By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Michael Dockery told Chiefland City Commissioners Monday that a group of community leaders from the south part of town met with Police Chief Scott Anderson recently and found him receptive to their concerns and told them how scripture encourages support for law enforcement.
“He advocated right from the outset that those of us in the spiritual community if you look directly at what the scriptures say and what our requirements as Christians are, I found out the scriptures back us supporting law enforcement,” Dockery said. “Actually, when you don’t do that, you violate scripture.”
Dockery said he looks forward to working with Anderson and city police. He said he wants to connect and work with other members of the religious community, but they had to start in south Chiefland and move forward from there.
He delved into other areas of concern by south Chiefland leaders including seven drug-related deaths. He said Anderson told the group about the requirements his police officers must follow to make arrests in those cases.
“The State Attorney, they are the ones that have to investigate it,” Dockery said.
Dockery was representing the Chiefland Neighborhood Task Force, a south Chiefland group interested in making their community better and working with elected officials to move forward with those improvements.
Making Apology
Dockery thanked the city commissioners for attending a public forum at Eddie Buie Park but apologized for the conduct of the first speaker who was supposed to be asking questions of commissioners but made an aggressive statement instead.
“He went on the attack. As the person who was moderating the forum, I am offering a personal apology myself for that. Rest assured that won’t happen again,” Dockery said. “Normally when you have an event like that, the moderator controls all the questions to make sure all those questions are presented in the form of a question. If the person can’t do that, it’s our job to make sure it’s presented in the form of a question.”
Dockery said the task force isn’t interested in dividing commissioners or anyone else holding political office, “so, at the meeting like that, you shouldn’t be ridiculed or attacked.”
“We’re not going to do that. You took time out of your schedules to take part in that forum. We appreciate it and we’ll make sure when we invite you we’ll be in control from this point forward. I’m not passing the buck. I’m taking that responsibility on myself. I was the one that was moderating and that happened.”
Wheelchair Sinking
On the same night as the public forum, Dockery said he and others noticed a woman in a wheelchair trying to access the park and getting stuck in newly applied asphalt millings. He said the millings should have been compacted to make a smooth, sturdy surface.
“As soon as she hit, it was like sugar sand and she sunk right in it. She was lucky she didn’t fall on her face,” Dockery said.
Dockery didn’t mention as part of his presentation that public facilities like Buie Park must be handicap accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The millings were placed there as an act of goodwill, but the lack of compaction of the millings made the driveway inaccessible by wheelchair.
Chiefland Neighborhood Team
Training for Elective Office, Updating Charter
Former Chiefland Commissioner Alice Monyei is leading a separate entity within the Chiefland Neighborhood Task Force known as the Chiefland Neighborhood Team which is focused on voter registration.
She said neighborhood teams have been set up in Chiefland, Bronson, Williston, and Inglis thus far.
“When you see us together, we’re in the same group but two separate entities,” Monyei said.
She said the Chiefland Neighborhood Team will host a 5-day training session in January for anyone interested in preparing to run for a government elected position. Some of the training subjects will include parliamentary procedure, Florida Sunshine Law, and municipal charters.
“We are going over your charter and it is OUTDATED,” Monyei said.
She said some of the things she saw in reading the charter are old and date back to when she was a commissioner, “and that’s been back 100 years ago.”
City manager Laura Cain said she agreed with Monyei that the city charter needs to be updated. She said some of the things talked about in the charter were in the past.
“We could form a team to look at the charter and determine what changes need to be made and what needs to remain the same,” Cain said. “I agree with Ms. Alice on that.”
Cain asked Mayor Chris Jones if she could bring the charter to the next board meeting. He agreed.
“I guess the charter needs to be sent out to the commission. Let’s take a look at it and start working on that,” Jones said.
Annexing Property
Commissioners voted to pass the first reading of an ordinance annexing a triangular piece of property in front of Strawberry Field RV Park into the city limits.
Crystal Tractor, which sells Kubota and Mahindra tractors, will build a tractor dealership on the 16-acre site currently owned by Chiefland agribusinessman Ron St. John.
Steve Uiterwyk said his company has a contract to purchase the land from St. John. He thinks the property will be a good location for the Crystal Tractor store, currently located near Chiefland.
Uiterwyk said he will request rezoning of the property after it is annexed.
Commissioners are also interested in annexing the two roads on either side of the property, U.S. 129 and a county-graded road. The county will continue to own its road and the federal government will continue to own 129 but the annexation of both roads will bring the entire property and the roads flanking it on both sides into the city limits.
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City of Chiefland Regular Meeting November 8, 2021; Posted November 9, 2021
