Opinion
By Dave Scott, 11-7-25
New York City residents fleeing the socialist nightmare of that city’s newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani and seeking relief may find that living in Nassau County, FL is not the economic refuge they have been led to believe.
Two suits, brought by local developer Compass Group and the multibillion dollar industrial giant RYAM, threaten to financially cripple the city of Fernandina Beach, which has a perfect record of losing suits due to the City Commission’s ineptness, ignorance, and intransigence.
Compass, which successfully sued the city to rake back almost a half million dollars the city extorted from it when it built the Atlantic Ave. Marriott Hotel a few years ago, is again suing the city. This time because the city’s Board of Adjustment (BOA) repealed building permits the city had previously issued to build triplexes on the site of the dilapidated “Tringali” property.
RYAM is suing to protect its multimillion dollar investment in an ethanol facility a local group says will endanger local citizens.
On top of all this impending financial disarray is “Paid Parking” in downtown Fernandina, a proposal opposed by all downtown businesses and most residents except City Commissioner and restauranteur Tim Poynter, and three other brain dead commissioners.
Things are only going to get worse. In addition to the law suits, the local DOGE (Defenders of Government Efficiency) organization that was created to “bring accountability, transparency, and common sense back to government” recently released a report outlining how both the city and county governments are preparing to considerably increase fees for new housing.
According to DOGE, the County is tripling the mobility fee for a single-family home — jumping from about $4,000 to over $11,000 per lot. That’s eleven thousand dollars for the “privilege” of pulling a permit on your own land.
Mobility fees are supposed to fund transportation improvements — new roads, widened lanes, turn signals, sidewalks, and the like — so that growth allegedly “pays for itself.”
DOGE explains that proposed impact fee increases will add to the expense increases ranging from a 55% increase to a 159% increase.
Impact fees are ways new development pays for its impact on government services and infrastructure. For example, the impact from new development on police, fire, schools, etc.
Is new development increasing its impact by over 100%? No. DOGE says it’s just government spending more to provide the same service. In fact, Fernandina was successfully sued for its impact fee scam a few years ago and forced to give back millions it illegally took from locals.
DOGE calculates that if all impact and mobility fees go as advertised, the base impact and mobility fees for a 2,000-square-foot house in Nassau County will total $26,997.89.
That’s just impact fees — not the building permit review fee or water/sewer tap fees. Once those are added, the total will exceed $37,000 for a modest 2,000-square-foot home before the buyer ever steps inside the home.
And those who think being inside the City of Fernandina Beach gets them off the hook — they need to think again. City residents will still pay the $11,332.29 Mobility Fee, plus the County’s Park and Recreation Land and Facilities Impact Fee and an Administrative Impact Fee.
For that same 2,000-square-foot home in the City of Fernandina Beach, the total added Impact and Mobility Fees will be $18,840.29 — before the City piles on its own impact and building permit fees. Another Question: Why are City residents paying a Park and Recreation Fee to the County when they are also paying one to the City? Can anyone answer that?
Developers will pay upfront, but buyers and renters will foot the bill in the end.
Higher mobility fees mean higher housing costs in a market already struggling with affordability. OK, so where’s affordable housing suppose to come from? Where are cops, servers, teachers, newlyweds, young graduates, etc. suppose to live? What about retirees on fixed incomes?
The businesses that employee them, not just homeowners, will also get clobbered
DOGE calculated the cost of a typical Zaxby’s restaurant, roughly 3,800 square feet. Under the proposed schedule, the Mobility Fee alone would be around…$475,000
That’s before adding in building permits, fire, police, administrative, and other impact fees. Imagine how much it will cost for a chicken wing there!
In short — building anything in Nassau County is becoming an expensive game only big corporations can play. For anyone wanting to purchase a home or open a local business — you are being priced right out of the market.
Those folks heading down here from New York may be in for a financial shock.
Those interested in learning more about DOGE and reading the report can go to its site at: https://nassaufldoge.com/issues/mobility-fee-madness-nassau-countys-latest-plan-to-price-out-homeowners/
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Speaking Of New Yorkers: Once the fleeing New Yorkers settle in hereabouts they’ll be on the prowl for a Kosher New York Deli and to their chagrin they won’t find one. Fernandina needs a Katz type deli like the one in on the lower East side in Manhattan. Only on a smaller scale.
Each week, Katz’s serves 15,000 pounds of pastrami, 8,000 pounds of corned beef, 2,000 pounds of salami, and 4,000 hot dogs. In 2016 Zagat gave Katz’s a food rating of 4.5 out of 5 and ranked it as the number one deli in New York City. There’s nothing even close here.
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Veteran’s Day: Minnesota’s traditional state flag (shown above right) will fly along the East side of Shave Bridge this year along with 49 other state flags set up annually by American Legion Post 54 veterans to commemorate Veterans Day, Tuesday, November 11.
The traditional Minnesota flag was purchased and gifted to the Legion by Army veteran and Minnesota native Scott Salazar, now a resident of Fernandina Beach. The Legion’s old Minnesota flag was becoming worn and tattered and was retired.
The state’s new flag design has caused a brouhaha in the state about whether it reflects a shift in cultural values.
It features the unfamiliar eight-point star, a symbol Minnesota critics claim is more common in Islam than U.S. history. It is estimated that the state has between 70,000 – 140,000 foreign-born Muslims living there.
U.S. state symbols in state flags and banners have long favored the traditional five-point star, popularized in Betsy Ross’s design of Old Glory.
The American Legion Post 54 Veterans Day parade in Fernandina Beach, will be held Tuesday November 11, 2025, starting at 11:00 a.m. at Central Park. The parade route travels down Ash Street, turns right on 2nd Street, right on Centre Street, and ends back at Central Park.
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Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
