State Seeks Injunction Against High Springs CRA as Business Owners Request Financial Records

Editor’s Notes: The CRA Board is considered a separate entity from the High Springs City Commission, but it is made up of the members of the city commission. For simplicity, the CRA board members are referred to with their titles used on the city commission. 

High Springs business owners are seeking financial records from the High Springs government. Simultaneously, the Florida Department of Commerce is seeking an injunction against the city's community redevelopment agency, requiring them to file an audit report.

Records Request

On May 26, the J. Muir & Associates Law Firm announced they submitted a public records request for financial records from the City of High Springs on behalf of a coalition of local business owners.

According to a press release, the firm seeks "detailed financial records including profit and loss statements, balance sheets, check registers, vendor payment records, payroll records, petty cash logs, bank reconciliation statements, and audit reports for fiscal years 2023, 2024, and 2025."

The press release states that the coalition has invested in the community and wants to understand why the city is facing a "severe budget shortfall." The firm cites the use of emergency funds to cover a nearly three-year-old sewer invoice, in addition to discussions of eliminating the High Springs police and fire departments. Commissioners decided not to eliminate the departments at their meeting on Thursday.

Jane Muir, founding partner of the firm, said, "Our clients are small business owners who have put their life savings into this community... They pay taxes, they employ residents, and they depend on city services to protect their investments. They deserve to know where their money is going and why the city cannot account for it."

According to the press release, "The State of Florida's Joint Legislative Auditing Committee has already directed multiple state agencies, including the Florida Department of Revenue and the Florida Department of Commerce, to withhold funding from the City and threaten legal action over the CRA's failure to submit a required audit..."

Petition for Enforcement

According to court records in Leon County, the Florida Department of Commerce has filed a petition for enforcement against the High Springs Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).

The commerce department is asking the court to invoke an injunction requiring the CRA to file an audit report for Fiscal Year 2023-2024.

According to the petition, filed on April 30, 2026, the CRA "has not, to date, submitted its Audit Report for Fiscal Year 2023-2024... The remedy for noncompliance is a petition for enforcement."

May 28 CRA Meeting

At the CRA/commission meeting on Thursday, commissioners heard about a project incentive grant applied for by John Millet, co-owner of Serendipity Vintage Soda and Sweets.

The grant provides a shuttle service that would take visitors from the springs to the CRA District.

The grant is for $20K and the project is expected to cost $30K. The project is set to operate on a Saturday-only basis for roughly five months. The transportation would be provided by Get Up and Go which is a business local to High Springs. 

At the prior CRA meeting, commissioners also discussed a $15K grant application from Christy Barber with Spring Building LLC to convert the second floor of their business to short-term lodging. Commissioners voted in favor of half; $7.5K for lodging, along with the full $20K for the shuttle service. However, at Thursday’s meeting, Commissioner Wayne Bloodsworth asked to hold off on finalizing the approval.

Bloodsworth said “This may be out of line… but with our certain circumstances that’s been presented this week with investigation in the CRA, I would like to know if we can table this, and table the next one too, till we get some of this stuff cleared up and handled properly. I don’t know… Legally can we do that?.. There’s too much open stuff going on. I’m not against some of these, but I’m just wondering, legally can we postpone until some of this stuff is cleared up… There’s a lot of [public records requests that have been made]. I know our staff is stressing over it trying to get all that’s necessary. So I’m just wondering, is it possible to hold off on this moving forward with these two?”

City Attorney Kiersten Ballou said it was okay as long as the motion comes from someone who was voting within the majority. 

City Manager Jeremy Marshall said, "The audit [has] been behind for three years... We don't know what that starting balance is but the CRA does not have a lot of money going in and out… We know we have [tax increment financing coming in]... There is money hands down for this project in there. No doubt… The financial problems that I’ve been talking to you about has nothing to do with the CRA, it has to do with general funds. It’s a completely separate fund… [The CRA is] its own entity. Its own government.”

Mayor Andrew Miller and Commissioner Tristen Grunder pushed back on tabling the two projects but indicated they were okay with not taking anything further for the near-future.

Commissioner Katherine Weitz asked Ballou if they’d be okay legally with pausing CRA project approval. 

Ballou said the grants give commissioners "basically unlimited authority” on project approval. “You don’t even have to say ‘We’re not going to take any more applications,’” she explained. “You could go basis by basis and if someone applies and you say, ‘Hey really right now we’re not sure where we’re at… No thanks right now but come reapply or let's put your application on the next agenda.’ You have a lot of discretion when it comes to those grant programs.” 

Commissioner Chad Howell said, “I really like the idea of—we keep moving forward… We take in the applications. If it makes sense, we look it over, we do it. What has come out is a public records request. I’m pretty sure we can ask Angela how many she gets. It’s nothing new.” 

“She doesn’t normally get them from attorneys though,” said Weitz. “I think this is a little different. She wants to make sure she does everything right.”

Marshall said the city regularly gets public records requests from attorneys and that they wouldn’t treat it differently than any other request, but noted the one submitted by J. Muir & Associates was “very sizable.”

Ballou said they have a meeting scheduled with the attorneys to see if they can “narrow down some issues and make it a little bit more practical.”

Commissioners unanimously approved the 20K grant for the shuttle service.

Moving onto the lodging grant, Weitz said she wished they pushed the item back because she doesn't want to use CRA funds for furniture.  

Bloodsworth said, “Would this be the proper time to ask what we can use this money for [in the] CRA? Could this be used for maybe improving our water and our sewer in the CRA District if people are having problems with the water and sewer lines? More basically addressing some of our issues that other people are having instead of just one or two individuals.”

Ballou said there are instances where the funds could be used for that purpose but there’s also instances where it couldn't, but the “potential is there” depending on the project.

Marshall said he has an upcoming training session in Orlando and he’ll ask if they can use CRA funds for infrastructure. 

Commissioners ultimately approved the $7.5K grant with Weitz in dissent. 

After the approval, commissioners moved on to discuss the future of the CRA within the next five years. 

Weitz further commented on infrastructure issues and said they have “people who live over here who don’t drink their water because it's so bad…" She said, “If we could improve that water distribution within the CRA district, it doesn't just benefit the CRA district… It benefits the whole system.” She also suggested building a dog park. 

Miller said he thinks training for the chair of the CRA is important. 

Bloodsworth said he wants to see the CRA District expand and added, “I don't want to see it go down Railroad Avenue down in that part of town because some of those churches down there are on the National Registry of History. We can't do anything for those people. I had one of their church members reach out to me to see if we could help them with windows and doors. They're not in the district… I think you say you have to go to the county to do [something] of that nature?” he asked CRA Director Amy Bohannon.

Bohannon said their priority is to "resolve the audit issue.” 

“They won’t even have a conversation with us until that audit [is] done,” Marshall said.

Howell said he wants to see them be more proactive with bringing in businesses. He said the CRA is a big factor for tourism and they need to make it simple for people to traverse the district. 

Grunder said High Springs business owners have “put quite the investment into this town… and it's time we do something to help them.” 

Miller suggested adding more parking and floated the idea of a parking garage before joking, “Don’t shoot me.” 

“We’re all thinking about the same thing,” said Grunder. “We gotta clean up what we got going on right now, get that officially done, cleaned up, looked through, and then we can really start to talk about the future but it’s almost just pipe dreams at this point until we clean up what we got going on.”