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Lake City News
Index
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2023
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Lake City News 2023
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Sept. 19, 2023
8:40 pm | 1 min read
LAKE CITY, FL – Lake City City Manager Paul
Dyal notified the City today: "Based on my
contract terms, I am offering one (1) month
notice of my separation." Mr. Dyal was appointed
City Manager on January 3, 2023.
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September 11, 2023
3:50 pm
LAKE CITY, FL – Forward thinking by the
County 5 enabled it to arrange for
FEMA help in the
post-hurricane Idalia cleanup. Follow-up action
by Columbia County management will allow for
Lake City to be included in the FEMA
reimbursement plan. However, there is a caveat.
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Sept. 8, 2023
7:30 am | 6 min read
LAKE CITY, FL – It was a rough Tuesday
evening in City Hall as, once again, Mayor
Stephen Witt lost control of a City Council
meeting, allowing outbursts from the audience,
folk just walking up to the microphone to speak,
and racist name-calling.
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June 22, 2023
11:50 am | 11 min read
LAKE CITY, FL – Tuesday night in City Hall, some of Lake
City’s festering problems bobbed to the surface.
Issues with the City Attorney permeated much of
the governance discussion. The City Clerk got
caught up by blindly following the bogus advice
of the City Attorney, while the City Manager,
who recently said he and his assistant were in
training, mainly received a free pass.
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June 20, 2023
2:50 pm | 4 min read
LAKE CITY, FL – Tonight, the public is
bracing for another Lake City popcorn
extravaganza, the kind of entertainment that
Lake City – Columbia County residents and
Floridians have come to expect from a City
Council that goes over the edge, pays no
attention to its most basic rules of decorum and
is officiated by a Mayor who is constantly
bullied or under attack by a former drug kingpin
and community activist who at times seems to be
running the meetings and recently has begun
instructing the Mayor how to vote.
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June 7, 2023
11:30 pm | 9 min read
LAKE CITY, FL –
Monday evening’s June 5 City Council
meeting had the Council acting on a
resolution to remove community activist
and businessman Sylvester Warren from
his recent appointment to the City
Planning & Zoning Board. The issue was
not complicated: the Florida
Constitution, Article 6, section 4 is
clear: (a) No person convicted of a
felony...shall be qualified to vote or
hold office until restoration of civil
rights...
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June 5, 2023 3:50
pm | 5 min read
LAKE CITY, FL – Tonight, turmoil continues in
Lake City as the City Council will be asked to
remove community activist and businessman
Sylvester Warren from his recent appointment to
the City's Planning & Zoning Board.
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May 4, 2023 8:01
am | 2 min readLAKE CITY, FL – As Monday’s City Council
meeting was drawing to a close, the $2 mil
federally funded Richardson Community Center
Improvement Grant came front and center,
yielding another Lake City dysfunction surprise.
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May 3, 2023
8:05 pm | 4 min read
LAKE CITY, FL – Monday’s City Council meeting
had a previously added agenda item for the
Council to discuss co-locating Growth Management
and Building related employees in the newly
County purchased Lake City Reporter building
after renovations are completed.
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April 21, 2023
06:15 am | 5 min read
COLUMBIA COUNTY, FL – On Tuesday
evening, April 18, the Columbia County 5
(the County Commission) and the Lake
City City Council sat down for the first
time in fourteen months to discuss the
Richardson Community Center. Ill
feelings between the County and the City
over the downtown Lake City community
center had been festering for some time.
The local community, about two hundred
strong, attended the joint meeting.
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April 18, 2023
1:30 pm
LAKE CITY, FL – The helter-skelter world of
Lake City was on full display yesterday evening.
Mayor Witt forgot to ask for the approval of the
evening's agenda, and a tabled item regarding
City building inspections mystically appeared on
the evening’s regular agenda. There was no
explanation from City Management regarding how
these items were inserted on the agenda, no one
asked, but City Manager Paul Dyal was involved.
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April 6, 2023
07:30 am
LAKE CITY, FL – Yesterday evening in City
Hall, the City Council did not buckle under to
the extortion threat of an antebellum era County
Commission (the County 5) which had previously
failed to recognize the unique needs of the Lake
City’s Richardson Community Center or the people
that it serves.
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March 24, 2023
3:40 pm
LAKE CITY, FL – Monday’s City Council meeting
once again had the City pondering its
relationship with Columbia County, this time
about building ‘officialdom’: or, who is going
to inspect construction projects in Lake City.
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March 8, 2023
10:20 pm
LAKE CITY, FL – Mayor Stephen Witt once was a
model for presiding over open and respectful
meetings. Those are now bygone days. Mayor Witt
has allowed the City’s once-model meetings to
deteriorate into free-for-alls and vile
exchanges between the City Council and community
activist Sylvester Warren.
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March 6, 2023
12:30 pm
COLUMBIA COUNTY, FL – Controversial Lake City
City Manager Paul Dyal appeared before the
County 5 (Commission) last Thursday morning to
do damage control after unilaterally canceling
an interlocal agreement between the City and
County without legal authority.
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March 5, 2023
02:00 pm
LAKE CITY, FL – Lake City’s religious leaders
have finally awoken from the dead. Shootings –
Crime – Drugs, an inept City Council, and a
Mayor who has turned his back on Lake City
dysfunction have made Lake City one of the most
dangerous cities in America, with a reputation
that has spread from Florida to Alaska.
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January 24, 2023
03:39 am
LAKE CITY, FL – Last Tuesday evening, January
17, one of the biggest sweetheart deals in the
history of Florida went down in Lake City City
Hall. Negotiations between Lake City and HAECO
(Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company), which
began approximately 18 months ago, ended with
all but one of the City Council clueless about
the fair market value of its airport.
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A college degree: Now you see it -
now you don't.
January 19, 2023
3:15 pm
LAKE CITY, FL – The unraveling of Lake City
continued at the tail end of Tuesday's
drama-filled City Council meeting. Buried at the
bottom of the agenda was the undated rewrite of
the Assistant City Manager job description.
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January 5, 2023
09:50 am
LAKE CITY, FL – Tuesday evening in City Hall,
there was only one lone voice asking questions
and looking for answers in the final stampede to
hire former City Utility Director Paul Dyal as
Lake City’s permanent City Manager: Councilman
Todd Sampson.
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January 3, 2023
2:10 pm
LAKE CITY, FL – Controversial City Manager
Paul Dyal and his contract, now three of them,
is once again front and center on tonight’s City
Council agenda. Newly installed Councilman Ricky
Jernigan has negotiated the final version.
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