Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Laura Dotson, welcome to the Code Red studio.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Thank you, Pastor Zach.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: We've known each other for several years now.
You are a member of our church in Fernandina First Baptist, and you are now to the answer of our prayers, placing yourself as a candidate in the running for the District 2 County Commission seat in Nassau County.
Where did that come from? What brought you to that point of decision?
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Well, you did, for one thing.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Tell me about that.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: You know, you asked the congregation to step up, and I had been thinking about it for several years, and I had moved home from living in Connecticut, and I wanted to give back to the community and saw that I wasn't really pleased with how things were going.
And then you spoke to the congregation, and then the very next week after that, it was like another finger pointing right at me. And then my Bible study was like, okay. The nudge was there. So I was like, okay, I'm stepping up.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Well, you did so. And you did so boldly, and we appreciate that. You know, it's. I've got. I think I've told you in private, my grandmother was the mayor of our hometown.
My father was. Was basically a campaign manager for a congressman, a US Congressman from our district in Alabama. And we had an uncle who was sheriff of our county. And so this has been around us my entire life. And there's part of it that you're either drawn to the race itself because it's kind of a fun game.
To me, it is.
I've never felt called to actually do the policy of it. I've never felt called to run. I don't see that ever happening. But we've got to have some people in Christendom to step up and say, hey, if we're capable of speaking to matters that deal with the eternity of a man's soul or woman's soul, certainly we're capable to speak to matters of a temporal nature.
And so we're very grateful that you've been the first out of our congregation to step up as a member of our church and say, I would like to toss my hat in the ring. So congratulations. I'm probably not the first in history, but the first in my time in Fernandina. So we're proud of you for that.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: So how's it looking so far?
How many months have you been working this process?
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Since March.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: And then the third candidate came in.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: When did he come in?
[00:03:19] Speaker A: On June 15th. No, I'm sorry. June.
Around the 12th, 11th.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: And I'm not that familiar with him. I do know Hutman. Hutman's a friend. We've had him on the program. And part of the conversation that we had together was that if someone else came out to run against him is that they would be invited as well. And he graciously understood that. And so I, at that point, didn't understand that it would be you. I assumed it would be a Democratic challenger, but was thrilled when it was you. I was thrilled that someone that I would just trust is a sister in Christ.
And, you know, this doesn't mean you have to hate one and love the other.
None of you three guys are enemies. It's not like you're doing this out of spite.
You do this out of calling.
And so stepping into the ring and saying, I'm sure there are other good candidates, it's sort of like being a pastor, I guess. There are other great churches.
I want everybody to come to our church, and I'll make a case for that.
But, you know, I've told my kids before, if you want to attend a different church, as long as it's a biblical church and they're preaching the gospel, there's a lot of great churches in Nassau County.
And I think that's one of the things that gives you an edge here, is you are an outspoken Christian candidate. Am I right about that?
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Yes, you are.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: And so tell me about your walk with Christ. When did that begin?
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Well, I have been a Christian all my life, but as far as walking the walk, I'd say it's been the last 10 years.
But I've always taken my children to church.
I've always come to church.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Were you raised in Nassau County?
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Yes, I was born on 14th street at Humphreys Memorial Hospital.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Okay.
And graduate of Fernandina.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Is that right?
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: And so did you have back in those days, as you were coming up, did you have any ambition for political office at that time?
[00:05:35] Speaker A: No. No.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Tell me about your career, your business life.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: I've been a flight attendant for over 35 years. Hard to believe I am about to retire nine months away.
And I have enjoyed it. It's been a great job. I've met wonderful friends, learned a lot from being in front of people, having to conflict resolution, de escalation, I'm sure. Yes. You know, stuff like that. And thankfully, I've never had any major, major emergencies, but I've taken my kids on wonderful trips and so we have the best memories. And of course, now they have the travel bugs, so.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Well, and you probably local government done a lot of different ways around the world, right? Exactly what is it that you love about Nassau County?
[00:06:32] Speaker A: It's just paradise. I mean, you've got the water, you've got the river, you've got the beautiful landscape. You know, hiking, biking, you know, so much outdoor activity that you can do. And I spent my entire childhood going to the fort.
I still love going to the fort, and it's a great place to visit, and it's just very cool.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Let me ask you. So we came down, just celebrated nine years on the island in Nassau County.
We don't live on the island. Our church, we have our main campus on the island. We have a campus on 17.
Julie and I live over in Yulee. But we came down nine years ago, and the thing that attracted us to this area was it had all the amenities of a resort community that you just mentioned, but culturally, it felt like Mayberry.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: True.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: And so. And I don't know if you know this, but when we came here, we had the option of going to a church in Sarasota.
Sarasota's culture was very different.
The particular part of Sarasota that we were looking at.
So Sue Ellen Rodifer Garner was our chair of the search team. And Sue Ellen basically got to the point where she said, you know, you need to pick a team.
We've got to have a pastor. They've got to have a pastor. We can't be interviewing forever. So where's God calling you? And it came down to us. Where do we want to raise our children?
And our kids were at a pivotal age, and we didn't want to put them in a situation that could be dangerous for them physically or for their soul. And so we saw this community as a safe place to raise kids.
And so we came in here, and you see this internal cultural squabble between people like yourself who grew up here, who are like, okay, nobody else.
We want to keep it like this, which I totally get. I feel the same way. And then you have external investors that come in that they want to turn it into Panama City or Fort Walton or Destin or whatever.
How do you perceive that?
[00:08:59] Speaker A: The part about changing the culture, changing the character, the beauty of our county is we need to keep that. That is sacred, and that's why we love it here.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: That's what makes us different.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: Yes, that's important.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: It's strangely as much south Georgia as it is north Florida, in an interesting way, because so many of the people in Nassau county moved down from Georgia.
Then you also have a portion of the community that they're refugees from California, from New York, they came here, they could have gone anywhere in the state of Florida. They chose Nassau county for a reason.
They chose it because of what we have to offer. What's different here than Daytona is very different here than Daytona.
So I agree with you. I want to keep it the same.
At the same time, you've got some big money moving data centers into Florida, which on one hand brings some serious tax revenue, on the other hand can really threaten some communities.
So have you processed those issues and where do you stand on external money coming in to try to maybe manipulate the process a little bit?
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Yes, we are definitely seeing that.
The data center issue, I don't see anything but the negative. And I keep seeing different videos of different towns.
You know, the noise pollution, the water consumption, having to dust in your home all the time because of the vibration.
It's.
It's incredible how much damage it does. And this one particular article that I. Or video that I saw, the woman only lived 400 yards away.
And then there's the light, because the security lights are on all the time.
So you don't get that day and night circadian rhythm going on because the lights are on all the time even 400 yards away.
And that's just a small example.
I think there still has to be a ton of research done on it.
Do we want that here?
I don't see it. But the down, you know, the upside of the revenue. Great.
The tax revenue, but no sustainable jobs. It's come in.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Build it and there it is.
And so there's going to be very little job creation there.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
So you're looking at a countywide seat.
And if that moved in, that threat probably would not be to Amelia island or Fernandina. That threat would be more Hilliard. That threat would be Callahan.
That's where the land is available for that sort of thing to go in. This is one of the few counties in the state, from my understanding, where you can go in and buy 50 acres, 150 acres of land that's all together in a lot.
And so that's highly attractive to these data centers. And Florida's climate is helpful for those.
This area has the land for it. And so, you know, you're from the east side of the county and people on the west side.
I think that's the kind of thing that's going to concern them.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: And you know, with the other candidates, that tax revenue is pretty tempting.
So are you going to be able to stand up to those forces?
You're one vote on the commission. But would you be able to stand up to those forces when they come in to say we can make it without those type of businesses in our county?
[00:12:59] Speaker A: We have to. You know, that is a fact.
We do need other forms of taxation, you know, commercial businesses, doctors, lawyers, all that kind of entity. But for a data center, do we need that? No, I don't think we need that. And I know that they don't want it on the west side for sure.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: What about, what about development? When it comes to new communities, new homes, people moving into Nassau county, how do you feel about that? Are you, Are you.
When we think about immigration into the United States, that's one issue. But when we think about it close to home, if we have people moving into Nassau county for developments like Wildlife, Timber to Tides, these sort of large commercial ventures, is that helpful to the culture of our county? Is it non helpful?
How do you, or do you. Do you perceive that as sort of a open economy, that we're going to let the marketplace work itself out? How do you perceive those things?
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Well, again, we still have to have businesses commercial, you know, all the other revenues coming in besides homeowners building homes, it's here, it's going to happen. We're going to have the development, but we also have to make sure that the infrastructure is. Is built before these developments come in. And these developers need to be paying for a lot of the infrastructure that happens.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: When we look back at recent news related to Nassau county, there was an audit that was conducted against our county, and the commission has been pretty defensive about that.
And what's your take? Do you think that was a helpful move by the DeSantis administration?
Because a lot of people don't understand this, that counties exist at the states because Tallahassee created the county, basically gave them the constitution to be a county.
And so there's an authority there of from Tallahassee to Nassau County.
And so for them to step in and audit Nassau county makes sense.
They, they're responsible if our taxpayers are being overtaxed or if things are happening that are ethical and legal. And so when that happened, I know that one of the other commissioners that I spoke with really didn't like the state stepping in there.
I'm from the nonprofit world, and we know checks and balances are our friend. They protect us.
So somebody coming in, looking at the books and saying, who has the right to write these checks? Where's the money going? Those are important questions to answer.
What was your take on the $53 million wasteful spending fight that took place.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Well, I know that the county said that that's wrong, but you know, an elected official, Ignolio, CFO Ignolio, said that's what happened. You know, giving the numbers for five years in a row, that the revenue was 96% but the population growth was only 18%.
And where did that money. That's a big difference in money.
And where did that go? And there needs to be another.
Even though they audited all 67 counties too, by the way, it wasn't just Nassau County.
And we have to go back in and do a line item, line item budget analysis and see where was that extra spending. You know, where did we spend that and find out. Because without going in again, we don't know.
I mean, I can look at the budget and say, well, why do we have three attorneys?
We had one.
And we've also added a lot of employees to the government, to the county commission government and not the county commission, but the management.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: And so there are things that need to be looked at. Where are we spending money that we really shouldn't be spending?
[00:17:33] Speaker B: It would roughly a $400,000 homeowner, it would cost them or would save them roughly $380 per year.
If there was a mill rate cut of 95.
That's what the state was proposing.
Would you be in support of that? From what you've observed so far, you
[00:17:59] Speaker A: said $380 saved per year per household.
Yeah.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: And that's for a home. And that's probably an average home rate here in Nassau county around 400,000. It would be more for those who had a more expensive home.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: Yes, I'd be for that.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: I think every bit helps.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Well, I mean, you know, they said they did a rollback, but my taxes were still higher, so I didn't save anything, did I?
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Well, and the thing I guess that I'm, I've not understood since I've been here, as taxes go up, as the cost of living is going up, I look at things like the high schools and existing high schools look like they did nine years ago when we first got here. There's not been improvement to them. We've got a great education system here, but the county owns those buildings.
Those are county buildings and they're not being improved. And you've got security issues that need tech improvement and updates.
And so, yeah, knowing where those money, knowing where that money's going is very important to people who are going to raise families here.
And, you know, less money out of our pocket is important as well.
When it comes down to moral, ethical issues.
We think generally that those type questions matter on the national scale, but maybe on the local scale, it's more facts and figures and governance and that sort of thing.
But what many of our citizens may not recognize is that if I, as a pastor, lose religious freedom, if someone was to say, hey, pastors can't preach certain verses out of the Bible, you're going to get in trouble. If that happens, then it would be a county sheriff that would come arrest me. It's not going to be a federal agent.
One of the most powerful positions in the nation is a county sheriff. And so they are the ones who implement religious freedom laws, liberty laws.
At the same time, if you're going to influence the culture of an area, it has to be done grassroots, county to county. So I'm telling you all this for a reason.
We come back nine years ago and we discover that this little Mayberry of the community, who seemed like everybody we met, shared a similar worldview that we did. Didn't mean they all were Southern Baptist. They may have been Catholic, they may have been even unbelievers, but they had a similar conservative worldview. They saw when they said God, they meant the same God that they were referring to. So that was nice. We came here, we discovered that it was a conservative, probably the most conservative county in the state of Florida. We came here and then we discovered that a far left, highly funded movement had targeted Nassau county from New York down to Key west, and it picked these little iconic cities that my wife would call like a Gilmore Girls town.
And we were on that map.
So we would show up in June and it looked like the most pro pride LGBTQ community that you've ever seen. We would have transgender story hour at our library. We would have these things paraded down our streets. And it's like, what happened? We went to bed last night and everybody kind of saw the world one way and wake up today in June, and it's different. And so what I discovered was you had a very conservative population and very leftist leadership.
And I meant I observed that more in the pulpit, so I would. Most of our mainline churches were left leaning. The population wasn't the pew, wasn't the family in the pew saw the world a lot like we did, but the person in the pulpit didn't.
And I don't think I've ever said this publicly, but when I first came, we met with all of the local pastors from really more on the island.
And this is your main line, your Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Cross, Racial barriers. Predominately African American, predominantly Hispanic, predominantly white. We all met together, and they wanted to do a baccalaureate service service.
They said, well, the largest venue would be First Baptist, so we would seat approximately 1100 people. We pulled out all the chairs.
So they said, would you guys be interested in hosting the service? And I said, certainly. It seems like an honor to have the graduation baccalaureate service at our church.
Then one of the ministers, as soon as it was over, pulled me aside before we had made the decision.
And I'm very grateful for her honesty.
She said, pastor Zach, you're new to the community, and I want you to know that if we do this, it will not be a Christian event.
It will not be an evangelistic event.
The person that speaks will most likely not be a cisgendered heterosexual male.
They probably won't even be a Christian.
And I said, well, first of all, thank you for telling me that no, we would not be interested in hosting this event. But second of all, who are you wanting to bring in? And she wanted to bring in a lesbian rabbi from Jacksonville to do the Christian baccalaureate service in a very conservative area of Nassau County.
And so I immediately recognized we're on totally different pages.
But what I didn't understand is how are all of these people that I knew that were conservative, that believed the Bible, that stood for truth, how are they comfortable in these congregations? And what I discovered is they didn't know.
They had no idea, because the preachers would preach on, we should love one another, we should pray, we should do good works, things we all agree on.
2020 came.
2020 forced people between Covid mandates, the Trump election, Ahmaud Arbery's just right up the street.
All of these issues happened simultaneously.
And every minister had to kind of show their hand and say, wait, this is how I see the world.
And we realized there were only a handful of churches that were conservative in nature, in their worldview and their theological perspective.
Those churches suddenly surged and grew.
The others really did suffer.
So I began to notice that wasn't just in the churches.
That was also in some of our leadership in the city and in the county.
And one of the ways that that came to my attention was when I recognized that our library, which is in Fernandina, but many people may not understand it's a county controlled library there. That institution was targeted as a operating place for the LGBTQ movement.
One of the. Actually, a couple of the employees of the library that were not members of our church reached out to me personally and said, hey, we want you to know that they are buying tons of these books that are targeted at children.
So we're not talking about just freedom of the press or freedom of religion or freedom of beliefs that an adult that chooses to live a certain way has every right to do that. But we're talking about a targeting. We're talking about cartoons that teach little children how to do things that scripture would call perverse.
So they're covering up. So what are the numbers? Are we talking like a couple of books we're concerned about?
One of our friends got involved, did the processing of the book purchases, and we're talking about a sharp spike.
You know, this is like suddenly hundreds of these books are coming in simultaneously.
The conservative books, this might be a Rush Limbaugh biography, is being hidden away on back shelves behind other books. Anything that would represent a conservative worldview.
So that obviously seemed like a hostile takeover culturally.
So I do what I can do. I reach out to commissioners and put it on their radar. I go to the county leadership who's in charge of hiring for the library, put it on their radar. I go to a county commission gathering meeting and I speak to the issue.
The result of that was, to my understanding, the conservative whistleblower that called me in the first place got fired.
She was able to retire so that she could keep her retirement, but her job was over if Laura Dotson had been on the county commission.
Because here's the thing, Laura, I'm going to shoot real straight with you.
Nobody spends their life training to be a county commissioner.
There's not an education for that. Right. There's not a. There's not.
If someone spent their whole life training to be on the county commission, I would be very concerned about putting them on the county commission.
We should be a citizen led county.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: I don't need you to necessarily understand the nuances of traffic patterns in order to be a good county commissioner. But I need you to understand the difference between what a child should be reading and what a child should not be reading. Those are not difficult decisions.
Can you see the problem with taking a county institution and mobilizing it for a far left Marxist agenda?
[00:29:03] Speaker A: Totally wrong. We should not have to be dealing with that at all.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: How would you, how would you intervene? How would you help us with that?
[00:29:11] Speaker A: I would be the loudest voice ever. I would just keep hammering them to get it done. And as you said, they have done nothing.
And it's not in the best interest of our 5, 6, 7 year old to be looking at pictures. Mommy, what is that?
That should Never be a question and the parent, okay, this is a library. You take your children to the library. It's to be a sun and joy. Yes. And pick out books and enjoy them.
And the mom is sitting right there. Right. But she doesn't know that you've picked up a bad book all of a sudden.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Mommy, look, it's cartoons.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, my wife could testify to this. My mother, you know, my mother, she's in our congregation. She could tell you this. I grew up at the library. I love the local county library. I am a big fan of public library and the idea that knowledge is accessible to everybody.
You don't have to own the book. You can go check out the book.
So frequently mom would drop me off in the summer, I'd go to the library and just read and kind of nerd out on whatever. And so if there are other ways, I've tried to figure out, why would anybody have an agenda like that?
And my only understanding is, well, it's about money. And there's a certain group that funds the buying of those books. And so they get to have an unusual voice in what is purchased there.
And so I would say as far as churches and conservative representation in the county, I would go to bat to raise money for that library. But I'm not going to raise money for an agenda, an ideological agenda that targets children of all things.
That's just one place to say we have.
We're an American county.
We want people to have freedom. And that means they're not going to always agree with how I see the world.
And I want the freedom to believe and preach what I believe and preach. I want them to have that same freedom. But it's a difference.
When you have a hostile takeover from an ideological cult that's saying, we're going to shove this down the throats of children that are too young to perceive the difference. And if grown people can't see that problem, I don't understand how they can be in leadership.
Does that make sense?
[00:31:45] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Could you.
If there's pastors throughout this county, denominational leaders, They don't feel like they have a seat at the table. They're not consulted.
You're talking about people who represent hundreds of Christians.
Would you have an open door policy toward Christian leaders or religious leaders if they have a concern? What would your relationship be toward those type leaders in our community?
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Open, transparent.
That has to go across the board.
Everybody is allowed to have a voice.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Amen. Amen.
So when's the election? When's voting day?
[00:32:33] Speaker A: August 18th.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: August 18th. We're going to.
What is the best way that the viewers of this program and the citizens of this county could help move the needle for you?
I know when we've got three people running that can kind of divide the vote, what do you need? How can we pray for you?
How can we help get the word out and support you?
[00:32:58] Speaker A: My website is ldotson.com we'll put that
[00:33:03] Speaker B: in the show notes.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: Okay, awesome. And just keeping the word out that I am the only Christian candidate. I'm the only woman candidate. I'm the only local candidate. And early voting starts on the 6th and ends on the 15th, and then the election day is on the 18th. A lot of people do early vote, and a lot of people do vote by mail.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Okay. So we want to. We want, especially pastors, you know, if a Christian's watching this in Nassau county, share this with your leadership.
Would you be willing. I know you came to. To our luncheon and introduced yourself to Christian voters in our congregation. We want to do more of that, but we also want to know, would that be something you would be open to if other churches wanted to bring you in just to do sort of like a town hall, answer questions, that sort of thing?
[00:33:54] Speaker A: Yes, that'd be awesome.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Well, amen. Well, I wish you the best. How can we pray for you?
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Discernment.
Keep the arrows, you know, keep the armor on, because politics is a blood sport. Yeah.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Well, has it gotten ugly so far?
[00:34:14] Speaker A: The people online are, you know, they can be pretty rude. But honestly, the other candidates, how have they been? No real contact. You know, say hello, but nothing.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Nobody's serving.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: No animosity.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Good. Well, that's wonderful. We hope to keep it that way.
Well, maybe I could close with a prayer if that'd be okay.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: That'd be awesome.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: Father, I thank you for my sister and her courage. God, I thank you for preparing her for this opportunity. I thank you for the heart of discernment you've given her. And, Lord, I pray, if it be your will, that you would stir the Christian community to come to her corner, to help her, to support her and, Father, to put her in a position so that we can see things really change. For your glory, King Jesus, and it's in his name we pray. Amen.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Thank you for joining me today.
