NFWUA: The Columbia County 5 – Trapped by Florida's Only Elected County Attorney
Sept. 3, 2026 11:50 am | 4 min read
COLUMBIA COUNTY, FL – The North Florida Water Utility Authority (NFWUA) is again front and center in front of Columbia County’s County 5 (County Commission). This evening at 5:30 pm, the County 5 will review a hybrid legal missive by Florida’s only elected County Attorney – Joel Foreman.
The NFWUA has been problematic from its beginnings, when on May 24, 2023, the seed was planted for a regional utility consortium in a meeting arranged by North Florida Professional Services (NFPS). It is not entirely clear who thought this regional utility would be a good idea: NFPS President Greg Bailey said it was his idea. County 5 member Rocky Ford said it was his idea.
The Authority's first year was characterized by disorganization and foot-dragging. The Authority has been operating without an approved business plan its entire existence, and until its last meeting didn’t realize it had a business plan (though unapproved).
A majority of Columbia County Commissioners do not approve of the Authority and are looking to withdraw. On August 6, the County 5 demanded that Suwannee County remove its County Commissioners from the NFWUA board and replace them with non-commissioners.
Suwannee County told The 5 “no deal,” and while Suwannee County had been “iffy” on supporting the Authority, at its last meeting it circled the wagons and came together in support of the Authority, pushing back against Columbia County.
County 5 Chairman Tim Murphy has been aganist the NFWUA from
the beginning.
Columbia County County Attorney Joel Foreman has been embedded in the goings-on at the Authority since before its inception.
While Mr. Foreman could have used an interlocal from a similar utility authority as a model for its special district charter, he instead modified the Suwannee Valley Transit Authority Interlocal Agreement as his template. The utility authority and the transit authority have virtually nothing in common.
A key issue, agreed by all to be problematic from the beginning, was and continues to be the transfer of County utility assets to the Authority. The asset transfer was supposed to occur by October 2026. When it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen, a new interlocal was approved. On its face, this interlocal stripped Columbia of its rights, while locking the County 5 and its subsequent boards into recurring subsidies for five years.
County 5 member Robby Hollingsworth led the recent
charge to send an ultimatium to the Suwannee County
County Commission
On August 27, 2026, Mr. Foreman addressed the growing political and legal impasse between Columbia and Suwannee Counties over the governance of the NFWUA.
While Mr. Foreman’s conclusions are practical judgments about both ILAs and the political friction and litigation risk, he doesn’t disclose that he authored or vetted the agreements he is analyzing.
County Attorney Foreman’s Critical Oversight: The County 5 are legally trapped
Mr. Foreman allowed Columbia County to sign a secondary, five-year operational agreement (ILA) in 2025 that failed to include an exit clause or reconcile its terms with the withdrawal provisions of the 2024 agreement. Now, The 5 is legally trapped.
County 5 member Everett Phillips, who is running for his
seat in this election cycyle, will have a chance to
articulate his position
The County possesses a meaningless right to withdraw from the Authority (the 2024 agreement) but no right to withdraw from the financial obligations (the 2025 agreement).
While Mr. Foreman’s memo applies basic contract law principles which everyone learns in law school (such as breach of contract and merger clauses), it is a defensive explanation of prior agreements that he either drafted, negotiated, or approved.
Now, Mr. Foreman is forced to advise the County 5 (and the Columbia County residents who elect them and him) that they have no leverage because the contracts he reviewed before the County's approval successfully locked them into a five-year marriage with no unilateral divorce clause.
The interlocal agreements lack a default clause, a remedies provision, a dispute-resolution clause, and an ambiguous term provision.
County 5 member Kevin Parnell.
The Board was entitled to know that some of the exposure Mr. Foreman has warned them about, e.g., a $2,000,000 lawsuit, withdrawing doesn’t dissolve the Authority, originates in the paper he advised them to sign.
Mr. Foreman had no choice but to recommend to The 5 that the best way to a solution was negotiation.
One more thing: Does non-funding breach the agreement?
The 2025 ILA states that funding comes from "appropriations… based on a budget appropriation request…as approved by the governing bodies of Columbia and Suwannee."
While the amounts already appropriated and unpaid are collectible, future years’ appropriations seem problematic. Florida courts will not ordinarily issue court orders compelling a legislative body to appropriate funds; ordinarily, that is a discretionary legislative act.
A lawsuit by Suwannee County demanding four years of future Columbia County appropriations runs into the annual-appropriation doctrine, Florida Stat. § 129.07, and the ILA’s own non-appropriation language.
Those are issues (defenses for Columbia County) that deserved a paragraph in Mr. Foreman’s memo. It is not there.