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Island Brief

Amelia Island • Nassau County • First Coast

Good Morning, Nassau County! The sun is back, the schools are out, and the airport noise fight finally has a date: residents get their first formal say on the airport master plan Oct. 24. Tonight the county commission takes up a closing hour for the beach lots, new tow rates and the Main Beach walkover.

Today runs 82 and sunny, and so does the week. Saturday's front brings a north wind to the car show and the Mocama concert.

Fernandina ☀️ 82°/67° Yulee ☀️ 84°/64°

Callahan ☀️ 85°/62° Hilliard ☀️ 84°/59°

No watches or advisories this morning, the first clean Monday since September. Dry high pressure holds all week: low 80s on the island and mid 80s inland, lows in the 60s, patchy fog on the mainland before 8 a.m. Tuesday. Saturday is the change, a cold front with a north wind of 13 to 25 mph, a high near 75 and a 20 percent shower chance, then 65 Saturday night. For the record, Isaias came ashore near Destin Friday evening as a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds and left more than 700,000 customers without power across the Panhandle and Alabama; all we got was last week's rain.

📰	Top Stories

Homeowners who have spent the year documenting flight-school planes circling the city airport get their first formal chance to weigh in on Saturday, Oct. 24, when the Airport Master Plan Update holds an open house in the terminal conference room from 10 a.m. (the Observer has it running to 2 p.m.; the city's events page says 1). There is no presentation. Staff and the FAA's consultants will take questions and comments at information stations, and the same morning the apron hosts aircraft displays, a LifeFlight helicopter and food trucks, which the Observer's Mike Lednovich writes has left people unsure whether this is an air show or a meeting about the airport's future. The numbers behind the complaints: the airport's own tracking logged 14,748 touch-and-go maneuvers in a year, about 40 a day, against voluntary guidelines that ask for no more than five in a row, and Airport Manager Nathan Coyle has said plainly the city has no enforcement power. The plan runs to 2045 and can weigh runway alternatives, but on its own it cannot restrict training flights, which federal funding rules protect.

Read More → Fernandina Observer

The county commission meets at 5 tonight, holiday or not, and three of the public hearings touch ordinary life more than most agendas do. One ordinance would let cars park in the county's beachfront lots 24 hours a day except between 3 and 4 a.m., replacing a cross-reference to the general park rules, and would move the beach-driving property-owner ID card from the tax collector to the county manager's office. A resolution would set the first new maximum tow rates since 2020, $187.77 plus $5.01 a loaded mile for a nonconsensual tow of an ordinary car and $37.55 a day for storage; the festival-permit rule would change to one officer per 250 people whether or not alcohol is sold, with medical staffing set by the fire chief instead of a fixed ratio; and food trucks would be allowed on county property under a special-events permit or facility rental, not only at county-sponsored events. On consent, the city asks the beach renourishment taxing unit for $50,000 toward a $100,000 repair of dune walkover 25 and the Main Beach walkover, and FDOT's agreement for Phase 4 of the Amelia Island Trail is extended to June 2029.

Read More → BOCC agenda (PrimeGov)

The median single-family home in Nassau County sold for $496,500 in September, up 9.3 percent from August, according to Northeast Florida Association of Realtors figures News4Jax reported Thursday. Fewer homes changed hands: 96 closed sales, down 19.3 percent, and pending sales fell 37 percent to 68, with 434 homes on the market, a 4.5-month supply. The county's affordability index dropped 7.5 points to 68.5, the lowest of the six counties; the region as a whole sits at 81 with a $399,000 median. Across Northeast Florida prices rose 1.1 percent while closed sales fell 9.5 percent, so the island and Yulee are the outlier on price, not on the slowdown.

Read More → News4Jax

Jefferson Starship and John Waite play Mocama Beer Company's front lot on South Eighth Street Saturday night, doors at 5:30 and the show at 7:30, rain or shine, the first outdoor concert in what owners Andrew Batey and Kim Delnegro pitched in August as a series of national touring acts. The series now exists: the brewery's concert page lists The Marshall Tucker Band for Saturday, Nov. 21, which is the second booking that turns one concert into a venue. Tickets for both are on Etix through the brewery's page, general admission plus two meet-and-greet packages for Saturday, and First Port City Bank presents this one. The forecast behind Saturday's front is 75 and breezy, so bring a layer for the lot.

Read More → Mocama Concert Series

📍	Around Nassau County

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Fernandina Beach: The port authority meets Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Peck Center, 516 S. 10th St., and the operator's report is the one to watch: August came in at 4,791 tons, the worst month in memory, and Relay Terminals president Ted McNair told the board he expected a large linerboard vessel in October to start the recovery. September's number lands Wednesday.

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Fernandina Beach: Medicare open enrollment opens Thursday and runs through Dec. 7, and the Observer's Shari Roan reports the Part D out-of-pocket cap rises from $2,100 to $2,400 next year while the federal subsidy that held premiums down expires. Free, unbiased help is available through SHINE of Northeast Florida; volunteer Anne Sparkle's first rule is to open every envelope from your insurer. (More)

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Yulee: Two more pieces of Wildlight's road network are on tonight's county agenda: mobility reservation agreements with Wildlight LLC for Wildlight Avenue Phase 4 and the first section of Crosstown Boulevard, under which the developer builds the road and reserves credit against its mobility fees. Also up: a Taylor Morrison amendment that pushes a required mobility improvement from the first home in Phase 2 to the 117th certificate of occupancy. (More)

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Nassau County: The Conservation Lands Acquisition and Management Committee meets Thursday at 5 p.m. in the commission chambers, and tonight the board is asked to fill its vacant seat with Leigh Anne Morgan through May 2030. The same agenda picks a Planning and Zoning Board at-large member from five applicants: Erving Gilyard, Amy Mizell Green, Michael Hagel, Melissa Ransom and Brandon Smith. (More)

📌	Briefly Noted

🗓️	This Week on the Island

Mon 12

County Commission regular meeting James S. Page Governmental Complex, 96135 Nassau Place, Yulee • 5 p.m. • Beach lot hours, tow rates, festival staffing and food trucks are all public hearings, so you can speak; details in Top Stories

Tue 13

Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee City Hall, 204 Ash St. • 5 p.m. • Where the parks master plan stands, plus the golf club and parks updates. Earlier, the county's Library Advisory Board meets 3 to 5 p.m. at the Bryceville branch, 7280 Motes Road, the one that closes Oct. 29

Wed 14

Ocean Highway and Port Authority monthly meeting Peck Center, Willie Mae Ashley Auditorium, 516 S. 10th St. • 6 p.m. • September tonnage and the operator's report; the Planning Advisory Board meets at City Hall at 5 the same evening and seats new member Christophe Agricola

Thu 15

"The Addams Family Musical" opens at Amelia Community Theatre 207 Cedar St. • 7:30 p.m.; runs through Oct. 31 with 2 p.m. matinees Sunday, Oct. 24, 25 and 31 • Wednesday Addams brings a normal boyfriend home; tickets at the theatre or 904-261-6749. Also Thursday: the county's CLAM committee, 5 p.m., commission chambers in Yulee

Fri 16

3rd on 3rd: "Native American Dilemma: the American Revolution in the South" Baker Hall, Amelia Island Museum of History, 233 S. Third St. • 6 p.m. • Dr. Matt Jennings, in person and streamed. Also Friday: the Pirates host Providence at 7, and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" returns to Amelia Musical Playhouse, 1955 Island Walkway, at 7:30 Friday and Saturday

Sat 17

30th annual 8 Flags Car Show Centre Street • 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. • The Amelia Cruizers' show, restored antiques to new Corvettes, with a People's Choice vote; pre-registration is closed, entrants register that morning. Same morning: Walk for Water from Central Park to Main Beach and back with a bucket, 6 to 9 a.m.; the free household hazardous waste drop-off, 8 to noon, 86200 Gene Lasserre Blvd. in Yulee; and the farmers market on North Seventh, 9 to 1

Sat 17

Jefferson Starship with John Waite at Mocama Mocama Beer Company, 629 S. Eighth St. • Doors 5:30 p.m., show 7:30 • Outdoors in the front lot, rain or shine; tickets on Etix through the brewery's page; details in Top Stories

Sun 18

Let's Listen: "Beyond the Three Rs" Story & Song Center for Arts & Culture, 1430 Park Ave. • 3 to 5 p.m. • The monthly community dialogue takes up Nassau County's schools, 13,000 students and a 91 percent graduation rate, with national panelists; free, registration required. Also Sunday: the last day of the Northeast Florida Fair in Callahan, and the Addams Family matinee at 2

The airport open house is Oct. 24, and the planners will be asking where the noise actually lands. Do the training flights pass over your street, and at what hour do you notice them? If they never bother you, that counts too. We would like to put the replies on a map before the meeting. Hit reply and let us know. We read every response.

The airport whose future is up for comment this month was not built by the city at all. Who built it, what for, and who still drops in to practice there?

Answer: The U.S. Navy. It developed the field during World War II as Outlying Field Fernandina Beach, a training strip for the Naval Air Station Jacksonville complex, and signed it over to the city after the war. Today it is a general aviation reliever for Jacksonville International, and Navy helicopters from NAS Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport still use it occasionally for practice, so the touch-and-go tradition is older than the flight schools.

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