and Walton. 

“They never win,” Wilcox explained. “Somebody would have to do a really extensive campaign to get the word out that they want voters to write in their name so that they would actually have a chance to win that election.” 

The open primary system was introduced in an amendment to the state constitution that voters approved  in 1998. 

“The hope was that it would reduce the extremes on either side,” Wilcox said, adding that the amendment didn’t fulfill its purpose. “The constitutional amendment did not address write-in candidates.” 

In 2000, the state Division of Elections adopted a rule that required closed primaries whenever a write-in candidate qualified to run for an election. “The Legislature didn’t take any action,” Wilcox said. 

Ever since the rule was adopted, “we’ve seen write-in candidates in Florida used as ghost candidates to close primary elections,” Wilcox said. “Both Democrats and Republicans like to have their primaries closed. They want their voters to decide who the representative is going to be.” 

Efforts to eliminate the write-in candidate loophole have failed 

In 2018, the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission considered a proposal to simply close the write-in candidate loophole, but it was rejected and never went before voters. 

“They weren’t able to get a majority vote to put that on the ballot,” Wilcox said. “That’s one solution to this whole problem.” 

The proposal would’ve required open primaries whenever a write-in candidate enters a race that has only one party’s candidates on the ballot and no other general election opposition. A 2017 bipartisan measure in the Florida Legislature proposing the same solution died in committee without getting a single vote. 

Wilcox says lawmakers could deter ghost candidates by making it harder for those candidates to qualify to run. Unlike candidates whose names appear on the ballot, write-in candidates aren’t required to pay filing fees or collect signatures. If they faced those same requirements, it would likely curb the number of write-in candidates, he explained. 

The only way voters can get around the write-in candidate loophole is to switch their party affiliation before the primary election. 

After recently moving to Santa Rosa County, Ilana Porzecanski couldn’t vote in any 2022 state or local elections because she was a Democrat, shut out of Republican primaries due to write-in candidates. 

“Much to my surprise, there were these write-in ghost candidates who had not run a campaign, had not picked up any money for their campaign, and were just there to close the primary,” she said. 

This year, Porzecanski switched her party affiliation after finding out that write-in candidates had closed the primary in three county commission races. 

“I have chosen to change my party affiliation to Republican, so that I can access these important local elections,” she said. “I knew I couldn’t just be upset about it — I had to do something.”

This report was done in partnership with the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a non-profit organization that publishes the Florida Trident and does investigative journalism across the state. 

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Voting in the primary elections is already underway across Florida.

Mail-in ballots have been arriving at local election offices over the last few weeks, and early voting is taking place across the state this weekend through next Saturday.

Election Day is on Tuesday, Aug. 20.

How do I vote early?

State law requires county election offices to provide early voting between Saturday, Aug. 10 and Saturday, Aug. 17.

Early voting has already begun in some counties, and can last through Sunday, Aug. 18.

Check with your local Supervisor of Elections Office to find out specific times, dates and locations for early voting.

Voters must show a valid photo ID with a signature before casting a ballot in-person.

Some acceptable forms of identification include: a Floria driver’s license or state ID, a U.S. passport, a student ID, a military ID and a government employee ID.

Does party affiliation matter to vote in the primary?

Florida is a closed primary state, meaning only a party’s voters can vote in that party’s primary election.

However, some elections in August are open to all voters, regardless of party affiliation. Those include: races that are nonpartisan, as well as races in which every candidate belongs to the same party and the winner won’t face opposition in the general election.

Across the Panhandle, every state legislative race has Democratic and Republican candidates, meaning those primary elections are closed.

The presence of write-in candidates in Escambia, Gadsden, Santa Rosa and Walton Counties has closed some primary elections for county commission that would’ve otherwise been open to all voters in those counties. In Walton County, the sheriff’s election is closed to Republican voters only.

Check with your local Supervisor of Elections’ website to see a list of candidates and their party affiliation or whether or not they’re a write-in candidate.

How do I vote by mail?

Voters may return their vote-by-mail ballot now through Election Day on Tuesday, Aug. 20 at 7 p.m.

To cast a mail-in ballot, voters can drop it off at a ballot drop-box, return it to an early voting site or they can hand-deliver or mail it back to their local Supervisor of Elections Office.

The ballot must be received by their county election office before 7 p.m. on Tueday, Aug. 20. If it’s mailed before that time and it’s not received, then it won’t be counted.

Voters can contact their local Supervisor of Elections Office to check on the status of their mail-in ballot.

How do I vote on Election Day?

Election Day voting takes place on Tuesday, Aug. 20 from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Voters who are in line before the 7 o’clock deadline can still cast a ballot.

On Election Day, voters must cast a ballot at their designated polling location. Voters can lookup their precinct or polling location online.

Voters must show a valid photo ID with signature. Here’s a complete list of acceptable forms of identification.

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