July 1, 2025 • 36 mins
It's been another very busy news week in Niceville, the Emerald Coast, and around the Florida Gulf Coast. We have the latest local news for you!
This week, the boys cover a fire chief's allegedly use of the N word to his subordinates.
Governor Ron DeSantis signs the bill that's supposed to bring customary use back to the beaches of Walton County. But does it?
An FPL berm gave way in Holt - and polluted Wilkerson Creek with red clay. What are community leaders, and the company, going to do about it?
Finally, two heavyweights in FWB politics get physical (like in a shoving match).
Plus - we'll give you a heads up about what's happening this week!
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
02:00 Customary use of beaches in Walton County Update: Bill Signing
05:45 Accusations of racist language against Valparaiso Fire Chief
11:50 FPL Berm gives way
19:00 FWB City Shoving Match
23:00 Coming up this week in local news
32:00 Community Mailbag
Connect with us here:
Midbaynews.com/linkup
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Christopher Saul (00:03):
Energy. That's the kind of energy that we need
here at Paul and Saul,
Unknown (00:07):
the ready as I'm I'll ever be energy,
Christopher Saul (00:16):
because this week on Paul and Saul, we have
four big stories cover for youguys. I mean, just some crazy
stuff is happening this week,and we have a really big Bucha
county commission meeting that'scoming up on Tuesday that you're
going to want to know about. Alot of big things going on there
as well. But first of all, Paulschoberg, how in the world,
Unknown (00:36):
no better than I deserve, man, much better than
some of these other people thatwe're about to talk about. I
mean people behaving badly. Talkabout people behaving badly,
Christopher Saul (00:45):
allegedly behaving badly, but still not
great to be accused of some ofthese things that these people
are being accused of, but we'lltalk about them all here on Paul
and Saul, so Paul, before we getinto this, I see you're wearing
another noggin toboggan.
Unknown (00:59):
What you got? Yeah, today we're rocking the bayou
pub in nice little Florida. It'sa small, little, cute, blue
house that's hidden right offParton behind PB and J cafe.
They got outdoor seating. Theygot indoor seating. They have a
variety of beers to try andother beverages too. Sometimes
they have wine night and Slurpeenight. So I would encourage
everyone to give it a try. It'sgoing to be, it's a it's a great
(01:22):
place. It's, it's low key, andit's
delicious. That's actually whereI met my wife. There you go,
Bayou, pub, Niceville, Florida.
Christopher Saul (01:30):
I you pub guys. It's a great place to be,
great place to hang out. It'sall part of the Central Park and
complex, I would say, I don'tknow if it's called the complex,
but bunch of cool stuff going ondown there on part and drive. So
we're excited to see whathappens down there, especially
as we move forward. But let's goright into our local headlines
that we need to cover with youguys this week. The first things
(01:52):
first, why don't you tell us alittle bit about the this whole
thing going on here with theDeSantis? Bucha,
Unknown (01:59):
yeah. So you know, if you've been around here for a
while and you're local, you knowthat this has sort of ebbed and
flowed over time. But DeSantiscame and signed a Senate Bill
1622, into law. It's a bill thatdirectly affects how and where
people get to walk on the beach.
So
Christopher Saul (02:15):
yeah, and this is, this has been the same fight
that's been going on for, like,set almost a decade since 2018
basically, this thing, it'sreally convoluted, but do you
want to take a crack at it?
Paul, I mean, basically it'slike, we're going back, we're
going forth. There's some laws.
There's apparently Roman fishingnets involved. But
Unknown (02:35):
well, it comes down to this term called customary use.
And you know, historically, howhas that beach area have been
used. And in 2018 there was alaw that passed about customary
use in court that people, youknow, you know how the beach was
used, like where people couldwalk. You know what private
landowners could claim aboutaccess to the beach? And you
(02:57):
know, obviously beach goers wantto keep the beach as as public
as possible. And those who liveon the beach sometimes don't
walk. Want to walk. Watch peoplewalk through their backyards,
which, you know, they considerthe beach their backyard.
Christopher Saul (03:10):
Yeah. And so what this bill essentially does
is it takes the county now, ittakes it back to where before
2018 where the county would say,hey, we believe that there is
customary use in this area, andthen the beachfront owner, as it
were, would be able to say,well, I don't think so, and I
can prove it, but you know,that's where we're back to now
with this. But that doesn't meanthat this fight is actually
(03:33):
over. There's still plenty oflawsuits and legalese and hem
calling tomfoolery that's goingto take place before we have
kind of a fully fleshed outarea. And I think maybe
something that isn't on ourscript or kind of our notes
today is that this has reallybig deal or impact on tourism
here in the area. Because sure,there's, you know, 24 miles of
(03:54):
beach in Walton County, and somenumber of that is public, but a
lot of people, their retirementaccounts their investments are
all kind of like tied up inowning a beach house in Walton
County that maybe isn't on thebeach. And so they rely on
public access, or people'sability to access the sand as a
way to, you know, on theirretirement. And if this thing
(04:15):
doesn't get sorted outeventually, and clearly, because
there's so much fog of wararound this right, where people
aren't exactly sure who'sallowed to do what, when it's
it's going to have a long termeffect on tourism in Walton
County, because who wants to gosomewhere where you might not be
able to go to the beach, but youpaid all
Unknown (04:32):
this money? Yeah. I mean, I think most people, when
you come specifically fromoutside the area, you assume
that the beach is for everybody,and it's a really negative
experience, if you're, you know,setting up your stuff on the
beach, and private security or aprivate landowner comes out and
rudely, most of the time, rudelykicks you off. And so, you know,
we see it affecting tourism.
It's definitely on the messageboards and on Reddit and other
(04:54):
places about, you know, feelingunwelcome on our beaches.
Christopher Saul (05:00):
Yes, yeah. And I would ultimately say that
business and commerce doesn'tlike uncertainty. And if there's
anything that is a constantabout this whole situation, it
is the level of uncertainty thatsurrounds it. Because we'll post
a story and it'll be like, No,this isn't true, these 72 pieces
of this minutia and the law andlike, that's all well and good,
(05:20):
and good, and there might be 37different pieces of minutia that
if thens and whatever, but whenpeople aren't sure what they're
able to do, and they've beenyelled at by people
consistently, like, why wouldyou want to go back? Why
wouldn't you just go to PanamaCity or anywhere else in
Florida? Well,
Unknown (05:35):
unfortunately, I don't think this law does a great job
of like, necessarily clearingthat up. This
Christopher Saul (05:39):
next story is a little bit awkward for two
white guys with a podcast totalk about, but it's really
important because it's happenedhere and you should know about
it. Welcome back to Paul andSaul. I am Saul. He is Paul. And
today's story is really serious.
It's also messy, it'suncomfortable, it's still kind
of unfolding. Man,
Unknown (05:57):
yeah, you've been tracking this one and doing a
really good job of sort of doingsome investigative reporting
about the Valparaiso FireDepartment. And there's
accusations there that the firechief, David Lanier, used some
racial slurs in front offirefighters,
Christopher Saul (06:11):
yeah. And so I want to come out and say
immediately, like, Hey, theseare accusations. They have been
verified by the Valparaiso city,you know, commissioners or the
police department, but they'restill very serious and they're
corroborated, which is why I'meven bringing them up right now,
because if somebody says, Oh, myboss said something mean and I
don't like them, I'm not goingto report that. But when there's
multiple corroborations, and thecity of Alfredo says a
(06:34):
investigation is underway, sothey won't give me any records
on the situation, that tells methat this is very serious and
they're really looking into itwith with all of their might. So
it started with twofirefighters, David Rodriguez
and Larry Hudson, who filedcomplaints officially with the
city. At this point, they saythat Chief Lanier repeatedly
used what I'm going to say isthe N word, and I think you guys
(06:55):
all know what that means,because we're all adults, and so
basically, Rodriguez even showedme these text messages that he
got that are in a group. So it'sa very small fire department.
There's nine firefighters, andin this or seven, excuse me,
firefighters at this point, andall seven of them were in this
group text, with the exceptionof the chief. And basically it
(07:16):
said, like, stuff like, I can'tbelieve he said this to you. I
can't believe he said this infront of us, all this stuff. So
it's not something that, youknow, just kind of appeared out
of nowhere. These text messagesseem pretty damning. Man,
Unknown (07:27):
yeah, it's, it's messed up. And, you know, I sort of
live by the, the rule that ifEminem can't say, even say it,
then I'm not going to say iteither, you know. So, you know,
we grew up in this day and ageof the N word flying around and,
you know, and, but it's, it'snot something that that we
should be saying. It's not partof our culture. And I have a
feeling it wasn't, it was a hardR, and not a and not the light
(07:50):
R, allegedly. But
Christopher Saul (07:52):
so that, yeah, that's what I mean. That's what
these two firefighters aresaying. But they also say that
he didn't deny saying the wordin this meeting that they had
with, you know, the the policechief and the city commissioner
in charge of the firedepartment. They allege that
when they were in this meeting,the fire chief said, like, Yeah,
but everybody else was saying ittoo, which is, if that's true,
(08:12):
that's that's not incredibleleadership, not just because of
the language used, but, I mean,the buck kind of stops with you
and your
Unknown (08:18):
department director, yep, and the city is doing the
right thing. They're activelyinvestigating this. They've
locked down the internal filesrelated to the complaint, which
means we're not going to seeanything from this, really,
until the investigation iscomplete.
Christopher Saul (08:31):
Yeah. And I mean, for a department, this is
their this is their, like,fourth or fifth month of
operation, and this is theirsecond fire chief, so they had a
fire chief who technicallywasn't their full time fire
chief. He was consultant, butthey split ways at the end of
last month, and now this isChief linear, third week as fire
chief, and stuff like this hasalready come up. They're a mixed
(08:53):
department, which means thatthey have volunteers, they have
part time firefighters, and thenthey have full time firefighters
on staff, but they're stillhaving trouble, according to the
firefighters that are makingthese complaints. Because this
whole complaint, to me, was notjust about the racist language
that was allegedly used. It'salso about Manning. So when the
firefighter said that he was theonly firefighter on duty when he
(09:14):
had to run a truck, which he'snot very familiar with, because
he's a very junior firefighter.
NFPA, which is the fireprotection accreditation body
says that you should have fourfirefighters on the truck. He
had, he was all by himself oneday on a Saturday. They couldn't
find people to show up for workbetween the part timers and the
volunteers, and so they alsohave a total of, like I said,
Seven firefighters. And the NFPAstandards say that you should
(09:36):
have three or four firefightersper shift. So this is quickly
becoming an issue for safety andpublic safety for these
firefighters.
Unknown (09:46):
Yeah. I mean, I don't know why the city of Valparaiso
continues to have thesechallenges. I mean, this is, you
know, what you just named, isjust the beginning of the
laundry list you go you add onthe remodeling of the firehouse
and the issues there with moldand I. You know, being the short
staffed and gone their secondyou know, I mean, you named them
all already, and it's just crazythat how poorly this has gotten
(10:08):
off the ground and just sort ofkind of continues to make me
think that we should be mergingthese fire departments together,
not only for the cost savings,but it sounds like for the for
the health and safety of ourcitizens to begin with. If I
lived in Valparaiso, I would beextremely concerned by all of
these issues just in thefirehouse alone, let alone all
(10:30):
the other issues valpi has.
Christopher Saul (10:32):
So to add on to that point, the fire
department is supposed to have aresponse time of under 60
seconds. And I haven't gottenofficial response times from
Valparaiso, but these twofirefighters are claiming to me
that it took them three or threeand a half minutes to get from
their hotel room in Niceville,where they were staying, and I
do have receipts from that tothe firehouse where the fire
truck was then they could go tothe call. And so they said,
(10:55):
typically, it's about a threeminute drive from the hotel to
the firehouse, so you're alreadythree times the national
standard that's that's a seriousissue when it's life or death,
when minutes count. And so theyeventually, according to one of
the city commissioners, now theyhave moved them from that hotel
over to the Synovus bankbuilding. It's supposed to
become City Hall, eventually, atsome point, whenever they get
(11:16):
finished. I mean, it's beenthree or four years at this
point, but yeah, this is aserious safety issue at this
point.
Unknown (11:22):
Yeah, these are public safety jobs. The stakes are
super high. These allegationsare serious. All these issues
are serious. It's on the citynow to act transparently,
investigate everything and makethe right decision for the
populace. And you know, thisisn't the end of this story.
This story is going to go on fora lot longer. I
think, I think so as well. Yougo first. Let's talk
(11:44):
about the next story. So thenext story? FPL, they kind of
screwed up, man. So there's aheadline about red clay leaking
into one of our crystal clearlakes. They're doing some sort
of solar plant construction, andthen a berm broke, and so now we
got literally mud in the water.
Christopher Saul (12:03):
Yeah, and so this is over in Wilkerson Creek,
which is kind of an hope area.
The FPL is putting together whatthey call the kayak solar farm
facility, a ton of solar panelsto generate electricity, which
is really ironic, because it'slocated smack dab in the middle
of like chelco service area, soall the solar power being
generated won't be used locally,like in that immediate area.
(12:26):
Anyway, it's going to come downhere to like Niceville and be
used but the long story short isthat, yeah, this burn broke, and
the champion fighting to getstuff fixed has not necessarily
been the county commission oranything like that. It's, it's
been state senator Don gates,who's, who's come out from the
top rope on the story. And he's,he's not thrilled with FPL as an
(12:50):
organization already, he's toldme, you know, he wants to
regulate their profits to andbasically marry it to the 10
year treasury notes, so likethree to 4% growth instead of
the eight to 9% growth theyusually have. His argument,
obviously, is that, you know,FP, know, is basically a
government monopoly, and they'reperforming a government
(13:11):
function, and therefore theyshould be making government
level profits. And so that kindof brings us back to his
involvement with this solarpanel burn breakage. He's been
there. He has a number of staffmembers on this thing, and
essentially they're trying tofigure out exactly what happened
and exactly what FPL needs to donext.
Unknown (13:33):
Yeah, this happened on around June 8, and you know,
after a couple of weeks, theFlorida Department environmental
protection stepped in. They sentout in. They sent FPL a warning
letter on June 20, about abouttheir erosion failures and
violation of permits and and nowthere's a formal investigation
underway to figure out whathappened and and what can be
(13:56):
done to you know, mitigate thisfor the future, but also clean
up after the mess currently.
Christopher Saul (14:03):
Yeah, so Crestview, I went and did some
research, because I've, I'vealways, kind of like, heard
apocryphally, that Crestview is,like, pretty rainy. It's a lot
of rain per year. I had no ideait was the 16th rainiest city in
America. At one point a coupleyears ago, it was the rainiest
city in America. That number, ofcourse, goes up and down, but, I
mean, you have an environmentalengineering background, so when
you hear all the background, sowhen you hear all this stuff
(14:24):
about like berms and washoutsand heavy rains, where is your
mind thinking? What are youtinkering on when you're
thinking about this situation?
Well,
Unknown (14:31):
probably a lot of those policies are based on averages.
And, you know, just to sort ofpiggyback on what you just said,
if, if Crestview is receiving,or that area of Okaloosa County
is receiving above average rain,above the average, you know,
maybe these construction bermsand policies aren't, aren't
being set properly for thatgeographic area. So I think what
(14:51):
it's going to come down to is alot of finger pointing. You're
going to have FPL saying, well,we built it like we were
supposed to build it. And, youknow, it. Work. How? You know
that's not our fault. Meanwhile,the public and politicians are
going to be pointing theirfingers right back at, yeah, I
think you're
Christopher Saul (15:07):
exactly right.
I think that there's going to besome finger pointing, but I
think that Don gates his team. Imean, look, Don gates is
powerful guy. He's he was notthe senate president for
nothing. And I think that thatmeans that if there's one person
that can put a little bit offear in the hearts of FPL, it's
probably him. I mean, he, hedidn't get this bill passed last
(15:30):
year to regulate the profits ofFPL, but he got it, got through
several committees. He madestuff happen on this bill,
which, I mean, there weremultiple people that were in his
way, that were in the pockets,frankly, of FPL. I mean, they
got hundreds of 1000s of dollarsfrom FPL in this last election
cycle, and they still couldn'tkill it in the crib. I mean,
(15:51):
this thing had legs. And so I'minterested to see how he uses
this, because he's, ultimately,he's a very political animal. He
knows how to use a good crisis,and so I'm interested to see how
this, how he uses this, whatthis looks like. But I'm also
interested to see what thecounty commission does about
this, because this is in theirbackyard. They're the ones that
(16:13):
are helping with the EP. Theyhave to issue permits. There was
a super duper top secret meetingthat I got wind of that happened
over the weekend with JimmyPatronus, County Commission
Chairman Paul Mixon, and, ofcourse, Don gates and Nathan
Boyles, the state rep up there.
But I want to know where SherryCox is. Sherry Cox is the
(16:34):
representative for this area,and we haven't heard Boo from
her since before she gotelected, and that was a year
ago. I am, look, I'm I don'tmake sport out of calling people
that are more powerful than meout. But this, this is a
continuing issue where we havenot heard anything from the
person that represents thisarea, and that's a problem for
me. I want to know what she'sdoing. I want to know where she
(16:56):
is. I want to know who she'stalking to to fix this issue.
Because ultimately, like, thesepeople are represented directly
by her. I mean, all we vote forall the commissioners, but this
is the person that's supposed tobe, you know, in charge of this
stuff. That's supposed to be ontop of this stuff. It's supposed
to be communicating with FPL.
And sure, like, I don't thinkFPL was, like, you know, we're
gonna get this burn to blow outand waha, because this is a huge
(17:18):
issue for them, too. But like, Iwant my elected officials to go
out there and, like, make surethat stuff gets fixed and people
are held. Response, yeah,
Unknown (17:29):
it definitely seems like it should be a meeting she
should be at, so if she wasn't,that's that's a little weird. It
does. It is interesting forNathan Boyles, just because of
where he was and now where he ispositioned politically. I'm glad
he was there. But you know, whenthey talk about, when the
general public talks about ourpoliticians not doing anything
for the environment, orespecially these Republican
(17:50):
leaders not doing anything forthe environment, meeting on the
weekend to talk about somethinglike this, you know, shows great
promise, and if the environmentis important to you, should be
happy that they were meetingover a weekend to try to solve
this problem. So I guess we'llhave to see how it plays out
Christopher Saul (18:04):
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Unknown (18:37):
app. Welcome back, guys, to the Paul and Saul show.
We got a little bit of localdrama brewing, local government
drama, and got a little physicalin Fort Walton Beach. Why don't
you tell us? Saul, Whathappened,
Christopher Saul (18:49):
brother. So it got pretty tense, according to
our reporting in mid Bay news byintrepid gumshoe reporter Colin
Bester, at the 24th of June citycouncil meeting, former
Councilman Travis Smith cameforward and said that the
current charter Review CommitteeChairman Mike minute physically
pushed him after they had ameeting a few days earlier on
June that,
Unknown (19:11):
like, physically pushed him, like, shoved him,
Christopher Saul (19:13):
like, like, like, like, yeah. Like, got in
his face and did that. AndAccording to Smith, yeah, like,
he told the council during thispublic comment section that
minich had put hands on himafter this charter review
committee meeting. And like, Idon't know how many charter
review committee meetings you'vebeen to, but they're typically
rather dull affairs. Sure,they're usually, they're usually
(19:33):
like, Well, guys, the policysays then we should like and not
that to diminish what they do.
But let's be honest, it's forpolicy walks anyway.
Unknown (19:40):
I mean, it's super interesting. It should never get
down to fisticuffs or anyphysical action. None of it is
that serious. People are notdying here. But what is the city
going to do?
Christopher Saul (19:51):
Okay, so they are going to have, they're going
to have a meeting in theimmediate future, at some point,
not the immediate future, in thenear future, to discuss this. So
Councilman Paine Walker said,hey, I want to remove this guy
from the board right now at thatcity council meeting last week,
and he said, and I'm quotinghere, I don't care what the law
says, I want him removed. Thatmotion didn't get a second, but
(20:12):
it did kind of evolve fromthere. So city attorney Jeff
burns stepped in and said, Hey,City Code requires a public
hearing before you can removesomebody from misconduct. And
it's a due process thing, right?
So if you don't have a hearing,you can't fire and that means
they need to set up a hearing.
Unknown (20:31):
So somebody's got a motion to bring this along
further into a hearing state,
Christopher Saul (20:36):
yes. So Councilman David Schmidt made a
substitute motion to say, hey,let's have this meeting on
August the 12th, which is theirnext regular council meeting.
And that one passed four tothree. Mayor Nick Allegretto was
the one that cast, cast the tievote. Tie breaking vote.
Unknown (20:52):
Well, did the alleged Shover respond to this in any
way? The
Christopher Saul (20:56):
alleged shiver defended himself, according to
Nick Allegretto, who said thathe didn't deny Him, deny pushing
it. But let me try that again.
So yeah, Nick Allegretto talked,and Nick Allegretto being the
mayor of the city of Fort WaltonBeach, sorry, just kind of like,
oh, you know, Nick Allegrettosaid he talked to minich early
in the day and said that managedidn't deny that he shoved a
former councilman, Travis Smith.
(21:19):
It's, wild. But we also reachedout via Colin to manage himself,
and he declined to comment, kindof overall,
Unknown (21:28):
probably smart on his part. So, I mean, it sounds like
this might go beyond just like apersonal thing, like it might be
work related.
Christopher Saul (21:36):
Yeah, so that's part of the debate.
Councilman Jeter warned againstturning the council into what he
called a judge duty debatestage, basically. And Councilman
Merrill said that, you know, weshouldn't be putting hands on
each other, but he didn't wantto be a judge and jury without
more facts, is kind of what hesaid.
Unknown (21:55):
Yeah. I mean, I guess if the council voted for three
there's some people on thecouncil, including the mayor,
that think this is worthinvestigating further and
talking about at this hearing.
Christopher Saul (22:04):
And so Councilman Schmidt was pretty
clear on this. He says, like,Hey, if you put hands on him,
he's got to go, but everybody'sentitled to a trial in America.
So here we are. So he his directquote was, like, it makes me
sick to think that somethinglike this happened. I guess
we'll find out exactly how sickand because there's going to be
a vote at some point, there's aspecial meeting, though,
scheduled for July 8, at 3pm andthat came out of that same
(22:27):
discussion. Walker Schmidt andAlberto all supported the idea
of acting sooner if needed.
They'll use that meeting torevisit this issue, and might
even hold the hearing then,
Unknown (22:36):
yeah. So if that happens, we'll have an update
just in a week and a half or twoweeks or so. So stay
Christopher Saul (22:41):
tuned. All right, guys, thank you so much
for being here on Paul and Sauland we need to thank our donors
for this week recurring donors.
We have a couple of newrecurring donors. I'm very
excited about that our boy, yourboy, salt and light, realtor
extraordinaire, John Saul manhas put some money up to make
sure that we can continue to dothis show. So thank you so much,
John. Thanks, John. Also Thankyou Kelly and Chris. Shane,
(23:02):
Wayne, Joshua, Paul Kelly, JamieLee and Tim for your recurring
donations. We really appreciateyou. It keeps this thing going,
and if you want to help us out,midbay news.com/donate, is the
place to go that helps us keepstuff like this on the air so
that we can tell you what thenews is, and you don't have to,
I don't know, shovel throughword of mouth for 15 hours,
(23:24):
which I think is neat anyway.
Second, let's see. Look ahead.
Not a lot of stuff this weekcoming up, but a lot of good
stuff. Wait, that doesn't evenmake sense. Not a lot of
meetings, but some good stuffthat's coming out of the one
meeting we have this week, theOkaloosa County Commission is
meeting this week on Tuesday. Acouple of big things going on.
(23:47):
So first thing to talk about isthe Eglin West Gate project. So
for people that may not befamiliar with this one, the
Eglin West Gate project is thisidea between Team Eglin, the 96
test wing, and the Oklahoma CityBoard of County Commissioners.
They want to make the west side,the West Gate, kind of a renewed
area. They want to upgrade it,make it a better, more efficient
(24:10):
place. But really, the specificsof the idea are not there yet.
They've kind of jumped throughthe first hurdle, and now here
comes the second hurdle, whichis a 30 month study. It's a PD
and E study that basically isgoing to tell the county and
tell the Air Force Base, like,Hey, this is what we need to do.
This is, you know, the pathforward. And so basically, PD
(24:31):
and E stands for ProjectDevelopment and Environment
study, which means they're goingto get, like, a lot of the
background stuff, get a lot ofthe other information they need
before they can move forward onsomething more specific. So
it's, it's almost $2 million toput something like this
together, and is also as a partof this Eglin and Okaloosa
County have agreed to worktogether for another three years
(24:51):
on this project.
Unknown (24:55):
Well, again, I guess that's good news. That's
progress. You know, thingsgetting upgraded, nicer stuff.
You.
That's That's good for alleverybody likes nice stuff.
Exactly. What else we got so
Christopher Saul (25:05):
shallow water fads. And it's not just a fad
anymore, because it's beenhappening for years. Folks, the
fish aggregating devices, that'sfads I know. Very clever.
Christopher, thank you. Thankyou guys. They have decided to
deploy some fads in a shallowerarea. So these, these fish
aggregating devices, are prettybig. And if you think of the
floor of the Gulf around herelike a big desert, it's like the
(25:30):
Sahara Desert. There's not a lotof places for life to grow
because of the sand that's outthere. And so they need these
things, fish aggregatingdevices, to get fish to stick
around a little bit longer andkind of like, nibble on stuff
and for algae to grow and dothings like that. So that's why
we're, like, throwing all theseships like the SS, United States
into the Gulf, and putting thesefads out there. Well, they've
(25:50):
done this for, you know, furtherout, 60 to 80 miles out where,
like, charter fishermen aretypically the only people that
are gonna go out there,commercial fishermen. But they
want to put some closer ones in.
So something like 2030, milesoff store, and that'll expand
access. And this is somethingthat the county is going to have
to vote on, because they want touse a specific vendor, and this
vendor, Walter Marine, has beenone of the more successful fad
(26:11):
deployment specialists, which abig deal because they've had a
lot of failed fads. Wow, justlike a lot of alliteration on
this one. And so they want tomake sure that these things
don't fail. They get put downwrong, and they don't catch or
they don't get algae, and thenall of a sudden, it's, you know,
however, many 1000s of dollarsdown the drain. So they want to
put eight with Walter Marine, aspecific one. And if they put it
(26:31):
out to bid, it'd be a little bitdifferent. But they said, these
are the guys. We're going to gowith them. They're going to pay
them, or give them half amillion dollars to put these
things out there. So hopefully,you know, fads for the people
get them a little bit closer, soyou don't have to have, you
know, a real high speed charterfishing boat to go and fish
these guys.
Unknown (26:51):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, listen, they call destin one of
the luckiest fishing villages,for a reason. We have fantastic
fishing here. These fad devicesare nothing new in other regions
and parts of the world. They canbe done properly. And you know,
if you if you only got to go 30miles out instead of 60 to 80,
that that's pretty good. It'sless gas. My guy, you know,
(27:11):
listen, I'll take it less gas.
That's expensive. I'm tellingyou,
Christopher Saul (27:15):
like, yeah, because if you know, you might
not catch the, you know, like a500 pound Marlin or whatever. I
don't even know if that's athing. Sorry, I'm not I'm not
fishy, but you might getsomething smaller, which is just
as good because you're notrunning a Charter Business, and
you just are going for your forfunsies. So I'm excited to see
that thing. Anyway. Next thingon the list is the Air Force
enlisted village expansion. Soif you're familiar with the Air
(27:36):
Force enlisted village, it's aplace that's i It's set up so
that people that retired fromthe military, that were
enlisted, or their spouses, orsurviving spouses, can have a
place to live in older age. It'slike an assisted living facility
kind of thing. Well, I guessit's independent living. This
next piece that they want to dovictory village is going to be
more assisted living facilitykind of thing, but they have to
(28:00):
rezone a bunch of stuff at theokala county commission from
military use to mixed use, sothat they can put, you know,
single family homes or duplexesor apartment complexes for these
people to come and live. It'sroughly slated to have about
2000 residents units, whichwould be huge win for the Air
(28:21):
Force enlisted village. Lot ofpeople need this kind of
housing, especially around here,with house as expensive as it
is, and the fact that a lot ofolder people are staying in
their single family homesbecause of the value and the
fact that people can't come inand buy them as easily. So
having a place to go will makeit so that people can get out of
the market a little bit earlierand not have a albatross around
(28:43):
their neck, a very expensivehome that they can't afford to
leave.
Unknown (28:46):
Yep, this is just one more example of trying to do
something more affordable andattainable for our you know, for
our community, it's obviouslynot the only thing we need to
do, but it's but it's superimportant. I want to talk about
the next one real quick, becauseit's making me way sad. So yeah,
Kristen shell, who's been theDeputy City Manager of
Niceville, who has done a lot inher short period of time with
(29:10):
the city of Niceville to to helpmake nice fill a better place.
She's taken a job with thecounty as the Growth Management
Director, and I'm personallygoing to just miss her. She's a
great person to work with, andshe has made the city of
Niceville very easy to workwith. I'm sure a lot of those
things that she's set up willcontinue. But man, Niceville is
losing in OkaloosaCounty. I think I just lost
Christopher Saul (29:32):
you there at the end. Man, you check your
sound,
Unknown (29:34):
yeah. Let me try again.
She's done a lot of great thingsfor the city of Niceville, and
man, the city of Niceville islosing on this one in Okaloosa
County is gaining.
Christopher Saul (29:42):
So my my hope is that, because she's in
Okaloosa County, that stillmeans a lot of benefit for us,
just not as much and isconcentrated. So it's, it's a
win for the county, and it's a,I don't want to say it's a loss
for nice bill, because she'llstill have a hand in what nice
bills doing. But it's, it's lesstime, right? And somebody with.
Five master's degrees. Doesn'tjust like, show up and like, do
(30:03):
as much as she does. You don'treally get those off the rack at
Walmart. So Kristen has been ahuge positive for the city of
Niceville. And man, I'm rootingfor she's gonna if they if they
approve her, which I mean, like,if you don't like, what are you
doing? But she's going to betheir growth management
director. So I think what thismeans is that you need to start
looking at development in bluewater. That's what that means.
Unknown (30:26):
Well, I'm not sure what it means for me personally, but
I do, I do want to wish Kristen,you know, congratulations. I
know it's not in stone yet. It'swritten in pencil, but like you
said, I think it's sort of adone deal. And I wish her the
best of luck. I think she'llenjoy that job. It'll allow her
to operate on a slightly biggerstage, and it'll be good for the
(30:48):
county as a whole.
Christopher Saul (30:49):
Well, this show so far has been brought to
you by the folks at movementmortgage, specifically with Team
Steve shutt. Team shut anyway,we are so thrilled to have Steve
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fantastic. All right, we'reback. Welcome back to Paul and
Saul no interview today. I know,I know, but we do have our
(31:56):
community mail back. And youknow what, Paul, I think you
take this first one consideringthat you're the one that
Unknown (32:01):
wrote it, you had this really good image capture on the
gates and FPL story with them,arm wrestling. I thought it was
hilarious. I just, I just made acomment on the post that the
image that used for the postwas, was
chefs kiss my friend, look
Christopher Saul (32:16):
and I I'm not the kind of guy to toot my horn.
I absolutely am, but it was verygood. And I used AI to, like,
create, like, hey, I need Dongates to be arm wrestling an
anthropomorphic FPL logo. And,boom, that popped up. So I'm not
saying that AI is going to takeall of our jobs and destroy
humanity, but if they do, ifit's producing that kind of
(32:38):
content, I mean, what do we haveto complain
Unknown (32:40):
about, yeah, well done.
It's all in the prompt making,yeah. Well,
Christopher Saul (32:44):
I would like to think that that was all me,
but, like, I kind of feel likethe Scottie pimpin Pippin to AI
is Michael Jordan. Anyway, a lotof comments this week about our
story on the bill signing forSenate. Bill 1622, a lot of
people saying, well, this isn'tright. Well, this isn't right,
and that's not right in thisspecific thing. So I'm just
(33:06):
going to read what the all theanalysts over there at the state
government who do this full timefor a living say about this
thing. Basically, Senate Bill1622, repeals Florida Statute.
160, 3035, which establishesprocedures the government entity
must follow when attempting toestablish recreational customer
use of property. Statutoryprocedures include a public
(33:28):
hearing to adopt a formal noticeof intent to affected property
owners, which notice alleges theexistence of recreational
customer use on the properties,and a judicial proceeding to
discuss, to to consider whetherthe alleged customer use has
been ancient, reasonable,without interruption and free
from dispute. The repeal of thestatute means a return to how
customary use rights weredetermined prior to enactment of
(33:50):
the statute. There's threepoints here. One, a governmental
entity may declare the existenceof a customary use and adopt a
local customary use ordinancewithout following procedures in
160 3.0352 property owners mustfile a lawsuit challenging the
ordinance and demonstrate incourt the public does not enjoy
customary use rights on theirprivately owned beaches, and
three courts will apply thecommon law doctrine of customer
(34:13):
use when ascertaining on a caseby case basis, whether the
public enjoys customary userights over privately owned
beaches. This bill takes effectupon becoming a law and friends,
Romans, countrymen, it's notover. It's not even close to
over. There's so many morelawsuits from this coming look,
this is like from a news man'sperspective. This is the story
that keeps on giving. I don'tknow what to tell y'all. This is
(34:37):
if it's not I think it was thesecond most viewed story on our
website this year. It'sincredible, like I and I get it
look, everybody's here for thebeach. I'm not, I'm not dogging
that. I'm just saying like that,the strength of feeling with
which surrounds this issue, Iunderestimated, though,
Unknown (34:56):
listen, I don't know where it's going to go. It's
just going to be interesting. Idon't think the. Legislation did
us a ton of good. I mean, maybeit made the general public feel
better a little bit, but I stillthink there's going to be a lot
of gray and a lot of weirdthings going on in the future
related to beach
Christopher Saul (35:10):
access. I think, yeah, I think it's
totally cloudy. I don't think ithelps anybody, but it looks like
a win from the press conference.
And I think that sometimeslooking like a win is just as
important as being a win. In themeantime, we will take one of
these and continue to writestories about it until you guys
get tired of hearing about beachaccess, which I don't think is
happening
Unknown (35:30):
soon. Well, real quick.
I wanted to thank all of ourlisteners out there. I do run
into you at Publix and otherplaces in public and and you
guys are awesome and have alwaystreated me great. Our YouTube
channel is doing quite well. Inour first couple of weeks, we've
got almost 2000 views across ourshorts and our videos. And
obviously we're available onanything, pretty much anywhere.
If, if you are on Spotify, we'rethere. If you want to listen on
(35:53):
Apple, we're there. If you're aYouTube person, we're there. If
you're on Facebook, we're there.
Find a place that we're not andChristopher will make sure we
end up on there. So keep therewe go key and I don't want to
hear him sing anymore. Thank youfor so thank you for supporting
our show and as always be nice.
Now say it again, as always benice. Nice though
Christopher Saul (36:19):
You heard the man. See ya you.
Energy. That's the kind of energy that we need
here at Paul and Saul,
Unknown (00:07):
the ready as I'm I'll ever be energy,
Christopher Saul (00:16):
because this week on Paul and Saul, we have
four big stories cover for youguys. I mean, just some crazy
stuff is happening this week,and we have a really big Bucha
county commission meeting that'scoming up on Tuesday that you're
going to want to know about. Alot of big things going on there
as well. But first of all, Paulschoberg, how in the world,
Unknown (00:36):
no better than I deserve, man, much better than
some of these other people thatwe're about to talk about. I
mean people behaving badly. Talkabout people behaving badly,
Christopher Saul (00:45):
allegedly behaving badly, but still not
great to be accused of some ofthese things that these people
are being accused of, but we'lltalk about them all here on Paul
and Saul, so Paul, before we getinto this, I see you're wearing
another noggin toboggan.
Unknown (00:59):
What you got? Yeah, today we're rocking the bayou
pub in nice little Florida. It'sa small, little, cute, blue
house that's hidden right offParton behind PB and J cafe.
They got outdoor seating. Theygot indoor seating. They have a
variety of beers to try andother beverages too. Sometimes
they have wine night and Slurpeenight. So I would encourage
everyone to give it a try. It'sgoing to be, it's a it's a great
(01:22):
place. It's, it's low key, andit's
delicious. That's actually whereI met my wife. There you go,
Bayou, pub, Niceville, Florida.
Christopher Saul (01:30):
I you pub guys. It's a great place to be,
great place to hang out. It'sall part of the Central Park and
complex, I would say, I don'tknow if it's called the complex,
but bunch of cool stuff going ondown there on part and drive. So
we're excited to see whathappens down there, especially
as we move forward. But let's goright into our local headlines
that we need to cover with youguys this week. The first things
(01:52):
first, why don't you tell us alittle bit about the this whole
thing going on here with theDeSantis? Bucha,
Unknown (01:59):
yeah. So you know, if you've been around here for a
while and you're local, you knowthat this has sort of ebbed and
flowed over time. But DeSantiscame and signed a Senate Bill
1622, into law. It's a bill thatdirectly affects how and where
people get to walk on the beach.
So
Christopher Saul (02:15):
yeah, and this is, this has been the same fight
that's been going on for, like,set almost a decade since 2018
basically, this thing, it'sreally convoluted, but do you
want to take a crack at it?
Paul, I mean, basically it'slike, we're going back, we're
going forth. There's some laws.
There's apparently Roman fishingnets involved. But
Unknown (02:35):
well, it comes down to this term called customary use.
And you know, historically, howhas that beach area have been
used. And in 2018 there was alaw that passed about customary
use in court that people, youknow, you know how the beach was
used, like where people couldwalk. You know what private
landowners could claim aboutaccess to the beach? And you
(02:57):
know, obviously beach goers wantto keep the beach as as public
as possible. And those who liveon the beach sometimes don't
walk. Want to walk. Watch peoplewalk through their backyards,
which, you know, they considerthe beach their backyard.
Christopher Saul (03:10):
Yeah. And so what this bill essentially does
is it takes the county now, ittakes it back to where before
2018 where the county would say,hey, we believe that there is
customary use in this area, andthen the beachfront owner, as it
were, would be able to say,well, I don't think so, and I
can prove it, but you know,that's where we're back to now
with this. But that doesn't meanthat this fight is actually
(03:33):
over. There's still plenty oflawsuits and legalese and hem
calling tomfoolery that's goingto take place before we have
kind of a fully fleshed outarea. And I think maybe
something that isn't on ourscript or kind of our notes
today is that this has reallybig deal or impact on tourism
here in the area. Because sure,there's, you know, 24 miles of
(03:54):
beach in Walton County, and somenumber of that is public, but a
lot of people, their retirementaccounts their investments are
all kind of like tied up inowning a beach house in Walton
County that maybe isn't on thebeach. And so they rely on
public access, or people'sability to access the sand as a
way to, you know, on theirretirement. And if this thing
(04:15):
doesn't get sorted outeventually, and clearly, because
there's so much fog of wararound this right, where people
aren't exactly sure who'sallowed to do what, when it's
it's going to have a long termeffect on tourism in Walton
County, because who wants to gosomewhere where you might not be
able to go to the beach, but youpaid all
Unknown (04:32):
this money? Yeah. I mean, I think most people, when
you come specifically fromoutside the area, you assume
that the beach is for everybody,and it's a really negative
experience, if you're, you know,setting up your stuff on the
beach, and private security or aprivate landowner comes out and
rudely, most of the time, rudelykicks you off. And so, you know,
we see it affecting tourism.
It's definitely on the messageboards and on Reddit and other
(04:54):
places about, you know, feelingunwelcome on our beaches.
Christopher Saul (05:00):
Yes, yeah. And I would ultimately say that
business and commerce doesn'tlike uncertainty. And if there's
anything that is a constantabout this whole situation, it
is the level of uncertainty thatsurrounds it. Because we'll post
a story and it'll be like, No,this isn't true, these 72 pieces
of this minutia and the law andlike, that's all well and good,
(05:20):
and good, and there might be 37different pieces of minutia that
if thens and whatever, but whenpeople aren't sure what they're
able to do, and they've beenyelled at by people
consistently, like, why wouldyou want to go back? Why
wouldn't you just go to PanamaCity or anywhere else in
Florida? Well,
Unknown (05:35):
unfortunately, I don't think this law does a great job
of like, necessarily clearingthat up. This
Christopher Saul (05:39):
next story is a little bit awkward for two
white guys with a podcast totalk about, but it's really
important because it's happenedhere and you should know about
it. Welcome back to Paul andSaul. I am Saul. He is Paul. And
today's story is really serious.
It's also messy, it'suncomfortable, it's still kind
of unfolding. Man,
Unknown (05:57):
yeah, you've been tracking this one and doing a
really good job of sort of doingsome investigative reporting
about the Valparaiso FireDepartment. And there's
accusations there that the firechief, David Lanier, used some
racial slurs in front offirefighters,
Christopher Saul (06:11):
yeah. And so I want to come out and say
immediately, like, Hey, theseare accusations. They have been
verified by the Valparaiso city,you know, commissioners or the
police department, but they'restill very serious and they're
corroborated, which is why I'meven bringing them up right now,
because if somebody says, Oh, myboss said something mean and I
don't like them, I'm not goingto report that. But when there's
multiple corroborations, and thecity of Alfredo says a
(06:34):
investigation is underway, sothey won't give me any records
on the situation, that tells methat this is very serious and
they're really looking into itwith with all of their might. So
it started with twofirefighters, David Rodriguez
and Larry Hudson, who filedcomplaints officially with the
city. At this point, they saythat Chief Lanier repeatedly
used what I'm going to say isthe N word, and I think you guys
(06:55):
all know what that means,because we're all adults, and so
basically, Rodriguez even showedme these text messages that he
got that are in a group. So it'sa very small fire department.
There's nine firefighters, andin this or seven, excuse me,
firefighters at this point, andall seven of them were in this
group text, with the exceptionof the chief. And basically it
(07:16):
said, like, stuff like, I can'tbelieve he said this to you. I
can't believe he said this infront of us, all this stuff. So
it's not something that, youknow, just kind of appeared out
of nowhere. These text messagesseem pretty damning. Man,
Unknown (07:27):
yeah, it's, it's messed up. And, you know, I sort of
live by the, the rule that ifEminem can't say, even say it,
then I'm not going to say iteither, you know. So, you know,
we grew up in this day and ageof the N word flying around and,
you know, and, but it's, it'snot something that that we
should be saying. It's not partof our culture. And I have a
feeling it wasn't, it was a hardR, and not a and not the light
(07:50):
R, allegedly. But
Christopher Saul (07:52):
so that, yeah, that's what I mean. That's what
these two firefighters aresaying. But they also say that
he didn't deny saying the wordin this meeting that they had
with, you know, the the policechief and the city commissioner
in charge of the firedepartment. They allege that
when they were in this meeting,the fire chief said, like, Yeah,
but everybody else was saying ittoo, which is, if that's true,
(08:12):
that's that's not incredibleleadership, not just because of
the language used, but, I mean,the buck kind of stops with you
and your
Unknown (08:18):
department director, yep, and the city is doing the
right thing. They're activelyinvestigating this. They've
locked down the internal filesrelated to the complaint, which
means we're not going to seeanything from this, really,
until the investigation iscomplete.
Christopher Saul (08:31):
Yeah. And I mean, for a department, this is
their this is their, like,fourth or fifth month of
operation, and this is theirsecond fire chief, so they had a
fire chief who technicallywasn't their full time fire
chief. He was consultant, butthey split ways at the end of
last month, and now this isChief linear, third week as fire
chief, and stuff like this hasalready come up. They're a mixed
(08:53):
department, which means thatthey have volunteers, they have
part time firefighters, and thenthey have full time firefighters
on staff, but they're stillhaving trouble, according to the
firefighters that are makingthese complaints. Because this
whole complaint, to me, was notjust about the racist language
that was allegedly used. It'salso about Manning. So when the
firefighter said that he was theonly firefighter on duty when he
(09:14):
had to run a truck, which he'snot very familiar with, because
he's a very junior firefighter.
NFPA, which is the fireprotection accreditation body
says that you should have fourfirefighters on the truck. He
had, he was all by himself oneday on a Saturday. They couldn't
find people to show up for workbetween the part timers and the
volunteers, and so they alsohave a total of, like I said,
Seven firefighters. And the NFPAstandards say that you should
(09:36):
have three or four firefightersper shift. So this is quickly
becoming an issue for safety andpublic safety for these
firefighters.
Unknown (09:46):
Yeah. I mean, I don't know why the city of Valparaiso
continues to have thesechallenges. I mean, this is, you
know, what you just named, isjust the beginning of the
laundry list you go you add onthe remodeling of the firehouse
and the issues there with moldand I. You know, being the short
staffed and gone their secondyou know, I mean, you named them
all already, and it's just crazythat how poorly this has gotten
(10:08):
off the ground and just sort ofkind of continues to make me
think that we should be mergingthese fire departments together,
not only for the cost savings,but it sounds like for the for
the health and safety of ourcitizens to begin with. If I
lived in Valparaiso, I would beextremely concerned by all of
these issues just in thefirehouse alone, let alone all
(10:30):
the other issues valpi has.
Christopher Saul (10:32):
So to add on to that point, the fire
department is supposed to have aresponse time of under 60
seconds. And I haven't gottenofficial response times from
Valparaiso, but these twofirefighters are claiming to me
that it took them three or threeand a half minutes to get from
their hotel room in Niceville,where they were staying, and I
do have receipts from that tothe firehouse where the fire
truck was then they could go tothe call. And so they said,
(10:55):
typically, it's about a threeminute drive from the hotel to
the firehouse, so you're alreadythree times the national
standard that's that's a seriousissue when it's life or death,
when minutes count. And so theyeventually, according to one of
the city commissioners, now theyhave moved them from that hotel
over to the Synovus bankbuilding. It's supposed to
become City Hall, eventually, atsome point, whenever they get
(11:16):
finished. I mean, it's beenthree or four years at this
point, but yeah, this is aserious safety issue at this
point.
Unknown (11:22):
Yeah, these are public safety jobs. The stakes are
super high. These allegationsare serious. All these issues
are serious. It's on the citynow to act transparently,
investigate everything and makethe right decision for the
populace. And you know, thisisn't the end of this story.
This story is going to go on fora lot longer. I
think, I think so as well. Yougo first. Let's talk
(11:44):
about the next story. So thenext story? FPL, they kind of
screwed up, man. So there's aheadline about red clay leaking
into one of our crystal clearlakes. They're doing some sort
of solar plant construction, andthen a berm broke, and so now we
got literally mud in the water.
Christopher Saul (12:03):
Yeah, and so this is over in Wilkerson Creek,
which is kind of an hope area.
The FPL is putting together whatthey call the kayak solar farm
facility, a ton of solar panelsto generate electricity, which
is really ironic, because it'slocated smack dab in the middle
of like chelco service area, soall the solar power being
generated won't be used locally,like in that immediate area.
(12:26):
Anyway, it's going to come downhere to like Niceville and be
used but the long story short isthat, yeah, this burn broke, and
the champion fighting to getstuff fixed has not necessarily
been the county commission oranything like that. It's, it's
been state senator Don gates,who's, who's come out from the
top rope on the story. And he's,he's not thrilled with FPL as an
(12:50):
organization already, he's toldme, you know, he wants to
regulate their profits to andbasically marry it to the 10
year treasury notes, so likethree to 4% growth instead of
the eight to 9% growth theyusually have. His argument,
obviously, is that, you know,FP, know, is basically a
government monopoly, and they'reperforming a government
(13:11):
function, and therefore theyshould be making government
level profits. And so that kindof brings us back to his
involvement with this solarpanel burn breakage. He's been
there. He has a number of staffmembers on this thing, and
essentially they're trying tofigure out exactly what happened
and exactly what FPL needs to donext.
Unknown (13:33):
Yeah, this happened on around June 8, and you know,
after a couple of weeks, theFlorida Department environmental
protection stepped in. They sentout in. They sent FPL a warning
letter on June 20, about abouttheir erosion failures and
violation of permits and and nowthere's a formal investigation
underway to figure out whathappened and and what can be
(13:56):
done to you know, mitigate thisfor the future, but also clean
up after the mess currently.
Christopher Saul (14:03):
Yeah, so Crestview, I went and did some
research, because I've, I'vealways, kind of like, heard
apocryphally, that Crestview is,like, pretty rainy. It's a lot
of rain per year. I had no ideait was the 16th rainiest city in
America. At one point a coupleyears ago, it was the rainiest
city in America. That number, ofcourse, goes up and down, but, I
mean, you have an environmentalengineering background, so when
you hear all the background, sowhen you hear all this stuff
(14:24):
about like berms and washoutsand heavy rains, where is your
mind thinking? What are youtinkering on when you're
thinking about this situation?
Well,
Unknown (14:31):
probably a lot of those policies are based on averages.
And, you know, just to sort ofpiggyback on what you just said,
if, if Crestview is receiving,or that area of Okaloosa County
is receiving above average rain,above the average, you know,
maybe these construction bermsand policies aren't, aren't
being set properly for thatgeographic area. So I think what
(14:51):
it's going to come down to is alot of finger pointing. You're
going to have FPL saying, well,we built it like we were
supposed to build it. And, youknow, it. Work. How? You know
that's not our fault. Meanwhile,the public and politicians are
going to be pointing theirfingers right back at, yeah, I
think you're
Christopher Saul (15:07):
exactly right.
I think that there's going to besome finger pointing, but I
think that Don gates his team. Imean, look, Don gates is
powerful guy. He's he was notthe senate president for
nothing. And I think that thatmeans that if there's one person
that can put a little bit offear in the hearts of FPL, it's
probably him. I mean, he, hedidn't get this bill passed last
(15:30):
year to regulate the profits ofFPL, but he got it, got through
several committees. He madestuff happen on this bill,
which, I mean, there weremultiple people that were in his
way, that were in the pockets,frankly, of FPL. I mean, they
got hundreds of 1000s of dollarsfrom FPL in this last election
cycle, and they still couldn'tkill it in the crib. I mean,
(15:51):
this thing had legs. And so I'minterested to see how he uses
this, because he's, ultimately,he's a very political animal. He
knows how to use a good crisis,and so I'm interested to see how
this, how he uses this, whatthis looks like. But I'm also
interested to see what thecounty commission does about
this, because this is in theirbackyard. They're the ones that
(16:13):
are helping with the EP. Theyhave to issue permits. There was
a super duper top secret meetingthat I got wind of that happened
over the weekend with JimmyPatronus, County Commission
Chairman Paul Mixon, and, ofcourse, Don gates and Nathan
Boyles, the state rep up there.
But I want to know where SherryCox is. Sherry Cox is the
(16:34):
representative for this area,and we haven't heard Boo from
her since before she gotelected, and that was a year
ago. I am, look, I'm I don'tmake sport out of calling people
that are more powerful than meout. But this, this is a
continuing issue where we havenot heard anything from the
person that represents thisarea, and that's a problem for
me. I want to know what she'sdoing. I want to know where she
(16:56):
is. I want to know who she'stalking to to fix this issue.
Because ultimately, like, thesepeople are represented directly
by her. I mean, all we vote forall the commissioners, but this
is the person that's supposed tobe, you know, in charge of this
stuff. That's supposed to be ontop of this stuff. It's supposed
to be communicating with FPL.
And sure, like, I don't thinkFPL was, like, you know, we're
gonna get this burn to blow outand waha, because this is a huge
(17:18):
issue for them, too. But like, Iwant my elected officials to go
out there and, like, make surethat stuff gets fixed and people
are held. Response, yeah,
Unknown (17:29):
it definitely seems like it should be a meeting she
should be at, so if she wasn't,that's that's a little weird. It
does. It is interesting forNathan Boyles, just because of
where he was and now where he ispositioned politically. I'm glad
he was there. But you know, whenthey talk about, when the
general public talks about ourpoliticians not doing anything
for the environment, orespecially these Republican
(17:50):
leaders not doing anything forthe environment, meeting on the
weekend to talk about somethinglike this, you know, shows great
promise, and if the environmentis important to you, should be
happy that they were meetingover a weekend to try to solve
this problem. So I guess we'llhave to see how it plays out
Christopher Saul (18:04):
exactly. Man, I'm gonna do the ad read, can't
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Unknown (18:37):
app. Welcome back, guys, to the Paul and Saul show.
We got a little bit of localdrama brewing, local government
drama, and got a little physicalin Fort Walton Beach. Why don't
you tell us? Saul, Whathappened,
Christopher Saul (18:49):
brother. So it got pretty tense, according to
our reporting in mid Bay news byintrepid gumshoe reporter Colin
Bester, at the 24th of June citycouncil meeting, former
Councilman Travis Smith cameforward and said that the
current charter Review CommitteeChairman Mike minute physically
pushed him after they had ameeting a few days earlier on
June that,
Unknown (19:11):
like, physically pushed him, like, shoved him,
Christopher Saul (19:13):
like, like, like, like, yeah. Like, got in
his face and did that. AndAccording to Smith, yeah, like,
he told the council during thispublic comment section that
minich had put hands on himafter this charter review
committee meeting. And like, Idon't know how many charter
review committee meetings you'vebeen to, but they're typically
rather dull affairs. Sure,they're usually, they're usually
(19:33):
like, Well, guys, the policysays then we should like and not
that to diminish what they do.
But let's be honest, it's forpolicy walks anyway.
Unknown (19:40):
I mean, it's super interesting. It should never get
down to fisticuffs or anyphysical action. None of it is
that serious. People are notdying here. But what is the city
going to do?
Christopher Saul (19:51):
Okay, so they are going to have, they're going
to have a meeting in theimmediate future, at some point,
not the immediate future, in thenear future, to discuss this. So
Councilman Paine Walker said,hey, I want to remove this guy
from the board right now at thatcity council meeting last week,
and he said, and I'm quotinghere, I don't care what the law
says, I want him removed. Thatmotion didn't get a second, but
(20:12):
it did kind of evolve fromthere. So city attorney Jeff
burns stepped in and said, Hey,City Code requires a public
hearing before you can removesomebody from misconduct. And
it's a due process thing, right?
So if you don't have a hearing,you can't fire and that means
they need to set up a hearing.
Unknown (20:31):
So somebody's got a motion to bring this along
further into a hearing state,
Christopher Saul (20:36):
yes. So Councilman David Schmidt made a
substitute motion to say, hey,let's have this meeting on
August the 12th, which is theirnext regular council meeting.
And that one passed four tothree. Mayor Nick Allegretto was
the one that cast, cast the tievote. Tie breaking vote.
Unknown (20:52):
Well, did the alleged Shover respond to this in any
way? The
Christopher Saul (20:56):
alleged shiver defended himself, according to
Nick Allegretto, who said thathe didn't deny Him, deny pushing
it. But let me try that again.
So yeah, Nick Allegretto talked,and Nick Allegretto being the
mayor of the city of Fort WaltonBeach, sorry, just kind of like,
oh, you know, Nick Allegrettosaid he talked to minich early
in the day and said that managedidn't deny that he shoved a
former councilman, Travis Smith.
(21:19):
It's, wild. But we also reachedout via Colin to manage himself,
and he declined to comment, kindof overall,
Unknown (21:28):
probably smart on his part. So, I mean, it sounds like
this might go beyond just like apersonal thing, like it might be
work related.
Christopher Saul (21:36):
Yeah, so that's part of the debate.
Councilman Jeter warned againstturning the council into what he
called a judge duty debatestage, basically. And Councilman
Merrill said that, you know, weshouldn't be putting hands on
each other, but he didn't wantto be a judge and jury without
more facts, is kind of what hesaid.
Unknown (21:55):
Yeah. I mean, I guess if the council voted for three
there's some people on thecouncil, including the mayor,
that think this is worthinvestigating further and
talking about at this hearing.
Christopher Saul (22:04):
And so Councilman Schmidt was pretty
clear on this. He says, like,Hey, if you put hands on him,
he's got to go, but everybody'sentitled to a trial in America.
So here we are. So he his directquote was, like, it makes me
sick to think that somethinglike this happened. I guess
we'll find out exactly how sickand because there's going to be
a vote at some point, there's aspecial meeting, though,
scheduled for July 8, at 3pm andthat came out of that same
(22:27):
discussion. Walker Schmidt andAlberto all supported the idea
of acting sooner if needed.
They'll use that meeting torevisit this issue, and might
even hold the hearing then,
Unknown (22:36):
yeah. So if that happens, we'll have an update
just in a week and a half or twoweeks or so. So stay
Christopher Saul (22:41):
tuned. All right, guys, thank you so much
for being here on Paul and Sauland we need to thank our donors
for this week recurring donors.
We have a couple of newrecurring donors. I'm very
excited about that our boy, yourboy, salt and light, realtor
extraordinaire, John Saul manhas put some money up to make
sure that we can continue to dothis show. So thank you so much,
John. Thanks, John. Also Thankyou Kelly and Chris. Shane,
(23:02):
Wayne, Joshua, Paul Kelly, JamieLee and Tim for your recurring
donations. We really appreciateyou. It keeps this thing going,
and if you want to help us out,midbay news.com/donate, is the
place to go that helps us keepstuff like this on the air so
that we can tell you what thenews is, and you don't have to,
I don't know, shovel throughword of mouth for 15 hours,
(23:24):
which I think is neat anyway.
Second, let's see. Look ahead.
Not a lot of stuff this weekcoming up, but a lot of good
stuff. Wait, that doesn't evenmake sense. Not a lot of
meetings, but some good stuffthat's coming out of the one
meeting we have this week, theOkaloosa County Commission is
meeting this week on Tuesday. Acouple of big things going on.
(23:47):
So first thing to talk about isthe Eglin West Gate project. So
for people that may not befamiliar with this one, the
Eglin West Gate project is thisidea between Team Eglin, the 96
test wing, and the Oklahoma CityBoard of County Commissioners.
They want to make the west side,the West Gate, kind of a renewed
area. They want to upgrade it,make it a better, more efficient
(24:10):
place. But really, the specificsof the idea are not there yet.
They've kind of jumped throughthe first hurdle, and now here
comes the second hurdle, whichis a 30 month study. It's a PD
and E study that basically isgoing to tell the county and
tell the Air Force Base, like,Hey, this is what we need to do.
This is, you know, the pathforward. And so basically, PD
(24:31):
and E stands for ProjectDevelopment and Environment
study, which means they're goingto get, like, a lot of the
background stuff, get a lot ofthe other information they need
before they can move forward onsomething more specific. So
it's, it's almost $2 million toput something like this
together, and is also as a partof this Eglin and Okaloosa
County have agreed to worktogether for another three years
(24:51):
on this project.
Unknown (24:55):
Well, again, I guess that's good news. That's
progress. You know, thingsgetting upgraded, nicer stuff.
You.
That's That's good for alleverybody likes nice stuff.
Exactly. What else we got so
Christopher Saul (25:05):
shallow water fads. And it's not just a fad
anymore, because it's beenhappening for years. Folks, the
fish aggregating devices, that'sfads I know. Very clever.
Christopher, thank you. Thankyou guys. They have decided to
deploy some fads in a shallowerarea. So these, these fish
aggregating devices, are prettybig. And if you think of the
floor of the Gulf around herelike a big desert, it's like the
(25:30):
Sahara Desert. There's not a lotof places for life to grow
because of the sand that's outthere. And so they need these
things, fish aggregatingdevices, to get fish to stick
around a little bit longer andkind of like, nibble on stuff
and for algae to grow and dothings like that. So that's why
we're, like, throwing all theseships like the SS, United States
into the Gulf, and putting thesefads out there. Well, they've
(25:50):
done this for, you know, furtherout, 60 to 80 miles out where,
like, charter fishermen aretypically the only people that
are gonna go out there,commercial fishermen. But they
want to put some closer ones in.
So something like 2030, milesoff store, and that'll expand
access. And this is somethingthat the county is going to have
to vote on, because they want touse a specific vendor, and this
vendor, Walter Marine, has beenone of the more successful fad
(26:11):
deployment specialists, which abig deal because they've had a
lot of failed fads. Wow, justlike a lot of alliteration on
this one. And so they want tomake sure that these things
don't fail. They get put downwrong, and they don't catch or
they don't get algae, and thenall of a sudden, it's, you know,
however, many 1000s of dollarsdown the drain. So they want to
put eight with Walter Marine, aspecific one. And if they put it
(26:31):
out to bid, it'd be a little bitdifferent. But they said, these
are the guys. We're going to gowith them. They're going to pay
them, or give them half amillion dollars to put these
things out there. So hopefully,you know, fads for the people
get them a little bit closer, soyou don't have to have, you
know, a real high speed charterfishing boat to go and fish
these guys.
Unknown (26:51):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, listen, they call destin one of
the luckiest fishing villages,for a reason. We have fantastic
fishing here. These fad devicesare nothing new in other regions
and parts of the world. They canbe done properly. And you know,
if you if you only got to go 30miles out instead of 60 to 80,
that that's pretty good. It'sless gas. My guy, you know,
(27:11):
listen, I'll take it less gas.
That's expensive. I'm tellingyou,
Christopher Saul (27:15):
like, yeah, because if you know, you might
not catch the, you know, like a500 pound Marlin or whatever. I
don't even know if that's athing. Sorry, I'm not I'm not
fishy, but you might getsomething smaller, which is just
as good because you're notrunning a Charter Business, and
you just are going for your forfunsies. So I'm excited to see
that thing. Anyway. Next thingon the list is the Air Force
enlisted village expansion. Soif you're familiar with the Air
(27:36):
Force enlisted village, it's aplace that's i It's set up so
that people that retired fromthe military, that were
enlisted, or their spouses, orsurviving spouses, can have a
place to live in older age. It'slike an assisted living facility
kind of thing. Well, I guessit's independent living. This
next piece that they want to dovictory village is going to be
more assisted living facilitykind of thing, but they have to
(28:00):
rezone a bunch of stuff at theokala county commission from
military use to mixed use, sothat they can put, you know,
single family homes or duplexesor apartment complexes for these
people to come and live. It'sroughly slated to have about
2000 residents units, whichwould be huge win for the Air
(28:21):
Force enlisted village. Lot ofpeople need this kind of
housing, especially around here,with house as expensive as it
is, and the fact that a lot ofolder people are staying in
their single family homesbecause of the value and the
fact that people can't come inand buy them as easily. So
having a place to go will makeit so that people can get out of
the market a little bit earlierand not have a albatross around
(28:43):
their neck, a very expensivehome that they can't afford to
leave.
Unknown (28:46):
Yep, this is just one more example of trying to do
something more affordable andattainable for our you know, for
our community, it's obviouslynot the only thing we need to
do, but it's but it's superimportant. I want to talk about
the next one real quick, becauseit's making me way sad. So yeah,
Kristen shell, who's been theDeputy City Manager of
Niceville, who has done a lot inher short period of time with
(29:10):
the city of Niceville to to helpmake nice fill a better place.
She's taken a job with thecounty as the Growth Management
Director, and I'm personallygoing to just miss her. She's a
great person to work with, andshe has made the city of
Niceville very easy to workwith. I'm sure a lot of those
things that she's set up willcontinue. But man, Niceville is
losing in OkaloosaCounty. I think I just lost
Christopher Saul (29:32):
you there at the end. Man, you check your
sound,
Unknown (29:34):
yeah. Let me try again.
She's done a lot of great thingsfor the city of Niceville, and
man, the city of Niceville islosing on this one in Okaloosa
County is gaining.
Christopher Saul (29:42):
So my my hope is that, because she's in
Okaloosa County, that stillmeans a lot of benefit for us,
just not as much and isconcentrated. So it's, it's a
win for the county, and it's a,I don't want to say it's a loss
for nice bill, because she'llstill have a hand in what nice
bills doing. But it's, it's lesstime, right? And somebody with.
Five master's degrees. Doesn'tjust like, show up and like, do
(30:03):
as much as she does. You don'treally get those off the rack at
Walmart. So Kristen has been ahuge positive for the city of
Niceville. And man, I'm rootingfor she's gonna if they if they
approve her, which I mean, like,if you don't like, what are you
doing? But she's going to betheir growth management
director. So I think what thismeans is that you need to start
looking at development in bluewater. That's what that means.
Unknown (30:26):
Well, I'm not sure what it means for me personally, but
I do, I do want to wish Kristen,you know, congratulations. I
know it's not in stone yet. It'swritten in pencil, but like you
said, I think it's sort of adone deal. And I wish her the
best of luck. I think she'llenjoy that job. It'll allow her
to operate on a slightly biggerstage, and it'll be good for the
(30:48):
county as a whole.
Christopher Saul (30:49):
Well, this show so far has been brought to
you by the folks at movementmortgage, specifically with Team
Steve shutt. Team shut anyway,we are so thrilled to have Steve
and his team as sponsors of thispodcast, because they do good,
and they do well, right? So theymake sure that your mortgage
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You don't have to worry aboutstuff, even before you sign on
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Instead, you just get Steve. AndSteve's a nice guy. I like to
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because he's a good guy, smartguy, and he really cares about
you. So if you need a mortgage,which all of us do, at some
point, talk to Steve. Steveknows what he's doing. Steve's a
nice guy, and Steve will do meright? And frankly, I think he's
fantastic. All right, we'reback. Welcome back to Paul and
Saul no interview today. I know,I know, but we do have our
(31:56):
community mail back. And youknow what, Paul, I think you
take this first one consideringthat you're the one that
Unknown (32:01):
wrote it, you had this really good image capture on the
gates and FPL story with them,arm wrestling. I thought it was
hilarious. I just, I just made acomment on the post that the
image that used for the postwas, was
chefs kiss my friend, look
Christopher Saul (32:16):
and I I'm not the kind of guy to toot my horn.
I absolutely am, but it was verygood. And I used AI to, like,
create, like, hey, I need Dongates to be arm wrestling an
anthropomorphic FPL logo. And,boom, that popped up. So I'm not
saying that AI is going to takeall of our jobs and destroy
humanity, but if they do, ifit's producing that kind of
(32:38):
content, I mean, what do we haveto complain
Unknown (32:40):
about, yeah, well done.
It's all in the prompt making,yeah. Well,
Christopher Saul (32:44):
I would like to think that that was all me,
but, like, I kind of feel likethe Scottie pimpin Pippin to AI
is Michael Jordan. Anyway, a lotof comments this week about our
story on the bill signing forSenate. Bill 1622, a lot of
people saying, well, this isn'tright. Well, this isn't right,
and that's not right in thisspecific thing. So I'm just
(33:06):
going to read what the all theanalysts over there at the state
government who do this full timefor a living say about this
thing. Basically, Senate Bill1622, repeals Florida Statute.
160, 3035, which establishesprocedures the government entity
must follow when attempting toestablish recreational customer
use of property. Statutoryprocedures include a public
(33:28):
hearing to adopt a formal noticeof intent to affected property
owners, which notice alleges theexistence of recreational
customer use on the properties,and a judicial proceeding to
discuss, to to consider whetherthe alleged customer use has
been ancient, reasonable,without interruption and free
from dispute. The repeal of thestatute means a return to how
customary use rights weredetermined prior to enactment of
(33:50):
the statute. There's threepoints here. One, a governmental
entity may declare the existenceof a customary use and adopt a
local customary use ordinancewithout following procedures in
160 3.0352 property owners mustfile a lawsuit challenging the
ordinance and demonstrate incourt the public does not enjoy
customary use rights on theirprivately owned beaches, and
three courts will apply thecommon law doctrine of customer
(34:13):
use when ascertaining on a caseby case basis, whether the
public enjoys customary userights over privately owned
beaches. This bill takes effectupon becoming a law and friends,
Romans, countrymen, it's notover. It's not even close to
over. There's so many morelawsuits from this coming look,
this is like from a news man'sperspective. This is the story
that keeps on giving. I don'tknow what to tell y'all. This is
(34:37):
if it's not I think it was thesecond most viewed story on our
website this year. It'sincredible, like I and I get it
look, everybody's here for thebeach. I'm not, I'm not dogging
that. I'm just saying like that,the strength of feeling with
which surrounds this issue, Iunderestimated, though,
Unknown (34:56):
listen, I don't know where it's going to go. It's
just going to be interesting. Idon't think the. Legislation did
us a ton of good. I mean, maybeit made the general public feel
better a little bit, but I stillthink there's going to be a lot
of gray and a lot of weirdthings going on in the future
related to beach
Christopher Saul (35:10):
access. I think, yeah, I think it's
totally cloudy. I don't think ithelps anybody, but it looks like
a win from the press conference.
And I think that sometimeslooking like a win is just as
important as being a win. In themeantime, we will take one of
these and continue to writestories about it until you guys
get tired of hearing about beachaccess, which I don't think is
happening
Unknown (35:30):
soon. Well, real quick.
I wanted to thank all of ourlisteners out there. I do run
into you at Publix and otherplaces in public and and you
guys are awesome and have alwaystreated me great. Our YouTube
channel is doing quite well. Inour first couple of weeks, we've
got almost 2000 views across ourshorts and our videos. And
obviously we're available onanything, pretty much anywhere.
If, if you are on Spotify, we'rethere. If you want to listen on
(35:53):
Apple, we're there. If you're aYouTube person, we're there. If
you're on Facebook, we're there.
Find a place that we're not andChristopher will make sure we
end up on there. So keep therewe go key and I don't want to
hear him sing anymore. Thank youfor so thank you for supporting
our show and as always be nice.
Now say it again, as always benice. Nice though
Christopher Saul (36:19):
You heard the man. See ya you.
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