By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            Levy County Commissioner Matt Brooks lashed out this week at a Levy County resident that he says falsely claimed in a TikTok video that commissioners were bribed to ignore the purchase of 1,400 acres in Gulf Hammock by a China-based firm for a primate quarantine area.

            “I do want people to know, 100 percent for a fact, that no one on this board is going to take a bribe from anyone, anywhere for our county,” he said. “For people to put that out publicly, yeah, that burned my biscuit a little bit,” Brooks said at Tuesday’s commission meeting.

            He said there are plenty of conspiracy theories on social media about federal, state, and local governments, but he said the Levy County Commission is the most transparent and accessible of all those governments. He said it’s just easier to beat up on a local board.

            “That’s all I’ll say about the monkey business,” he said.

            A San Francisco firm whose parent company is based in China, JOINN Laboratories, stirred up a considerable amount of anger and frustration in Levy County when it purchased 1,400 acres of land despite being told in advance by a county official that a monkey quarantine area or a research laboratory wouldn’t be allowed in that area.

            County Attorney Nicolle Shalley told commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting the only place where facilities of that type could potentially locate is in Agriculture Rural Residential zoning and only through the special exception process. The county commission has final authority on whether to approve a special exception allowing developments to build on property that doesn’t have the right zoning.

            The property, which has a Morriston address but is physically located in Gulf Hammock, is zoned Forestry Rural Residential. Much of the property consists of a conservation easement. Ninety acres of the tract isn’t in the easement. The realtor that sold the property told county officials in emails that JOINN wants to build its facilities on the outlying tracts that aren’t in the conservation easement but would use the conservation area for breeding exotic animals, and for raising domestic farm animals much like a ranch.

            Brooks said the allegations of bribery came to him when he was sent a video published on the Chinese-owned Tik Tok social media platform falsely claiming commissioners knew ahead of time that the China-based medical research company, JOINN, was purchasing the 1,400 acres and did nothing to stop it because they had been told to turn their heads.

            Commissioners have no power under their current laws to stop the purchase of property in Levy County by a foreign-based company even if the board knows in advance the purchase is coming.

            “That’s from a way higher power than we are,” said County Coordinator Wilbur Dean.

            The Chinese government is known to be purchasing large tracts of farmland in the United States. Congress has made no effort to pass legislation imposing restrictions on the amount of private U.S agricultural land that can be foreign-owned, nor has the Florida Legislature, and little if anything has been said about the issue on the federal or state campaign trail.

            Brooks said he found the Tik Tok video offensive.

            “It was a social media platform and one video was sent to me which showed the girl saying we’re going to be watching our commissioners because they can be bribed and this, that and the other, and alluding that’s how the property got sold in the first place and we all know it was coming and were told to shut up,” Brooks said. “It was a pretty bold statement she made and I just think sometimes people spout off to get attention and get people interacting with them and I think she was one of those types of people who wanted other people to feed into the conspiracy and spread her post around and it’s just my personal opinion. I’ve seen a lot of that stuff before.”

            Brooks said this type of video that was posted comes from uninformed people, but he said it made him angry. He said the woman who posted the video is probably trying to get followers and start selling things to make money.

            “It’s the demise of our society is what it is,” he said.

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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt September 22, 2022; September 22, 2022