Ochlockonee Bay merchants say Franklin County is leaving men there
By WILLIAM SNOWDEN
Editor
The surveillance video shows a Franklin County deputy sheriff’s truck pulling into the parking lot around sunrise and letting off a man in shorts, shirtless though he’s holding a shirt, and shoeless. The deputy drops off the man and then drives away, headed back across the bridge to Franklin County.
He dropped off the man in Ochlockonee Bay – in Wakulla County.
Lila Petrandis Martin, owner of Tide Creek Coastal Market in Ochlockonee Bay has more videos. One, from last year, shows a Franklin County deputy dropping off a guy and getting a bike out of the back of the truck.
“At least this one has shoes,” she notes, watching the video.
These episodes of homeless men being dropped off across the bridge have been going on for years, she says. Typically, two or three times a month.
She called the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and asked they stop doing it – and got assurances it wouldn’t happen again. A few months went by, and then here’s another one.
“I just want it to stop,” she says. “And it’s just been going on for so long.”
She remembered years ago when Donnie Crum was Wakulla Undersheriff and he was called by her family and came to investigate.
The man dropped off last week slept on the sandbags outside for Hurricane Helene, used the outside outlets to charge his phone, used the store facilities, asked store staff for food and customers for money. When the store was set to close at 7 p.m., Wakulla County Sheriff’s deputies were called and picked the man up.
WCSO Public Information Officer Capt. Brett Surace said Sheriff Jared Miller called Franklin County sheriff’s office and was assured that staff there would be told to stop.
Capt. Surace said call notes show the store calling to report the man for trespassing around 6:30 p.m. and that the man left in a vehicle a little while later. He was gone before Wakulla deputies arrived.
Surace also made a personal note, recalling years ago when he was a road deputy in another state, that it wasn’t uncommon to give a transient a ride to the next jurisdiction if they were trying to get somewhere, but he added that he didn’t know if that was the case here.
Sheila Roberson, owner of the next door Ochlockonee Bay Mercantile, said she was aware of the incident and expressed frustration.
For her part, Martin is concerned about staff feeling safe to come in to work early in the morning not knowing who is around or might have been dropped off.
She also expressed frustration that “Franklin County is putting the onus on me – and requiring our county’s resources to clean up their mess.”
