By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

                A social media post by one of the most powerful lawmakers in Florida brought a rebuke from a toll road opponent at Friday’s Levy County Legislative Delegation hearing and ultimately an apology from State Rep. Chuck Clemons for not explaining himself well in his post.

            “I apologize for all my shortcomings. I’m only human,” Clemons said after a lengthy exchange with Levy County resident Laura Catlow, a staunch and unrelenting opponent of the Northern Turnpike Extension who felt Clemons made light of toll road opponents in an Aug. 3, 2022 post.

            In the post, Clemons said “Let the play develop. Wait until we know the facts. Everyone that is running around with their hair on fire about a road that might not ever be. Guess what, it’s never gonna be.”

            Catlow said toll-road opponents were exercising their right to protest the highway and she didn’t appreciate Clemons’ comments about having their hair on fire for a toll-road residents fiercely opposed.

            “Please don’t make light of our efforts,” Catlow said.

            Clemons interrupted her.

            “I wasn’t making light,” he said.

            “Let me finish please,” Catlow responded

            “That was what we were called to do in the FDOT process. We’ve been answering this call for years. M-CORES should have been the end of it, but more money was allocated and another study was approved,” she said.

            FDOT has decided to focus its attention on adding toll road lanes to I-75, but Catlow, having endured two FDOT studies for the Northern Turnpike Extension – the first being M-CORES and the second study which didn’t have a catchy name – wanted a concrete answer from Clemons on whether Levy Countians should have to worry about another toll road study being launched targeting the county.

            “One thing the FDOT talks about is safety and every meeting I went to and every time I commented, let’s talk about safety,” Catlow said “How many hospitals are in Levy County – zero – so let’s bring an 80-mile road with four lanes doing 80 to 90 miles per hour through our county. It doesn’t seem sane. Anyway, what I want to know is what’s up with the toll road? I know our FDOT fella is not here, not now — can you give us a concrete answer and that’s no pun intended.” She was referring to Ryan Amus, project engineer for the ongoing U.S. 19 Project Development and Engineering Study. He sat through part of the hearing but left early.

            Clemons responded to her request.

            “Concrete answer. Thank you for being here today. Thank you so much for protesting me before I go back to Tallahassee and represent the good people of Levy County. I don’t back down at all ma’am on what I said. I applaud you and all the people who have the passion. I admire your passion for what you believe in but I was on the same side of the issue as you were at that time. In fact, I didn’t believe, like you did, that this was going to develop into a road, and guess what, between the two of our opinions, mine prevailed. It’s not going to be coming into our area.”                 

            “While you were so confident for nine months, I had a road on top of my property through my living room,” Catlow said.

            “That wasn’t because of the Florida Legislature,” Clemons responded. “I’ll be happy to wait until after the hearing and be happy to talk to you.”

            The social media post by Clemons was made at the same time the Florida Department of Transportation announced that a study of the Northern Turnpike Extension had ended and FDOT would be looking at other options for the road.

            Until the announcement was made, residents of Levy County were looking at four possible routes for the four-lane highway through the county and some of those routes shown on an FDOT map appeared to pass through or near residential subdivisions and environmentally sensitive areas of the county.

            Clemons said it was never his intent to make light of toll road opponents in the August 2022 post. Later in the hearing, he said he should have been clearer about his position on building the Northern Turnpike Extension. He said when he was first faced with the issue of a new toll road being built through Levy County, he looked at U.S. 19 and realized there wasn’t much traffic on the road except for hurricane evacuations.

            “I said wait a minute, why are we building a new road when the rights of way have already been bought and paid for by the government? It’s been lying fallow for 30 to 40 years since they bought that property and it only makes sense as a steward of the tax dollar to build and expand the existing road,” Clemons said. “I didn’t share the level of Fahrenheit that my friends and neighbors shared. It wasn’t that I wasn’t concerned, but I did know a little more than the public knows because I missed some of those meetings and I asked those questions,” Clemons said.

            He added, “If I didn’t adequately convey my concerns for that, that’s apologies I would send out. I am Southern and most of you know what Bless Your Heart means. They were good folks that were passionate, but they were standing out in the rain (a figure of speech). I would have been out there with them if I did not have the level of understanding I have. But I knew a little more. You don’t have to stand out in the rain.”

            Catlow tried to interrupt. He hit the gavel.

            “My turn,” Clemons said, apologizing for all his shortcomings and gaveling the hearing to a close.

            Sen. Keith Perry, the other legislator in the hearing, said state senators represent 22 million people in Florida. He said they want to listen to all the people who make comments but he said they don’t make decisions based on polls or the size of a group of protesters.

            “We do not rule or make decisions based on a poll or based on a popular comment by numbers; that’s not true Democracy, a mob that does something. We’re not making policy that way. That’s the way our country was founded. That’s not our rule of law,” he said. “What we do is elect people to represent you and that’s when you make the difference if you want to. I think while public comment is critically important, it is not going to be based on any poll number or I have a certain number of people protesting something or I have a certain number of people favoring something. That’s not the way I’ll ever make policy. I’m not going to do this back and forth. I’ll meet with you guys later. I’m just giving you my personal take on what I’m elected to do and how I will function. I will listen to every single person and I will make a decision based on what I think is best for the population of people. We want people to be active, we want people to be engaged in the process but I don’t think just because a group of people wants to do something that it means we’re going to do something. That’s just not the way of the country. I’m a constitutional representative. I appreciate everyone’s input. We’ll meet later on to discuss all these topics.”

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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt January 20-2023; Posted January 23, 2023