Help needed TODAY on Clay County Florida detecting ban

Please give this your immediate attention. We need to act fast to help out our fellow hobbyist in Clay County, Florida. That is a neighboring county to Jacksonville.

If you do not already know, Clay County Florida will be discussing a new law to ban metal detecting on all county property.  The law actually goes farther and includes such things as Indian relics and fossils. Basically stating that nothing can be removed from county property. The discussion will take place at the County Commissioners meeting on Tuesday Sept. 8. at 2:00 so we have little time.

I sent emails twice to each commissioner and did not receive a reply. My intent in the emails to them was to find out what prompted this law so we new what approach to take but apparently they are not interested in replying to me.  I also found that this law was discussed in a committee the first part of August. This just recently came to light when someone noticed it in the back of a newspaper under the “legal notices” column. They then posted it on several forums and alerted the FMDAC. We are alerting our entire membership and everyone else to take a moment and contact them.


Here is the county website……… www.claycountygov.com

Here is a link to the PDF file with the text of the bill. I apologize for not copying it here but I was unable to get it to copy.

www.myclay.org%2Fdocs%2F2009%2FBCC%2F20090908_193%2F712_Ordinance%2520Prohibiting%2520Operation%2520of%2520Metal%2520Detectors.pdf

We need to deluge them with emails. Make sure they are calm and well written as we do not want to antagonize anyone. I will add that we can all watch it live as the meetings are broadcast over the internet and previous meetings are available for viewing.


Here are the commissioners emails. Let’s jam their email boxes.

Wendell Davis…..…. Wendell.Davis@co.clay.fl.us

Doug Conkey………..Doug.Conkey@co.clay.fl.us

Travis Cummings….. Travis.Cummings@co.clay.fl.us

Chereese Stewart....... Chereese.Stewart@co.clay.fl.us

Ronnie Robinson…… Ronnie.Robinson@co.clay.fl.us


We need to act fast as this meeting is tomorrow.  If you are in the area and can attend the meeting then please do. The more people that show up the more influence we will have.

If you don’t think it can happen to you then consider this. In the last year we have seen this pop up unexpectedly in New York City, Louisville and in the state of Wisconsin. If you don’t act now and speak up it will soon be coming to your locality. We need to band together and stop this.


Mark Schuessler
FMDAC Legislative Officer

 

A big thankyou to all who emailed.

The meeting went well. You can watch it on the website. The section on the law is about 30 minutes. An ordinance was passed but not was proposed originally. Here is a summary

Metal detecting is prohibited on historical or archaeological sites and cemeteries on county property.

None of the commissioners were really against detecting just uninformed. The guy that was sending replies (Robinson) was actually on our side. He was responsible for the changes. He made a comment in a committee meeting that took place in August that he would not tell anyone that they could not use a metal detector in a county park.  feel free to send himn a thankyou.

Thanks again to all.

Mark S.