The Okaloosa Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously last Tuesday to order the removal of two school zone speed cameras on Hollywood Boulevard in Fort Walton Beach and to begin negotiating a potential transfer of the road’s right-of-way to the city, with one firm condition: an enforceable covenant permanently banning speed cameras on the road.

The vote came after Deputy County Administrator Jason Autrey presented the findings of a title search that confirmed both cameras sit squarely in county right-of-way. The county never issued permits for the cameras.

“We very clearly, the title search has shown that it is county rights of way,” Autrey told the board.

Chairman Trey Goodwin confirmed the county’s position during the meeting.

“The county has not issued any permits for those cameras to be installed in the county right of way, correct?” Goodwin asked.

“That is correct. No, sir. The county has not issued permits for those cameras,” Autrey replied.

Title search findings

The title search examined Hollywood Boulevard between Mary Esther Cutoff and Eglin Parkway (State Road 85). The scope was large enough that the title company divided the road into four segments. Autrey credited Kerry Parsons with the County Attorney’s Office for her work distilling the findings into a simplified ownership map.

Ownership varies by segment. West of Wright Parkway, near Fort Walton Beach High School, the road came to the county through a Florida Department of Transportation secondary state road transfer. Between Wright Parkway and Memorial Parkway, the county gained ownership through direct dedication by plat or deed. East of Memorial Parkway, ownership is a blend of city and county dedications.

The county and the city split the cost of the title search. County Attorney Lynn Hoshihara said the search took longer than expected given the length of the road and the complexity of its history. The results were forwarded to the Fort Walton Beach City Attorney on Sept. 8.

Camera removal

Autrey said the city has turned the cameras off but they remain physically in place. He recommended giving Fort Walton Beach one working week to remove them, noting the county has removed cameras from county right-of-way before.

“We did that over off of Denton before,” Autrey said. “Now that we know this very clearly, and we’ve provided to the city, I think it’s absolutely reasonable for us to reach out to the city and say, ‘Remove your cameras within,’ give them seven days or a working week, and if they don’t, then we will be happy to do what we did last time.”

Transfer negotiations

Commissioner Carolyn Ketchel made the initial motion to negotiate a transfer of the right-of-way to the city.

“If they want to take over the maintenance of Hollywood and run it, let them have it,” Ketchel said. “I’m all in favor of it, turning it over to the city if they’re willing to do the maintenance that needs to be done on that road.”

Autrey said both the city and county have been budgeting for and planning work on the same road, adding to the confusion. He said Fort Walton Beach staff have expressed a willingness to consider accepting the right-of-way, but only within the city limits. The city’s boundary stops at Jonquil Avenue, and the city has no interest in the road west of that point, which falls in either the City of Mary Esther or unincorporated Okaloosa County.

“It needs to act as such that way moving forward so we don’t have the confusion of the City of Fort Walton Beach issuing permits on a county roadway or vice versa,” Autrey said.

Commissioner Paul Mixon seconded the motion and later added a friendly amendment directing Chairman Goodwin to participate alongside staff in the negotiations and bring a final agreement back to the full board.

Goodwin wants camera ban

Goodwin said he supports the transfer but insisted on a legally enforceable restriction preventing the city from ever reactivating speed cameras on the road.

“I don’t think I can knowingly hand the keys over to that right of way if I haven’t made sure that those violations of due process cannot be reimposed upon the citizens that I represent,” Goodwin said. “I think it’s our duty to continue to fight for the rights of our citizens, to protect due process, and frankly to try and protect the public trust because as we found out, these particular right of ways are entrusted to Okaloosa County. But it’s not because it belongs to the county, it’s because we’re stewards for our citizens.”

Goodwin also renewed his call for Fort Walton Beach to refund the fines collected from the cameras, a request the Fort Walton Beach City Council declined in June.

• “I really hope that the city will take this opportunity to look at this as a public trust restoration effort,” Goodwin said.

He compared the situation to a private business discovering it wrongfully charged a customer.

“In my private business, if I wrongfully charge somebody an amount and I find out about it, I think I have an ethical and moral responsibility to give that money back,” Goodwin said. “And people were paying tickets to the tune of quite a bit of money for tickets that were honestly just as illegal as what the people were accused of doing in speeding.”

Ketchel accepted the camera ban as a friendly amendment to her motion.

Legal enforceability

Commissioner Sherri Cox raised concerns about the long-term durability of any restriction, asking Hoshihara how the county could ensure a future city council would not ignore a camera ban 20 or 30 years from now.

Hoshihara said the transfer could include a provision enforceable through the courts.

“If we were transferring a deed, we would simply put in a deed restriction,” Hoshihara said. “If it’s by resolution in which we are transferring ownership, then same thing. It would be memorialized in a written agreement.”

Rather than a reverter clause that would return the road to the county if the terms were violated, Goodwin suggested a specifically enforceable covenant, allowing the county to take the city to court to compel compliance.

Mixon suggested the agreement also include maintenance standards, warning that if the city neglected the road and it came back to the county, the cost of restoring it could be significant.

“If we’re gonna go as far as writing in the cameras, we probably ought to write in some expectation of maintenance,” Mixon said.

Background

The dispute dates to the April 7 Board of County Commissioners meeting, when the board first raised questions about the school zone cameras on Hollywood Boulevard near Fort Walton Beach High School. Chairman Goodwin wrote to the city that same day requesting the cameras be removed and fines refunded.

The Fort Walton Beach City Council voted in June to formally decline the county’s broader refund request while noting that fines from violations issued after the county’s March 24 resolution had already been returned.

The cameras had been turned off by the city prior to the title search being completed. Staff from both agencies have said they are willing to work together on a path forward, though no draft agreement has been developed.

The final motion, as amended, passed unanimously. It directs staff to negotiate the transfer with an enforceable covenant banning speed cameras, requires the cameras to be physically removed, includes maintenance standards in any agreement, and assigns Chairman Goodwin to participate in the negotiations alongside staff.