ORANGE PARK – Much like the popular adage in NASCAR, Rep. Sam Garrison knows that if Clay County is caught up with its infrastructure projects, it will be behind in the future.

Keeping pace isn’t good enough, especially when Clay is one of the fastest-growing counties in Florida.

Finding the money to patch bumpy roads and fix leaky schoolhouse roofs is tough enough, so how does Clay County find the money to build new roads and schools?

“We’re just kind of trying to keep pace at this point,” Garrison said. “It’s going to take a sustained investment going forward. How do we structure that? That’s a big issue for us right now.”

Garrison said infrastructure and the preservation of public space were two of his favorite issues during the recent legislative session. He discussed his wish list during last week’s Clay County Chamber Legislative Roundup at the Thrasher-Horne Conference Center.

“I think this is Ground Zero for this aging infrastructure,” he said. “I’m not talking roads, I’m talking schools. We have a lot of old schools in the state that are expensive to maintain. They’re unsafe for the school safety standards we expect in the post-Parkland world. They’re tough for communities. How do we figure out the financial balance between state and local responsibilities for aging infrastructures for our students to learn?”

Garrison said Orange Park High, Grove Park Elementary, and Lakeside Junior High were three of his district’s schools that “had challenges.”

“It’s not just the schools. It’s also the communities, the older homes that were there coming up on 50, 60 years of construction. How do we renew those neighborhoods and make sure that North Orange Park doesn’t become the next Arlington? To me, that’s what I’m thinking about.”

Garrison said the state can leverage resources in the budget and policy to help people who can’t afford to live on Fleming Island or at Oakleaf to find a good home to reinvigorate other parts of the county.

“We want an urban core that’s vibrant,” he said. “We want to do something to bend the curve a little bit.”

That’s why Garrison said it’s important to work ahead.

“You know, one of my favorite quotes is, ‘We live in the shade of trees other people planted.’”