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Island Brief

Amelia Island • Nassau County • First Coast

Good Morning, Nassau County! Two budget nights in a row this week. The county holds its first public hearing on next year’s budget tonight at 5 in Yulee, and the city adopts its final tax rate tomorrow at 5:05, the last point that number can come down. Before either of those, the school district is investigating what happened in the stands at Thursday night’s volleyball match at Fernandina Beach High, and that leads today. Also this week: the Amelia Wharf design goes back in front of the Historic District Council on Thursday for a third try, the homecoming parade rolls Friday at 5, and The Surf serves its last day on Sunday. The weather is on your side today: sunny, 88 on the island and low 90s inland, with a 13 percent storm chance here and no more than 31 percent anywhere in the county, so get the outdoor errand done. Storms come back Tuesday at 53 percent on the island and again Thursday at 54, with Wednesday dry in between and highs settling into the mid 80s on both sides of the river.

Fernandina ☀️ 88°/78° Yulee ⛅ 91°/76°

Callahan ⛅ 93°/74° Hilliard ⛅ 92°/72°

📰	Top Stories

Nassau County school officials say they are investigating allegations that Fernandina Beach High School students directed racial slurs, chants and gestures at Andrew Jackson High School players during Thursday night’s volleyball match at FBHS, including an allegation that students held up a Black baby doll from the student section. An Andrew Jackson parent described the incident in a Facebook post, saying the doll was held upside down and joked about after one of the Jacksonville players was hurt. The district said in a statement Friday that administrators are reviewing video, gathering information from students, coaches, staff and others who were there, and communicating with Duval County Public Schools, and that “racism has no place in our schools or at our athletic events.” It has not said what it has established so far, has not identified any students, and says any action will follow the investigation’s findings and district policy. The Jacksonville branch of the NAACP has called for a thorough and transparent investigation and for those responsible to be held accountable, Duval County schools say the two superintendents have spoken, and in Fernandina, Pastor Granardo Felix of Trinity United Methodist Church asked the community to let the investigation establish the facts first. That is where it stands this morning, and we will follow it.

Read More → Fernandina Observer

The Board of County Commissioners holds its first public hearing on the 2026-27 budget tonight at 5 p.m. at the James S. Page complex in Yulee. The hearing document proposes a countywide rate of 6.5178 mills against a rolled-back rate of 6.3954, which under Florida’s Truth in Millage law counts as a 1.91 percent tax increase even though the county has described this as the sixth straight year the rate itself has come down. The Municipal Service Taxing District rate is proposed at 2.1479, the Amelia Island beach renourishment levy at 0.0960, and the aggregate rate of 8.1003 sits 2.07 percent above its rolled-back figure. The tentative budget has grown since July, from $432,280,373 to $452,786,618, and the document lists the changes fund by fund, starting with a detention cost-share adjustment in the general fund. Commissioners are asked to set the final hearing for Monday, Sept. 28, at 5:01 p.m. Also on tonight’s agenda: franchise agreement ordinances with Florida Power and Light, Florida Public Utilities and Okefenoke Rural Electric. Tomorrow’s city hearing is the next story down; between the two nights, every property owner in the county gets a rate set this week.

Read More → Nassau County (hearing document)

The city commission adopts its final operating millage and budget tomorrow at 5:05 p.m. at City Hall, 204 Ash St.: 4.8530 mills, the rate it set tentatively on Sept. 3 by a 4-1 vote, against a rolled-back rate of 4.4425, a 9.24 percent increase under the same state law. The rate can be lowered at this hearing and never raised, and public comment is on the agenda, so if you have something to say about it, tomorrow is the night. The roughly $1.5 million the higher rate raises sits in restricted contingency, held against Amendment 3 in November rather than spent, and the $228 million budget adopted alongside it carries the five-year capital plan. The 6 p.m. regular meeting that follows is a full one: the Jazz Festival Week proclamation, staff’s conceptual designs for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park rehabilitation, the $274,450 design-and-permitting work order for the demolition of the old Brett’s, the $1,164,144 Waterfront Resiliency Segment One award, and the second reading of the fee schedule that sets golf and marina rates from Oct. 1. Two smaller items on the consent agenda tell you something about the year: an $80,246 transfer to cover higher-than-expected streetlight electricity bills, and up to $76,000 for outside legal counsel.

Read More → City of Fernandina Beach (hearing agenda)

The riverfront restaurant, retail and marina complex proposed for North Front Street, just north of the old Brett’s, is on the Historic District Council’s agenda Thursday at 5 p.m. for conceptual approval, listed under old business as Compass Group Development for the Osteen Company. The council sent the first design back in June over a roof about six feet above the waterfront district’s 30-foot height limit, and split 3-3 on the second one on Aug. 20 over an observation tower running 19 feet above the cap, with city planning staff recommending approval that time. The agenda does not say what has changed in the design, and the packet was not readable from here over the weekend, so the shape of the third version is what Thursday will show. The same meeting takes a conceptual approval for nine townhomes at 101 Alachua Street, the Downtown Crab LLC project on the historic district’s riverfront corner that went to technical review in June, an after-the-fact approval for a partly removed brick wall at 112 S. 10th Street, and a historic balcony going back onto the front of 212 Estrada Street.

Read More → City of Fernandina Beach (HDC agenda)

📍	Around Nassau County

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Fernandina Beach: The city’s first open briefing on the marina rebuild since the July 28 stakeholder meeting is Wednesday at 2 p.m. in the commission chambers at City Hall, a day after the commission votes the design money for the Brett’s demolition. Construction runs about 18 months and the marina stays open throughout. (More)

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Fernandina Beach: The Board of Adjustment meets Wednesday at 5 p.m. on two variances: raising the house at 185 S. Fletcher Ave. to rebuild its foundation, and rebuilding more than one dwelling on combined lots at 731 S. 14th St. that were developed as a single-family lot. City Attorney Teresa Prince also gives the board a legislative update. (More)

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Egans Creek Greenway: The first of the five conservation parcels the city approved on Sept. 1, the 1.01-acre Pineland Holdings lot near Sadler Road, is scheduled to close Friday, Sept. 18. The other four, including the 17.29 acres between Le Sabre Place and Robert Oliver Avenue, follow through the fall, with the North Florida Land Trust handling the paperwork. (More)

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Atlantic Avenue: FDOT’s town hall on the nine months of rehabilitation work that begins Oct. 5 is a week from Thursday, Sept. 24, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., at the Atlantic Recreation Center, 2500 Atlantic Ave. The limits, the scope and whether lanes close are still unpublished, which is what the town hall is for.

📌	Briefly Noted

🗓️	This Week on the Island

Mon 14

County Commission: first budget hearing James S. Page Governmental Complex, 96135 Nassau Place, Yulee • 5 p.m. • Tentative millage and budget, plus the electric franchise ordinances; public comment taken

Tue 15

City Commission: final budget adoption, then the regular meeting City Hall, 204 Ash St. • 5:05 p.m. hearing, 6 p.m. regular meeting • Final millage and budget first; Jazz Festival Week proclamation, MLK Park concepts, Brett’s demolition design contract and the fee schedule after

Wed 16

Marina Redevelopment public information session City Hall commission chambers, 204 Ash St. • 2 p.m. • Free, open to all; the first public briefing on the rebuild since July

Thu 17

Historic District Council: Amelia Wharf, third look City Hall commission chambers, 204 Ash St. • 5 p.m. • Conceptual approval for the North Front Street complex and for nine townhomes at 101 Alachua St.; public comment taken

Fri 18

FBHS Homecoming Parade Traditional parade route, downtown Fernandina • 5 p.m. • Free; the Pirates have a home game at 7 that night, so expect the streets around the school to be busy from late afternoon

Fri 18

3rd on 3rd: “Many Revolutions” with Dr. Steve Knoll Fernandina Beach Public Library, 25 N. Fourth St., not the museum this month • 6 p.m. • The museum’s third-Friday talk, streamed online as well; free for members, $5 otherwise

Sat 19

Nassau County Small Business Expo Atlantic Recreation Center auditorium, 2500 Atlantic Ave. • 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. • Free; local businesses at tables, hosted by the Power Referral Group

Sat 19

Saturday markets, one on each side of the river Farmers Market on North Seventh Street and the Wildlight Market Place at 123 Tinker St. • 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. • Third Saturday, so Wildlight is on and the Arts Market on Centre is off until the 26th

Sun 20

The Surf’s last day 3199 S. Fletcher Ave. • From 11 a.m. • The restaurant and bar close for good after Sunday; go earlier than you think you need to

It is homecoming week at Fernandina Beach High: the parade rolls Friday at 5 and the Pirates play that night. Whether you went to FBHS, Yulee, West Nassau, Hilliard or a school a thousand miles from here, what do you remember about your own homecoming? The float you built, the dance, the game, the person you went with, the thing that went wrong. Hit reply and let us know. We read every response.

The East Coast Greenway is a 3,000-mile trail route from the Canadian border in Maine to Key West, and plenty of people assume it skips the barrier islands on its way down. Does the official route come through Amelia Island?

Answer: yes. Visit Florida’s trail guide has the Florida leg, 663 miles of it, entering from Georgia at Fernandina Beach and running down A1A to Key West, and it names the Amelia Island Trail, the paved path beside A1A from Peters Point to the state park at the island’s south tip, as one of its segments. So the six miles under your tires on the south end are part of a line that starts at the Canadian border.

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