Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
The 40-acre parcel near the Wacissa River that county officials were hoping to buy to expand recreational opportunities for local residents is now off the table.
Commissioner Stephen Walker has largely headed the effort to buy the 40-acre property just east of the park, off Wacissa Springs Road and bounded by the Wacissa River and Little Spring. But it was Commissioner Betsy Barfield, who sits on Gulf Consortium, who informed the Jefferson County Commission of the property’s rejection from the list of proposed purchases at the board’s meeting on Thursday evening, August 6.
The Consortium, Barfield said, had rejected the proposed purchase of the 40-acre property because it had determined that the asking price was too high.
“The asking price didn’t match the appraised value,” Barfield said. “With the Boland property now out, we’re going to have to amend our plan.”
She was referring to the county’s component of the State Expenditure Plan (SEP) that the Gulf Consortium developed and monitors as part of its RESTORE Act requirements, as created by Congress and the President in 2012.
A lengthy document enacted in 2018, the SEP sets the framework for the economic and environmental recovery of Florida’s Gulf Coast following the oil spill.
It also establishes the guidelines for the projects that the consortium’s 23 member counties may pursue with the settlement money from the disaster. And part of the process calls for each member county to submit a list of the projects that it plans to pursue with the funding, which
list the consortium and a host of other state and federal agencies must then sign off on.
The purchase of the 40-acre property was to come from a $1,236,271 RESTORE Act grant that the county was awarded earlier this year. As stipulated in the award contract, the money was to be used for the purchase of additional land along the Wacissa River and for further improvements to the park at the head of the river.
On Tuesday, August 25, Walker, in whose district the Wacissa River is located, confirmed the Boland property was out of the equation going forward.
“The difference between the appraised price and the asking price was the issue,” Walker said.
Walker did not know the Boland family's asking price for the property. But according to County Attorney Scott Shirley, who was involved in the negotiations, the parcel's appraised value per the Federal Yellowbook standards was $311,000.
Walker said that the county was already moving in another direction.
“The county is currently looking into acquiring the property just across the road from the Boland property that belongs to the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD),” he said.
Walker described the SRWMD property as a 20-acre parcel that borders the headwaters park property and that the county currently leases from the SRWMD.
As for the required amendment to the SEP, Barfield said it would be done in September, at which time the SRWMD property would hopefully serve as a substitute for the Boland property, she said.