Tim Murphy’s North Florida Joint Stakeholder Utility Revival: Surrender, Sass, and Septic Tanks

June 7, 2025  10:50 am | 4 min read

Artwork: Jamie Dykes

By Jamie Dykes

COLUMBIA COUNTY, FL – Grab your sweet tea and duct tape, y’all — the “Joint Stakeholder Workshop on Utilities” just moonwalked into local lore like a squirrel on a Red Bull IV drip. Commissioner Tim “Bless His Heart” Murphy held court over what he called a “meaningful” utility summit, which in Southern Gothic translates roughly to “another unholy casserole of performative politeness, political grifting, and waterlogged wishful thinking.”

Let’s dive into the Sunday School mess:

Tim Murphy Kicks Off the Revival Tent
Transparancy – “Unfortunate”

In true preacher-meets-county-commissioner fashion, Tim Murphy opens the meeting with a call for “consensus.” Unfortunately, due to Florida’s Sunshine Law, our elected prophets can’t huddle up in the fellowship hall without telling the congregation. So naturally, Murphy calls transparency “unfortunate.”

Translation: “We’d love to scheme in private, but the Lord and the law won’t let us.”

Lobbyist Staz Guntek Delivers the Sermon

Staz, bless him, came dressed as the ghost of budget’s future. His message?

“Utilities are broke, y’all. Better regionalize, pray for grants, and stop suckling on the general fund like a toddler with a Capri Sun.”

He presented two themes:

1.    Financial Self-Sufficiency: Because apparently, Suwannee County’s 16 utility customers are expected to fund infrastructure like they’re the Rockefeller twins.

2.    Regionalization: Which is Southern for “let’s hold hands, ignore geography, and pretend Columbia County’s mess is a family recipe we should all share.”

Suwannee County Brings the Biscuits but Forgets the Butter

Shannon Roberts gave us a polite PowerPoint on all the things Suwannee hopes to do.

Commissioner Franklin White chimed in with an inspirational word salad: “You can walk for a lot, but you gotta accomplish it at the same time.”

Thanks, Yoda.

Suwannee dreams of luring big businesses to lower taxes, which is adorable when you remember they’ve got more manatees than sewer hookups.

Lake City: From Gas Man to Utility Super Hero

Before Live Oak’s Larry Sessions bathed us in brown-water prophecy, Lake City’s former Gas Man, Steve Brown, treated the room to a spontaneous TED Talk titled: “Wastewater, Microorganisms, and the Spiritual Art of Keeping Bugs Alive in the Plant While Also Killing Them.”

He bravely explained that:

• Flow can only flow if the flow is flowing;

• Septage must be introduced slowly, or the entire ecosystem of the plant will “flip upside down like a bad pancake;”

• Permits no longer exist, or if they do, they are only issued in ghost towns and philosophical riddles.

At one point, he solemnly confessed, “We had a plant… but no flow.” Which is now also the title of his memoir.

He closed by reminding us that if you turn the plant upside down, it won’t work—a shocking revelation to the assembled crowd, most of whom had never once considered the consequences of vertical wastewater misalignment.

Live Oak: Keeping It Realer Than Thou

City Manager Larry Sessions is knee-deep in brown water and blesses us with updates on pipe replacement, flood control, and a two-mile annexation march toward world domination. He even teases a desalination dream sequence, promising to explain it “another day.”

Church lady translation: “We ain’t got the money, but by God, we got imagination.”

Water Management District: We’re Here, We Think

Warren “The Aquifer Whisperer” Zwanka and Hugh “Don’t Quote Me on That” Thomas dropped knowledge about groundwater, nitrates, and the mystery of missing programs.

They mentioned collaboration but forgot to mention the actual water transfer project from St. Johns, which is like talking about your casserole but leaving out the cream of mushroom soup.

Columbia County’s Rocky Ford:
King of Interruptions, Crown Prince of Confusion

Rocky Ford arrived with strong pipe dreams and weak facts. He gushed about regional planning, Fort White sewer plants, and Toho Water’s mythical 6-million-customer empire (actual number: 160,000 — but math is hard, y’all).

He chairs the North Florida Water Utilities Authority, which:

• Has no business plan;

• Can’t hire a qualified director (but has $62K for a 90-day no-delivery consultant);

• Doesn’t update its website, broadcast meetings, or have up-to-date minutes (who needs transparency anyway when the taxpayers are footing the bills).

And let’s not forget: Rocky’s family runs a septic business, and he’s out here lobbying for centralized poop pipes like it’s a spiritual calling.

Special Guest:
Jeremy Johnston, a Man Who Knows What He’s Doing (Get Him Out!)

Jeremy Johnston of Clay County Utility Authority strolled in like a clean-shaven utility Jesus, armed with facts, an engineering degree, an MBA, and something sorely lacking at the North Florida Water Utilities Authority: basic competence.

He schooled the crowd on biosolids, grants, septage math, and the fine art of not running a utility like a lemonade stand.

Rocky Ford blinked twice — once in awe, once in confusion.

The North Florida Water Utilities Authority:
Born in the Shadows, Still There

Started in secret, kept in shadows, run by folks allergic to minutes and management. The Authority exists like a casserole left in the back of the church fridge: mysterious, lukewarm, and nobody wants to claim it.

Its former interim leader Dale “Definitely Not a Lobbyist (wink)” Williams made $62K to deliver… nothing. Not even a slide deck. His tasks remain as unfinished as that long-promised rate study.

Epilogue: Prime Time or Primed for Disaster?

This utility rodeo has:

• No business plan;
• No qualified leadership;
• No functional strategy;
• No concept of real transparency in the modern age.

But sure, let’s get ready to saddle taxpayers with $100 million in pipe dreams and flushable fantasies.

Until the NFWUA can post a set of minutes and hire someone who knows a sewer from a salad spinner, it might be better to keep them out of the grant buffet line.

Moral of the Story?

You can’t build a regional utility empire with 16 customers, a county fair speaker lineup, and the theological understanding that “God helps those who misquote Toho.”

About Jamie Dykes: “I write from the ash heap of southern grace, where the hospitality runs cold. Raised beneath Spanish moss and legal surveillance, I was educated in the margins — not by Ivy, but by bailiffs, backlogs, and the long echo of women who were never allowed to speak plainly.