Northwest Florida Legislative Delegation Held Engaging 2025 Pre-Session Meeting in Bay County

BAY COUNTY, FL – The Northwest Florida Legislative Delegation, composed of Florida Senator Jay Trumbull and Representative Griffitts, held a pre-session meeting, providing citizens, elected officials, civic organizations, and local governments an opportunity to address their representatives ahead of the 2026 Legislative Session.

Appearances included:

1.    Bay County Commissioner, Doug Moore, welcomed the delegation

2.    Bay District Schools Superintendent, Mark McQueen, spoke about the 5 A’s, 28,000 students, graduation rate of 91.4%, Bozeman having the capability to receive animals that are evacuated from low lying areas during a major weather event, Haney is in the top 250 technical schools in the nation out of 15,000.

3.    Lynn Haven Mayor, Jesse Nelson, spoke about having 20,000 citizens, thanks for providing $980,000 for a fire engine, the desire for state funding to replace 6,700 feet of water main containing asbestos pipe, the desire for funding for the storm water retention pond that would serve half the population of Lynn Haven, the desire for funding for fire station #3 to get quicker response time.

4.    Allen Armstrong, Chairman, Chamber of Commerce, introduced President and CEO, Al McCambry and welcomed him to his first day on the job.

5.    Arlane Johnson, Central Panhandle Association of Realtors

6.    Tim Prather, Bay Education Foundation

7.    Dr. Avery “Brink” Brinkley, Jr. MD, and Karen Custer, Chairman, Republican Liberty Caucus of Bay County, spoke separately about the “first of its kind in the nation” bill, co-authored by Dr. Brinkley and Mary Helms, Freedom Advocate, that is backed by State Surgeon General of Florida, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, to test donated blood to determine if it is safe (not modified by Covid-19 mRNA to produce spike protein) for an unvaxxed person to be a recipient.

8.    Ron Sharpe, President and CEO, Arc of the Bay, spoke about drawing up plans with James Finch of Phoenix Construction for a group home, having 267 people on waiting list for training, and the desire to launch a 14,000 sq ft facility for an adult autism program.

9.    Rev. Dr. Rufus Wood, President of Bay County NAACP, spoke against renaming streets after Charlie Kirk, requested support for bills for disaster recovery, requested restoration of rights database to find out if “returning citizens” (convicted felons) are eligible to vote after serving time.

10.  Rex Lee Reid, Bay Watch, FL, spoke about special assessments, his went up 10% last year, based on building value, 24% in the last 3 years, so will double every 8.5 years, requested “save your homes act” applied to special assessments, objected to cuts of 96% in impact fees to commercial developers thus shifting the costs to homeowners, requested homestead exemption against special assessments, requested not allowing expensive solar energy farms which only produce energy 8 to 12 hours per day, at twice the cost of natural gas plants and destroy farm land.

11.  Sharis Robinson, Children’s Home Society of Florida (CHS), has school partnerships at Parker Elementary and Rutherford Junior/Senior High Schools, CHS has been around for 123 years, spoke about the desire for additional funding of $6.1 million, to expand program to 10 additional schools throughout the state.

12.  Alvin Peters, spoke about climate change and CO2 emissions, claims CO2 has risen from 275 ppm at beginning of industrial revolution, to 320 ppm when he was born to 427 ppm now, rising 3 ppm per year, claims that as CO2 increases so does temperature, causing sea levels to increase due to expansion of water, with CO2 increasing acidity of ocean.

13.  Cecile M Scoon, ESQ., League of Women Voters, spoke about the need to increase funding for the Supervisors of Elections if additional duties are added, and listening to their needs, and asked that they vote against any mid-term redistricting since it is customarily done every 10 years.

14.  Clifford M. “Sunny” Reid, Bay County leader, John Birch Society, spoke about the urgent need to rescind Florida’s application for an Article V Convention and the associated statutes.

15.  Jacqueline Steel, North Florida Field Manager for Equal Ground, spoke about strongly opposing any effort to redistrict before redoing the census in 2030. 

16.  Branden Friday, Living Water Ministries, spoke about being concerned about what the future holds for our children.

17.  Chandler Strong, Strong Way Solutions, spoke about the struggles of a “returning citizen” (convicted felon returning to the workforce after completing their sentence) regaining the ability to vote. He requested that a clear, consistent system be developed to assist returning citizens. He had a second chance and came home and took a different route and thinks that with funding for help, other “returners” could do a similar thing.

18.  Bay Building representative talked about the negative effect on builders of impact fees.

19.  Shelley Clark, League of Women Voters, said her issues were already covered by others.

20.  Jamie Shephard spoke against eliminating property taxes.

21.  Michelle Carter spoke about personal struggles with law enforcement. When she tried to do a public records request, she was told the Sheriff hasn't implemented the requirement for SROs to carry body cams. She requested that the legislature mandate that all law officers in the state of Florida must wear and turn on a body cam on traffic stops and while they're interacting with the public on any incident.

22.  Alexis Underwood, President of the teacher’s union, spoke about the overwhelming response to home school scholarships, where the money follows the students, but would like to see a “clawback mechanism” whereby the money follows the students back to the school district if the child leaves home schooling and goes to a different school. She would also recommend multi-year contracts for the best teachers instead of one year contracts.

23.  Erik Fosshage, new Mexico Beach Council Member, spoke about the desire for state infrastructure funding to replace a sewer line that has a 25-year life, that runs through Tyndall Air Force Base. He also spoke about the desire for state funding to improve items identified in a recent stormwater study.

24.  A representive of Bay Builders talked about the cost of mandatory window protection for new construction for heavy winds.

25.  Corey from Lynn Haven spoke about assessments being like a tourniquet and requested that they have a start date and end date.

26.  One person asked what our legislators in Northwest Florida have as a plan for the future growth of this area. The response was that this is historically treated as a listening session (legislators listen to citizens) and he was requested to make an appointment to discuss these issues.