By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            State Senator Keith Perry of Gainesville was called out by his opponent at the July 22 Republican candidates forum in Cedar Key for voting in favor of the ongoing toll road study.

            Perry, who represents Senate District 8 currently, is running against former Alachua County Commissioner and Gainesville City Commissioner Rodney Long for the new Senate seat in District 9.

            Levy County is part of District 9.

            Long said he has been talking to the people of Levy County and one of the things they told him is they want better access to health care, but he said they also told him they don’t want a toll road.

            “They do not want a toll road in Levy County. Unlike my opponent who voted for the toll road – I’m sure you all ask him why he did that – we don’t need a toll road in Levy County. What we need is housing affordability,” Long said.

            When it was Perry’s turn at the microphone, questioner Stoney Smith asked Perry to talk about toll roads.

            “I don’t know if there will be a toll road coming out of Wildwood or the Veterans Expressway, but we don’t want our community to end up like Starke,” Smith said. “They just go around everything and we can’t get across the road. We know we need to do the west side of the state, but talk about toll roads if you will.”

            Perry confirmed he voted to support the toll road study. The project is known as the Northern Turnpike Extension.

            “I did vote to support that and the vote I gave was for the process. We live in a state of 22 million people and it is growing and you cannot simply say we are just going to widen roads and widen roads. We got to look at the future and what we’re going to do. What I voted for and what we passed was to start the process of planning. That’s where we are right now. We’re at public comment and public input. We can always look at that again and say is the DOT plan adequate, does it serve its residents, does it serve the people of Florida? We can’t stick our heads in the sand and say we’re not going to do anything at all. What we voted for in the past was to do the planning process. That’s going to take place and be completed in the next year and a half. When the plans are completed, we’re going to look at that – the Legislature.”

            Perry’s former District 8 included all of Alachua and Putnam counties and part of Marion County. The new District 9 includes Marion and Levy Counties and the southern part of Alachua County.

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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt July 22, 2022; Posted July 27, 2022