Raydient issues press release to “Set the Record Straight”

Editor’s Note:  With yesterday’s post of the call to action from officials in Nassau County, we wrote in our editor’s comment, ” Before we cover a story, we want to know the story.”  We still have work to do to begin to separate the wheat from the chaff,  but after receiving a press release  from Raydient giving us a glimpse of their position on the controversy between the Board of County Commissioners and Raydient, we decided to share  this information with our readers.  

Raydient
Press Release
Tiffany Wilson
Manager, Marketing & Communications
[email protected]
February 22, 2018 10:42 a.m.

A lot has been said about us recently by Nassau County staff and officials, and unfortunately a lot of it is untrue. We wanted to set the record straight with the facts below. I am also attaching a copy of the much-talked-about Senate Bill 324* in case you haven’t yet seen it. We welcome the opportunity to discuss any of this further with you.

[To view bill click here and then click on (highlighted in blue,) CS-SB/324 Substitute, click on “841860 – Proposed Committee Substitute Approximations, Web Page PDF]

  • According to Nassau County’s policies, developers are required to contribute land for public community and regional parks and builders are required to pay recreational impact fees for park facilities to accommodate for the people that purchase in their communities.
  • The ENCPA includes plans to allocate land for parks and recreation. At build out, we will have contributed 556 acres for public regional parks and 186 acres for community parks. Roughly 50% of the 24,000-acre ENCPA, including about 3,850 upland acres, will be set aside in a Conservation Habitat Network. The 3,850 acres alone is five times what the county’s policies require in their Comprehensive Plan.
  • Future residents of the ENCPA will be County taxpayers as well. It was never envisioned that the County could wash their hands of the responsibility to provide county services to these taxpayers.
  • Today there are zero residents in Wildlight and the ENCPA, so we are not putting any pressure on the county’s current parks and recreation needs.
  • Since 2016, we have been offering to the county to pay for a Civic Facilities Study, which includes parks and recreation, to determine what needs will be generated by the development of the ENCPA.
  • We believe the county is threatening to place an inequitable burden on our company by shifting the costs associated with growth outside the ENCPA onto Raydient and residents inside the ENCPA. We need to protect our company’s interests and expect to be treated fairly. We expect Nassau County’s policies to be enforced in the same way to all developers and landowners. 

A lot of the press coverage has included a number of quotes from the BOCC’s Feb. 12 meeting.  [Click here for meeting video.] Here are a few quotes from that meeting that stood out to us, along with the timestamp of when they were said in the meeting:

“No one’s addressing the recreation. We aren’t. We’re not addressing the traffic. We don’t fund anything. We’re at a bare minimum, and when you hear what we have in the CIP funds, there is none.” – Pat Edwards, 58:28 

“…everybody understood the major recreation, public and otherwise, was destined to go inside the ENCPA. [The County doesn’t] have any — you have one 10-acre parcel down 107, but there are no other big parcels to handle the number of parks that are necessary as you move forward.” – Mike Mullin, 26:00

“I don’t even know what the total recreational pieces are, and I definitely don’t know what that cost. So without having that complete picture, I can’t assist them into coming up with something that works for both sides of the partnership.” – Shanea Jones, 46:45

13 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Douglas Adkins
Douglas Adkins (@guest_50466)
6 years ago

Come on, this is such nonsense, the Wildlight was always sold to the community as this will not cost the county taxpayers “one dime”. The lobbyists for the developer have always promoted the notion that this would not require the county taxpayers to contribute in any way whatsoever. Now in the “dark of night” the developer slips in an amendment not through the local legislators but rather through outside lawmakers that will allow them to impose the burden on local taxpayers. The larger question here is whether HB 1075 is even constitutional, the “pledge of the state” not to change the charter was a concern when Janet was reviewing the legislation and House Committee staff at the time raised this as a serious concern. There is no way that the legislature can hand away the sovereignty of the state to a local government let alone a private company. I believe that the BOCC needs to request a AG legal opinion or better should consider a lawsuit in circuit court to determine whether HB 1075 was even legal and constitutional. It is well know that legislative bills are not reviewed for constitutional compliance, that job is left to the courts and in this instance this bill may be ripe for a legal challenge considering what is at stake for the local taxpayers. Today at 2pm Senator Aaron Bean will have a choice to make as to whether he will file an amendment to strip out the adverse language and defend the 81,000 people of Nassau County or whether he will stand with the developer. It is a choice that will define his legacy, lets hope he picks the right side.

Shanea Jones
Shanea Jones (@guest_50468)
6 years ago

There are so many inaccuracies in this release but I want to specifically address my quote at the end. I absolutely said those words and I don’t know why they’d stand out to Raydient. I don’t have have all of the pieces to be able to move forward with the partnership because Raydient has stopped all communication with the BOCC and staff. It’s difficult to have a meeting with your partner when they refuse to show up at meetings.

Michelle Haddock
Michelle Haddock (@guest_50469)
6 years ago

I find it quite amusing that Raydient “welcomes the opportunity to discuss this further”. Why not discuss this with the 5 County Commissioners, Senator Aaron Bean, and Representative Cord Byrd instead of lobbying other State lawmakers to change the law to your benefit?

Even more entertaining is that the so called reason for the law is to be treated equitably and fairly. I’m pretty sure that the ENCPA is the only development in the County gets a 12% tax refund to assist with the development’s road infrastructure needs. Maybe that needs to be rescinded so that Raydient is treated fairly!

How about attend the meetings on the date and time that were mutually agreed to rather than watching the videos and issuing press releases?

Joe Zimmerman
Joe Zimmerman (@guest_50471)
6 years ago

I warned about this constantly during the election. Even after the election, I addressed the legislative delegation questioning why we would grant administrative rule making authority to a private organization.

This whole situation was created by HB-1075, which was proposed by Representative Cord Byrd and passed out of our own, local, legislative delegation.

The amendment that makes this situation even more toxic sits today in the Senate Appropriations Committee, and will be heard today at 2pm. The link to watch it live can be seen here:

http://www.flsenate.gov/Committees/show/AP

Our own Senator Aaron Bean sits in that committee, which also happens to be chaired by his brother in law, Senator Robert Bradley. They are truly the only ones who can prevent this from happening at this point.

I find it astonishing that the people behind Wildlight were petty enough that they felt it necessary to issue a press release attacking the very people that gave them this opportunity in the first place. They always have been lousy about PR – but this takes the cake.

Even Pat Edwards, who I disagreed with strongly on this policy did so and supported this cause he felt we needed better recreation for our children. He and I had extensive conversations about this when I served on the board of Yulee Little League.

The questions we need to ask now are if anyone affiliated with Wildlight was involved in submitting this amendment to Representative Miller (my gut says yes as they ONLY place affected by this amendment would be the ENCPA)? As far as I’m concerned if our legislators support this bill – one that will heavily damage Nassau County – then they are essentially telling every citizen in this place to go pound sand.

Disgraceful.

Joe Zimmerman
Joe Zimmerman (@guest_50472)
6 years ago
Reply to  Joe Zimmerman

And this bill has been in Senator Beans committee since before the 1st. How did he not know? And if he did, did he alert anyone locally? Who locally did he alert?

Mrs. D. Hunter
Mrs. D. Hunter (@guest_50478)
6 years ago
Reply to  Joe Zimmerman

Local buzz has it that “the county lobbyist” [presumably Buddy Jacobs] alerted the county attorney [obviously Mike Mullin] of the [loaded] bill coming up for vote “at the eleventh hour.” Not sure a back channel such as that would show up on Sunshine radar.

Another ugly coincidence has it that high-Nassau-County-corporate-employers Rayonier AND Omni have BOTH pulled out of long-standing “yeah we said we would, but now we’re making a case that we don’t have to anymore” legal agreements, resulting in angry property owners and righteous laywers on both sides.

Suanne Thamm
Editor
Suanne Thamm(@suanne-thamm)
6 years ago
Reply to  Mrs. D. Hunter

Buddy Jacobs serves as the city’s lobbyist. The lobbyist for the county is Mark Anderson.

Mrs. D. Hunter
Mrs. D. Hunter (@guest_50492)
6 years ago
Reply to  Suanne Thamm

Apologies. Thank you!

Mac Morriss
Mac Morriss(@macmorrisshotmail-com)
6 years ago

Mr Adkins is spot on in his comments. As are the others who commented above. This whole thing has a bad smell to it. The inaccuracies are on Rayoniers part. Their legalise does not remove what people remember, the promises promised. This will end poorly for Rayonier if they persist. Hiding behind shell companies and fancy obfuscating language will not work in this community. Do the right thing Rayonier. You used to, until Wildlight.

Douglas Adkins
Douglas Adkins (@guest_50477)
6 years ago

I learned this afternoon that Senator Bean filed an amendment to the SB 324, so I would like to say thank you to the Senator for making that effort on behalf of his community to stop what will surely cost taxpayers millions to pay for recreational facilities that were never contemplated when this project was discussed. I also would like to express my appreciation to the members of the BOCC for taking their fight to the halls of Tallahassee to pressure the legislators to do the right things and stop these sort of “in the dark of night” moves. Look the truth is that Senator Bean’s brother in law is Chairman of the of the last committee stop so there is hope that changes can be made with his leadership, but he must choose to step up. The fact that the bill was “temporarily postponed” will give the legislators the weekend to get “plan B” figured out and work through a compromise with the players. My guess is there will be some sort of trade made and the amendment comes off but it will be in exchange for something, it would be political suicide for them to drive this down the throats of the taxpayers and not to expect the county to file a lawsuit to challenge the constitutional basis of HB 1075, that would be a nightmare as it would expose the developer to depositions, discovery and further review of their business practices. I am not sure they welcome this sort of “battle of the titans” and it would likely cost them millions if the bond holders or the skittish bankers learn that their client is skating on thin ice with the local county leaders. I would suggest they find a path towards a solution, get a deal with the BOCC and not impose a financial burden on the taxpayers. The red ink at Wildlight belongs to the developers, not the taxpayers, the bondholders who are expected to pick up the debt for the this project I am sure are paying close attention.

Wes White
Wes White(@wes-white)
6 years ago

To really set the record straight …

Rayonier has had a long and storied history as Nassau’s preeminent corporate citizen – contributing to the wealth and well-being of our community for decades.

That story has changed. The “new” Rayonier is a creature of Wall Street with greed and duplicity as it’s hallmarks.

Sadly, it’s not our grandfathers’ Rayonier any more.

Deb Baker
Deb Baker (@guest_50483)
6 years ago

Why would anyone with the means to purchase a lovely home in a beautiful community want to live next to the freeway? There have been so many studies that show it’s so unhealthy. I really do hope they fail at trying to take advantage of the county and its citizens.

Teri D. Springer
Teri D. Springer (@guest_50484)
6 years ago

Considering all the lies in their recent sales video (essentially depicting the island and calling it their development; claiming a short walk down a wooded trail ends at the beach when they are, in fact, more than 15 MILES from the beach) sorry, I don’t believe a word the developers say.

Put it in writing and set it in stone. We taxpayers should NOT be funding THEIR development. Period.