GREEN COVE SPRINGS – It’s definitely not all fun and games at Spencer’s Plantation, where a dispute over where to put a children’s playground has many of the adult homeowners there seeing red and Clay County commissioners voting to table – at least for now – a decision dealing with the dispute.

The Board of County Commissioners voted at their regular meeting Aug. 9 to table a request from the Spencer’s Plantation Homeowners Association to replat a section of Spencer’s Landing so that it is recorded as a playground for local children until there is a resolution on arbitration connected with the matter that is currently taking place. The section is currently platted as a parking lot.

The vote was a unanimous 5-0 from the BCC, which spent a lengthy amount of time listening to a number of homeowners from Spencer’s Plantation who appeared at the meeting to present their side of the situation. Among their complaints was that the current HOA Board of Directors is, in their opinion, actually an illegal board.

“The 2016 election was conducted fraudulently,” said one of the speakers, Charlie Weaver. “It was not a fair election.”

Weaver added that the 2016 election, staged Jan. 12, is currently under “election dispute with the Department of Business and Professional Regulations,” which deals with such items.

Spencer’s Plantation homeowners who attended the BCC meeting on Tuesday presented several videos from the Jan. 12 HOA meeting, which they said showed proof of the ongoing dispute. Among the problems involved with the vote were how proxies and mailed-in ballots were handled, and a later report that the envelopes involved were reported on April 8 as being stolen, said Weaver.

Including Weaver, seven homeowners from Spencer’s Plantation, which is located in the Argyle Forest area in northern Clay County, spoke before the BCC to plead their case and ask the BCC not to approve the parking lot and playground replat request.

No one in favor of the replat spoke at the BCC meeting.

Those appearing said there is a better spot for the playground, a spot which is favored by many more homeowners than the parking lot location, and that issues such as permits, insurance and maintenance costs have not been addressed.

Judith Martin, a Spencer’s Plantation homeowner who spoke, said the community has not had a voice in the playground issue.

“Thank you all for giving our community a voice,” she said, adding that the community has never had an opportunity to discuss the playground issue. “The community should have a choice in the location.”

Martin said the parking lot location is a “very, very busy” secondary entrance for Argyle Elementary School.

“Parents park there while they are walking their children to and from school…It has high usage,” she said, adding it has also historically been used to host the annual national “Night Out” event with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office and the fire department, as well as a community block party and seasonal barbecues and parties.

“We now have nowhere to hold these events,” she said.

The area is now dangerous in more than one way – it is hazardous for the children trying to cross the street to their school, and because of what she termed “improperly installed and maintained (playground) equipment,” one child has been injured, Martin said.

The playground structure, which she termed “residential” and similar to what someone would put in their backyard, was never completed nor properly maintained, Martin said.

“I have pictures of the parking lot where this has been put in. You’ll see broken glass, you’ll see the benches were never put back on it, you’ll see broken fences, you’ll see broken wood. There’s nails on the floor,” she said. “It’s totally unacceptable in anybody’s definition of acceptable.”

Chad Williams, Clay County zoning chief, who said that while the items concerning the arbitration and ongoing dispute being raised at Tuesday’s meeting were new to him, the county had been contacted in January that there was an unpermitted structure in Spencer’s Plantation.

“The staff went and saw that it was an unpermitted structure,” he said. “We did a stop order at that time.”

When an application, titled under Spencer’s Homeowners Association, subsequently came in for the replat from parking lot to playground – a move necessary to issue the required permits for the playground structure – it had to be recommended for approval, Williams said.

“We have reviewed it and it meets the technical aspects of the code. We are required to recommend it (for approval to the BCC) based on the technical aspects,” he said.

County Attorney Mark Scruby described the situation as “quite the mess,” and said that basically, the BCC had three options: approve, disapprove or table.

Commissioner Wayne Bolla, in whose district Spencer’s Plantation is situated, said he would opt for tabling a decision because of the dispute being under mediation.

“There will eventually be a resolution by an arbitrator as to whether this is a legally elected board that’s making this request or not,” he said.

Bolla added that he knew there was some “sword rattling” going on about lawsuits, and while he didn’t want to get the county into “an expensive undertaking,” he said, (if necessary) “If I had my say, I would go to court on this because these people have a legitimate gripe. I was there. I saw this happening. It happened just like it showed (on the videos).”

The remaining commissioners agreed with the concept of tabling the issue until they get a resolution on the arbitration situation, with most of them calling what they had seen on the videos presented “disturbing.”

In other action, the board approved hiring Courtney K. Grimm as the new county attorney with a contract that will pay her a base salary of $186,000 a year and a deferred compensation package that would be half for the first two years of employment and then the maximum after two years, said Stephanie Kopelousos, county manager, who presented the contract.

The commissioners approved the contract by a vote of 4-1, with Bolla dissenting.

Bolla said his “no” vote was not a reflection of what he thought of the candidate, but rather that he would like to address the county’s practice of buying out unused sick leave when an employee leaves.

“I don’t think that’s appropriate for this kind of professional job,” he said, later adding, “I think we need to stop that.”

Grimm will replace Scruby, who retires at the end of August after some 30 years of service. Kopelousos thanked Scruby for his service.

“I don’t think anyone realizes how much we rely on you,” she said. “These are big shoes to fill and we are sad to see you leave. You have truly been not just a counselor to us but a friend.”