BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Telegraph Staff Writer
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— The chair, vice-chair, manager and a former Keystone Heights Airport board member criticized the city council’s January appointment of Rex Siemer to the airport board during the council’s February 6 meeting.
Last month, the council appointed Seimer, in addition to Charlie Van Zant and David Dagenais, to the board.
Siemer replaced incumbent board member Chad Rischar who also applied to be reappointed.
Airport board chair David Kirkland said he was disappointed in the council’s decision because council members did not discuss the appointment with him nor with Airport Manager Maria Searcy before replacing Rischar.
Kirkland added that based on his conversations with council members, he discovered that Rischar’s removal from the airport board was in retaliation for his departure from DRMP, the city’s engineer of record.
“I’m puzzled as to why you would punish someone for accepting the job of a lifetime to better take care of his family,” Kirkland said. “A couple of you shared that you got a call from our county commissioner recommending Mr. Seimer and apparently that swayed your vote. Sadly, none of these are even related to the seat and its responsibilities.”
Kirkland added that Rischar has managed the airport’s timber resources and conservation efforts. “For unrelated reasons previously mentioned, you appointed someone else with no silvicultural experience,” he said.
Airport Vice Chair Scott Fryar credited Rischar for contributing to the facility’s fiscal turnaround.
Fryar added that losing Rischar’s expertise in land management might force the airport to hire a consultant.
“He’s also worked with Operation Outdoor Freedom (organizing) a hunting trip for wounded or disabled veterans, and I think he’s been doing this for several years now. He’s made a big difference.”
Airport Manager Maria Searcy seconded Kirkland’s claim that council members have always reached out to her and Kirkland about potential board members for past appointments.
“Something different happened this time,” she said, “and I don’t understand why we have always been given the consideration to be able for you to hear our opinions about how our business runs. We’re out there every single day.”
Rischar told council members that when he first applied for the board seat in 2015, he interviewed with Kirkland for an hour and a half, explaining his experience in land management.
“My application was not even entertained during the January meeting,” he added. “Provided eight years of service and thousands of hours dedicated to the airport, I would at least expect my application to be noted in the public record.”
Later in the meeting, Vice Chair Steve Hart motioned to reopen the application process for the seat. However, his motion failed for lack of a second.
In other news from the February 6 meeting of the Keystone Heights City Council:
Key to the city: Answers Resource Facility
Mayor Karen Lake read a proclamation summarizing the work of Answers Resource Facility.
Lake called staff members of the group, who received a key to the city, “sisters in the trenches because we work with people who may not come from the same places that some of us come from, and so over time, we’ve done a lot of work together, and I just want to recognize the work you have done and are continuing to do.”
In the proclamation, Lake noted that the nonprofit’s founder Joanna Weldon started the organization in 2011 when she realized women and
families in the Lake Region needed compassion and someone who could see their worth regardless of their circumstances.
“Ms. Weldon and her staff have stood with many families as they
walked through difficult days,” Lake added.
The mayor said the group hosts a weekly girls’ club at Keystone Heights Junior-Senior High School that helps young women to recognize their value and helps them find purpose in their lives.
“Answers offers life-skills education in which participants can earn rewards like gas cards, diapers and wipes,” Lake said, “and these classes can be taken at Answers facilities or on personal devices.”
The mayor said the nonprofit offers pregnancy and sexual health support services to women, including pregnancy tests, obstetrical ultrasound, and HIV and STD testing.
Weldon told the council the recognition was special to her since she grew up in Keystone Heights.
“To God be the glory in every single situation that we’ve gotten to be a part of in regard to the women, the men and the families in our community,” she said. “We are seeing miracle after miracle happen each and every day at Answers.”
Solicitation ordinance approved
The council approved the second reading to an upgrade of its solicitation ordinance.
The previous ordinance focused on door-to-door salespeople and required anyone seeking orders from residences to obtain a city permit.
The updated ordinance does away with rules governing door-to-door sales and instead focuses on people interacting with traffic on public rights of way.
It prohibits “physical interaction between a pedestrian and an occupant of a motor vehicle, including the transfer of any product, material or monies, while the motor vehicle is located on the
traveled portion of a public road, street, or highway within the city limits of Keystone Heights.”
The new law also prohibits people from standing in or occupying a median.
The new law makes infractions of the ordinance a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a fine of up to $500.
County impact fees approved
The council approved an interlocal agreement with Clay County allowing the county to collect impact fees within Keystone Heights.
County Manager Howard Wanamaker and Assistant County Manager Troy Nagle explained the fees to council members.
During the subsequent discussion, several council members expressed their desire that if the fees were collected within the city, then projects supported by the fees should occur within the city limits.
Wanamaker responded that projects built outside the city limits would still benefit Keystone Heights residents.
He said the planned construction of a new county fire station in Penny Farms would reduce the number of central Clay County calls firefighters at Station 11 in Keystone Heights would have to respond to. He said that now, firefighters and paramedics from Keystone Heights, McRae and Camp Blanding respond to calls north of the Lake Region.
“So, with the anticipation of the build within Penny Farms of a fire station and the apparatus and the firemen that are there will ease the burden of Station 11,” he said.
Nagle added that the planned regional sports park north of the intersection of State Roads 21 and 16 would also benefit Keystone Heights residents. He said that out-of-town participants in events at the park need places to stay, places to eat and places to get gas, “and that brings a revenue stream to all of us.”
In-person voting for April election eliminated
The council voted to have the city’s April 11 election as a mail-in ballot only, eliminating in-person voting.
According to a memo from Supervisor of Elections Chris Chambless, the city can conduct a mail-only election if the ballot contains only referendums and no candidates.
For Keystone Heights’s April 11 election, the only seat up for voting was the mayor’s seat, and only one candidate qualified for the seat: Nina Rodenroth.
Four charter amendments are on the ballot.
“No candidates in the upcoming Keystone Heights Municipal Super Tuesday election,” wrote Chambless, “affords the city council the option of conducting a mail ballot election for the remaining referendums.”
The elections chief added that a mail-only election would save the city around $1,000 in costs.
“I’m not in favor of doing it for every election,” said council member Tony Brown, “but this is not an election; this is for charter amendments. This wouldn’t set a precedent for elections when we actually are voting for a person or persons. This is just a one-time thing, a one-and-done.”
Keys to the city criticized
Tony Brown told Lake that the council’s monthly practice of recognizing a person of impact in Keystone Heights and awarding keys to the city to those individuals may diminish the value of the award.
Since August, the council has awarded keys to the city to Seeds of Grace co-founder Terri Sapp, Lake Area Ministries, Johnny’s Barbecue owner Johnny Mason, former mayor Mary Lou Hildreth, ex-council member Paul Yates, retired business owner Doug Wise, Mission of the Dirt Road Pastor Carey Morford, former school board member Tina Bullock, Twisted Oaks Rescue founder Jessie Shekels and Answers Resource Facility.
“When we started this key to the city, it was very good,” Brown said. “I didn’t know we were going to do it every month, and I have a concern about maybe it’s getting a little bit regular.”
Brown recommended lessening the frequency of the recognition.
“We’ve never really given out a lot of keys,” he continued. “It’s good to recognize people, but it’s gotten regular.”
Council member Chris Thompson said she agreed with Brown and complained that even though all council members were asked to nominate a person of impact, the mayor decided on whom to award the recognition.
“We were not given the chance to vote as a council on who got it,” she said.
Lake responded that she received a list of nominations from the city manager and is working through that list in making the awards.
“We weren’t filtering anybody’s list,” she said.
“I would have preferred to have seen the names of who was being considered in advance rather than just being told at a meeting this is whom we’re going to vote for,” added Vice Mayor Hart.
Hart said that since Lake has only two months remaining in her term, he would be willing, as a professional courtesy, to allow the practice to continue through April.
Lake said that although she has been mayor for five years, the person-of-impact recognition has only occurred since August 2022.
“These are people I’ve worked with over five years,” she said, “some of them quite extensively, and I feel like everyone who works in our community needs to be recognized at some point in time.”
“So yeah, two more months, one more agency, and you guys can do whatever you want.”
Council member Bobby Brown said recognizing citizens who contribute to the community is important, and he hopes the practice continues after Lake departs from the council.
Airport seeking grants for road, utilities
Airport Board Chair David Kirkland told council members that he and Airport Manager Maria Searcy are working on two appropriations requests for the facility.
One is a $3 million request to build an additional access road to the airport’s westside development in Bradford County. The potential project also includes turning lanes on State Road 100.
The second request is a $30 million ask to hook airport properties to the water and sewer service the Clay County Utility Authority provides.
Airport manager resigning
City Manager Lynn Rutkowski announced that airport manager Maria Searcy is resigning.
The 12-year city employee will be moving to Largo with her family.
Rutkowski added that seeing Searcy leave will be personally hard on her since she and the outgoing airport manager started working for the city around the same time.
