Today I completed my last Leadership Clay Tuesday by taking part in Justice System Day. I met a lot of great people whom I will describe and walked away for a new found respect for those who help lead and protect in our County as well as a reminder that I never want to find myself locked up in a county jail!

We started the day by meeting James Jett, the counties "Clerk of the Court." I was impressed with James and his enthusiasm as well as his desire to serve the people of the county. He helped promo more electronic records for the county as well as a transition into the internet age by allowing things like title renewals, drivers license stuff etc to all be done online through the counties site.

Following that we met with members of the judical branch of government including one of the lead prosecutors, public defenders, and Judge Wilkes who is the Lead Justice of Clay County. I found all to be humorous and passionate about their jobs, especially in light of the low pay for people of their stature. I still don’t get the whole election for judges thing as I think most people are clueless to what judges stand for and basically Christmas tree that section of their ballot.

We had lunch at Ronnie’s and I had the unfortunate position of sitting with Greg Voss from the Chamber. This guy is a real pain in the neck and I will not miss seeing him every Tuesday one bit. Gotcha Greg!   Just kidding. Greg is an awesome guy and I look forward to serving with him on the Business Development committee starting next week.

We went on to get a tour of the sheriff’s office where we spent about 30 minutes with Sheriff Rick Beseler who I also found to be a great guy with a great heart seeking to make sure this city is well protected and cared for. We spent a considerable amount of time in their communications hub for 911 calls. It was really cool to see how all that works. I still think they should get GPS for all the police cars to see where the guys are at.

We concluded the day with a 90 minute tour of the Clay County Jail. Which was a rather incredible facility to say the least. I have had the misfortune of spending one evening in the Juvenile detention center back in Miami Dade some 19 or 20 years ago, and believe me, I would never want to go back or even consider having to stay in a place like that again. Although clean and incredibly respectful at every turn there was no lack of privacy what so ever and man, just what a bummer to have one find themselves in that place.

To give you the lowlight of the day, I ran home and told Mary Jo – I saw a naked lady today. It barely got a rise out of her, then she finally got it and said what are you talking about. Like I said, there was no privacy there and the inmates couldn’t see inside of the security area we were in, but the guards can see out. There we were a group of about 13 people from the county and one of the ladies dropped her drawers right and front of us and sat on the John. Luckily not everyone was paying attention, it was a scary site to say the least.  That being said, the captain summarily warned us before entering the mens area that there is no privacy there either, so we used a bit more caution when approaching that POD..

The scariest part of the day was the solitary confinement area.. wow.. sad sad sad..
An interesting part was that the majority of the people in jail were white males and many of the people in jail were not from our county, but snuck in from Duval to do their crimes and got caught. We import more crime from neighboring counties than from within.

It gave me a huge desire to pray more for those folks who find themselves in that kind of a place because of their choices. Some families where there, mothers, sons, etc. Generational curses.

May God use us to help make a difference in our area for His Glory!