Okaloosa Lane is a collector road east of Twin Hills Park, connecting subdivisions along East Redstone Avenue to U.S. Highway 90. Traveling north on Okaloosa Lane as it stands requires drivers to turn left onto East Chestnut Avenue and perform a harsh, greater-than-90-degree right turn to continue north.
According to the report from Public Works Director Scott Bitterman, “the configuration is not ideal as it introduces a safety issue as well as multiple stops at intersections.”
Bitterman requested approval for a task order not to exceed $181,986 for HDR Engineering Inc., which is already under contract for surveying and design services for the project, to perform CEI services.
District 1 Commissioner Paul Mixon motioned to approve the task order with a comment, and District 3 Commissioner Sherri Cox seconded.
“This is primarily a residential area; however, we have had traffic fatalities there,” Mixon said. “It’s a very peculiar intersection, so thank you Commissioners for agreeing with this.”
At Mixon’s request for a timeline, Bitterman estimated that the department is aiming to have the project up for bid by the end of the year, but that the development is queued behind improvements on PJ Adams Parkway and John King Road.
The project, which has been in progress since 2023, aims to straighten the road and construct stormwater improvements. It is funded by a county infrastructure surtax allocation of $1.6 million, which was approved in January 2024.
The raise, which would be standard for general city employees, includes a 2 percent cost-of-living increase and a 4.5 percent merit bonus based on her reviews from staff and council members. She earned $175,000 in her first year as city manager.
Appointed officials, such as the city manager, do not have guidelines for raises and are typically not eligible for cost-of-living or merit-based increases, but her contract gives the council discretion regarding her salary. Mayor JB Whitten, though not voting on the raise, said that Leavins should be treated as any other city employee and recommended the 6.5 percent increase.
Leavins took up the role in August 2025, following Crestview’s first-ever city manager, Tim Bolduc, after serving both as deputy and interim city manager since January 2025 and in other city roles in the five years prior.
“We just changed city managers in the last year for the first time ever,” Mayor Pro Tem Doug Capps said of the transition. “It’s just been seamless; there were no bumps, no hiccups.”
She received an overall score of 2.81 out of 3, which correlates with “exceeds expectations” for typical city employee evaluations. She was evaluated based on the city of Crestview’s core values, receiving a 2.8 in adaptability and communication, 2.7 in knowledge, 2.9 in respect and 2.85 in teamwork.
“The thing that I really admire about your performance is you being proactive and always working for a solution, and finding those solutions,” Council Member Sylvester Echols said to Leavins at the meeting.
Leavins thanked the council, the city department heads and city staff for their support and said she looks forward to the upcoming year.
The Comprehensive Fee Schedule amendment, read by Strategic Initiatives Director Nick Schwendt, includes the annual, across-the-board 12 percent increase to water and sewer rates, as well as an increase in connection fees.
Included within the amendment is Ordinance 2034, which applies a 1.3 rate multiplier to 349 sewer-only customers served by the city. The increase, which is expected to add $171,000 to the general fund in 2027, is intended to fund upgrades to and maintenance of the city’s sewer services.
Also at the meeting, the council approved Ordinance 2019 on first reading, which amends the language in city code regarding taxes paid by city water customers. The ordinance would levy a 6 percent service tax on all water service customers within Crestview city limits.
Previously, customers within city limits who did not purchase water services from the city, namely Auburn Water Service customers, did not pay the city’s standard service tax. City Manager Jessica Leavins said the average affected customer can expect to pay an extra $2.50 per month as a result. The second reading and approval of Ordinance 2019 is scheduled for the next City Council meeting Sept. 28.
Also included in the amendment are increases in planning review fees for new subdivisions, rental rates for the Senior Center, Community Center and Warrior’s Hall, vendor fees for events and festivals and youth sports registration fees.
Schwendt explained that the amendment is a cautionary measure, partially to cover ever-rising costs and partially to hedge against the possible passage of Amendment 3 in the November election. Crestview, like local governments across the state, is looking to bolster the general fund against the property tax revenue it would lose should Florida voters pass Amendment 3 in November.
The increases go into effect Oct. 1, with the start of fiscal 2027 and the new city budget, which is scheduled to be approved at the City Council’s final budget hearing Sept. 21.
Attendees watched, “Choose the View” fans in hand to beat the heat, as Mayor JB Whitten and EFCU’s senior vice president of membership and community development Neko Stubblefield welcomed them and introduced the Arts and Education Center.
A look inside reveals a large multipurpose room, which will host local nonprofit organizations, as well as auxiliary spaces for classes and activities.
Stubblefield hopes the Arts and Education Center will become a “hub of activity,” gesturing toward the children already enjoying the new space after the ribbon cutting. She said the space will have a stage for after-school theater productions and tutoring offered by Stage Crafters Community Theatre.
“I go back to this space being an opportunity for kids, and it’s unlike anything that we have in the tri-county area,” she said. “And the beautiful part of it is it’s going to be free.”
The classroom spaces will host STEM, arts and financial classes offered by the Emerald Coast Science Center, the Panhandle Rebels robotics group and Grow Your Gift Music School, among others in the future. Programming and registration will be available on the city’s website when the space is fully furnished and running.
City and Eglin Federal Credit Union officials cut the ribbon at the Arts and Education Center.
The space, formerly a flower shop, underwent a $170,000 renovation authorized by the Crestview City Council to repair structural issues and revitalize the interior. The process began last spring when the city sought to lease the building for an arts center.
Eglin Federal Credit Union stepped in to pay the first three years of the building’s lease on the city’s behalf, with Stubblefield describing the sponsorship as the next logical step in the company’s partnership with Crestview, following the Eglin Federal Credit Union Skate Park in 2021.
Mayor JB Whitten speaks ahead of the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The Arts and Education Center gives many nonprofits based in south Okaloosa County, especially Fort Walton Beach, a foothold in the north of the county, extending new opportunities to children in Crestview.
City Manager Jessica Leavins believes the Eglin Federal Credit Union Arts and Education Center will provide welcome activities for children and families in Crestview and welcomes ideas about how to use the space.
“Help us to bring more opportunities to these kids for things to do – let us know what your creative ideas are,” she said. “Right now, the space is kind of a blank canvas, so we’re looking to see what we can do next.”
City Council members will discuss directing staff to amend the city’s land development code, which would make cottage food establishments allowable home businesses.
Some of the additions to the code, if passed, will include rules pertaining to location, size of additional structures and signage, operating hours, parking, and entry and exit.
The move comes after cottage food stand talk has heated up around the area. In Fort Walton Beach, the council voted 5-1 on Aug. 11 on an ordinance to allow cottage food businesses to sell products from a cart or stand.
Animal control agreement
Following approval by the Okaloosa County Board of County Commissioners on Aug. 18, the city of Crestview will have a chance to approve the same agreement, allowing it to run animal control services in north Okaloosa.
The agreement provides a 50-50 cost share between the county and the city, with the county covering 65 percent of the cost associated with renovating a new building for animal control use.
The city will provide officers and vehicles.
The move follows county officials’ decision to start their own animal control operation this summer after the Panhandle Animal Welfare Society declined a new contract, ending a partnership that lasted for more than 20 years.
Sewer utility rate change
Crestview City Council will also discuss a planned 1.3 utility multiplier for sewer-only customers.
According to meeting documents, the city’s utility fund is operated as an enterprise fund and should have a rate structure that is fair, just and equitable to all users.
With the 1.3 multiplier, there is a projected increase to the utility fund of $171,000 in 2027, increasing each year to $320,000 in 2035. These additional revenues, according to meeting documents, will improve its ability to make improvements and maintain the utility infrastructure.
Vaughn came up U.S. 127 at 2:35 p.m. and crossed the line. That was the last one. He had been picking off counties, off and on, for about 40 years.
He saved Defiance County for the end on purpose, and only because he liked the sound of it. Vaughn said he had driven that part of Ohio plenty of times and purposely bypassed the county every time.
John Vaughn, right, stands with Defiance County Commissioner Dana Phipps, who presented Vaughn with a proclamation marking July 18, 2026, as “John Vaughn Day.”
“I was going to save it for last,” he said.
Afterward, the county visitors bureau brought him in, along with the mayor of Defiance and a group from the Defiance County Commission.
“They shook my hand, fed me some cake, fed me some cookies and talked to me about travel for an hour,” Vaughn said. Then they handed him a proclamation making July 18 “John Vaughn Day” in Defiance County, Ohio.
Vaughn grew up in northern Arkansas, in a family that did not go anywhere. His senior trip was to Branson, Missouri, 10 miles north of the state line.
He was living in West Texas, working as a fleet manager, when his passion for travel began. He was bored one night and had a one-page map of the interstate highway system.
John Vaughn stands in front of a sign marking the Arctic Circle while traveling on the Dalton Highway in Alaska.
“I though, man, there’s Des Moines. What’s it like up in Des Moines? There’s Detroit. What’s it like in Detroit,” he said.
Vaughn said he just started driving. He did not have money and started one county at a time whenever there was time. He began in 1984 and finished every mile of the interstate system 28 years later in 2012.
Then the U.S. highways. Then the counties, on a spreadsheet, with mapping software, under rules he made up and stuck to. One direction per highway in a calendar year. Daylight only.
A county is only counted when physically in it.
“Four wheels in, or two feet in, we counted it,” he said. “You get a flyover, that doesn’t count.”
John and Sue Vaughn stand in front of a marker in Rugby, North Dakota, marking the geographic center of North America.
Somewhere in his travels, Vaughn found the Extra Miler Club on Facebook, a group of people essentially doing the same thing. Going to every county, ballparks, national parks and high points. They hold a convention every year.
“It’s a bunch of the most unusual people you’ll ever see,” Vaughn said. “They get in one room in some convention center somewhere and they meet for one hour a year.”
This year that hourlong convention was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, about 40 miles from the Defiance County line. Which is how Vaughn’s welcoming committee came to be.
Vaughn said Alaska was the hardest part. He said he made five trips. One was solo, right after he retired: Key West to the Arctic Ocean, dropping his wife, Sue, off in Crestview on the way through, then north through Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon and onto the Dalton Highway, a 414-mile, mostly unpaved road running alongside the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
He stopped in Coldfoot, where the hotel is trailers hooked together and mostly used by oil field crews.
John and Sue Vaughn stand in front of Denali, the highest point in the United States, while traveling through Alaska.
“The room was about as wide as that couch,” he said, pointing at his couch in his living room.
At Deadhorse, the northern end of the highway, they gave him a number instead of a key. He kept hauling his laptop out to the truck and back every time he walked down the hall to a shared bathroom.
The rest of Alaska he and Sue did together. The trip entailed village airstrips with a shed and a runway. Bears catching salmon at Brooks Camp. A ferry through the southeast panhandle that makes stops 30 minutes at a time.
“People use that ferry system to get to and from work,” Sue said. “Because there are no roads.”
The Vaughns married in 2007, and that is when counting got more serious. Early on, they used their own cars. Sue explained that John had a daughter attending the University of Southern Mississippi and the driving back and forth “burned up” several cars in the process.
“After that, we decided we would do rentals,” she said.
They tried to travel with as few expenses as possible, staying at cheap hotels when possible. Breakfast and ice cream were often at McDonald’s, most afternoons, which is how they came to be idling in a Nebraska neighborhood watching a woman throw a man’s clothes onto the street.
In upstate New York, they saw a park using toilets as flower planters. A coffin was just sitting on a front porch in Indiana. Their travels resulted in a photo archive with 30,000 pictures.
When you ask John Vaughn what 3,143 counties taught him, he points back to what makes America great in the first place.
“No matter where you go, people are people,” he said. “There’s all kinds of different ways to live life. There’s all kinds of different ways to make a living, but people manage to make a living wherever.
“I’ve seen America, because I think I really have,” he added. “And I think that America is a beautiful, beautiful country.”
Sue has about 500 counties left before she matches the same milestone as her husband. They have not yet decided where she will finish; however, Clinch County, Georgia, is in the running, mostly for the joke.
Going before the City Council on Aug. 10 as Ordinance 2032, the proposal would move land currently zoned as single-family low density to planned unit development. The land is the site of Harrisburg Estates, which is located south of Old Bethel Road.
The zoning change allows the developers to pair residential, commercial, and some civic uses within a single plan. It also allows easier approvals.
Currently, the new development is in Phase II of a four-phase project.
Staff told the board the only change to the project are the setbacks. The developer is asking for 20 feet in front, with nearly 8 feet on the sides and 25 feet in the rear, in place of a 30-foot setback now required.
Current R-1 zoning standards require setbacks of 30 feet in the front, 10 feet on the sides and 25 feet in the rear.
Staff said slopes on many of the lots would leave little room for usable yard under the current rule and noted the requested dimensions are close to what was used during Phase I, which was built with a 25-foot front setback.
The city received a letter from a nearby resident who opposed the rezoning. No member of the public spoke during the meeting.
Board member Larry Metlock asked whether the subdivision would have an entrance on Old Bethel Road, saying that access point just south of where the road curves could create a hazard.
Staff replied that the approved layout only shows entrances on Brenda’s Way and Ridge Lake Road.
According to livabl.com, all of the homes are currently for sale. Each home covers around 2,000-square-feet, offers four to five bedrooms, and two to three bathrooms. Homes range in price as well, from the highest being $360,900 to $269,900.
The homes are built by Express Homes, based out of Austin, Texas.
The recommendation passed unanimously and will be presented at the next Crestview City Council meeting on Aug. 10.
Gordon Martial Arts instructor Master Amanda Sanders is the creative mind behind the market. What started out as a way for her own children to grow their business has grown into a communitywide event for others to gain their own experience.
“So, my youngest was 16 at the time, and she wanted to get into photography. Now, she has her own licensed business because we started the market, and she got that confidence. It was just important to me to keep it going so other kids could see the different options as far as being an entrepreneur, and to also make mistakes, to learn how to talk to people, to learn how to run a business, handle money, the things that is kind of challenging as an adult to learn,” Sanders said.
The selling of their product is one thing, but kids also go through the entire creative process of brainstorming an idea and then creating it months before the market is held. Products ranged from paintings and 3D-printed gadgets to baked goods.
“Some of these kids put in months. You’re talking about two to three months to six months. I have kids that bake, so within the first week before the market, they’re spending all their time, day in and day out, preparing for it. So, it’s a lot of work for these guys,” Sanders said.
Kids from all around the Florida Panhandle participate in the Kids Entrepreneur Market, providing a plethora of products for members of the community to purchase.
“On the kids’ side, it’s phenomenal because we usually have anywhere from 80 to 120 kids show up with all their small businesses,” Sanders said. “We get kids from Fort Walton, Niceville, I had people come from Pensacola to participate.”
The market has continued to grow each year, with new and creative products making their way to Gordon Martial Arts’ parking lot, but Sanders wants to cast a broader net across Florida kids.
“One of the things that I truly want for the market is to reach at risk youth kids. So, I want to get enough sponsorships to eventually buy a bunch of different kits that the kids can make and have a day where sponsors from the community, business owners, and community leaders come out and meet one of the kids, and they do the crafts together. And then they come out and sit with them and help them run a booth and help them see that. So ideally, that’s what we’d like to expand it to, to have every kid,” Sanders said.
Thanks to all the sponsors, the market was free to any kids who wanted to attend. All young entrepreneurs received free shirts and free food provided by Killa Kones as they spent the day growing their small business.
Aubrey Kelley is a reporter for the Crestview News Bulletin.
On Saturday, July 11, the swords — and crêpes — will fly at the Crestview History Museum, located in the historic Bush House at 198 South Wilson St. as the tricolore flutters overhead. And it’s free!
The occasion is the celebration of France’s National Day, better known in the U.S. as Bastille Day. As a tactical maneuver, the June 14, 1779, storming of the Bastille prison fortress in Paris was something of a flop.
Local chef Mary Richard demonstrates crêpe making for visitors to last year’s Bastille Day celebration.
Revolutionaries expecting to liberate the fortresses’ prisoners found only seven inmates, but the siege quickly became a lasting and endearing symbol of the abolition of the monarchy and the founding of the French Republic. The holiday continues to stir hearts throughout France.
At the Bastille Day Celebration, visitors can meet members of the Sister City Program, learn about the city’s 31-year-old relationship under Sister Cities International with Noirmoutier-en-l’Île, and view a museum display about the congenial island community off the west coast of France.
Members of Unity Fencing Academy will demonstrate the time-honored sport of sword fighting and explain its elegant moves. Visitors may try on the protective gear and take a few practice thrusts, just like the renowned Three Musketeers of Alexandre Dumas’s famous 1844 novel.
Past Bastille Day French food samples include macrons (top tier) and éclairs (bottom.
In the kitchen, samples of various French foods will be served, while the Sister City Program’s favorite chef, Mary Richard, will demonstrate the art of flipping a crêpe and searing it to perfection. Try a sample, smeared with the deliciousness of several fillings, including chocolatey Nutella.
“French food is rightly renowned for its delicious taste, but also for the art of creating and presenting it,” Mrs. Richard said. “We’re looking forward to sharing it with our visitors.”
The June 11 celebration of Bastille Day and all its French culture runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Crestview History Museum, 198 South Wilson St. Admission is free. The celebration is presented by the Crestview Area Sister City Program and the Crestview History Museum.
Allison wants one more term of service for the citizens of Crestview.
“One of my motivations is to give back to a community that gave so much to me growing up,” she said.
Allison grew up in Crestview and has fond memories of playing ball at Twin Hills Park. Her mother graduated from Crestview High School in 1954, and her grandmother worked at the concession stand at the Fox Theatre in downtown Crestview.
“I graduated high school here in 1976 and OW (Okaloosa-Walton Community College) in 1978,” Allison said. “The only time I left was to go to the University of Florida for two years. I graduated in 1980.”
Allison retired from the Florida Department of Corrections with just over 27 years of service working in the probation and parole department. She has a master’s degree in religious education. Her husband is retired military and a retired teacher from Crestview High School.
With all of that history, they are rooted here.
“I don’t do politics,” is what she told friends who approached her about the council seat when Blocker resigned. But she realized it was a way for her to give back to her community.
What did they see in her to suggest the position? “I think my authenticity. I am who you see I am — there are no facades,” Allison said. “I am honest and I love the city and the people of the city.”
She went to her pastor first and then discussed it with a close circle of people. They said it was the right move for her.
“Serving the people of Crestview and getting these projects done has been a blessing,” Allison said.
Since Allison joined the council, the city has purchased the old ROC and renovated it into a recreation center, added improvements to the RC track, renewed the City of Crestview Fire Department’s chaplaincy program and moved forward with plans for a new ladder truck.
But her favorite moments on the council haven’t necessarily been while sitting on the dais. Her heart is with first responders, so any time she gets to spend with them is a bonus.
“One of the highlights is when I rode with Santa on the fire truck for the Christmas parade,” Allison said. “It was so much fun. Jessica (Leavins) and I have also worked with the ladies for May Day. I have enjoyed getting to know those ladies. It has been such an honor and pleasure to come alongside them.”
Allison says the most challenging item coming for the City of Crestview is a budgeted plan forward if the governor’s bill to increase homestead exemptions to $250,000 over two years passes by the voters in the November election. It will require a 60% supermajority approval by voters.
“We (the city staff) are already making preparations,” Allison said. “Every department across the board has to show this is a want and not a need.”
Allison believes the city will be ready for whatever decision the voters make.
“We are here to support our citizens,” Allison said. “So, if that is what they want, we will figure it out. Adjustments will have to be made, but we will do our best to keep the services we have at the level they are at if we can do that.”
And speaking of giving back, Allison also volunteers at the Saving Grace Women’s Home in Baker. She has served them for the past five years and is now the Christian education director for the organization. And at home? She and her husband have two teenagers they are fostering.
Her campaign slogan is, “Serving with heart, leading with integrity, rooted in Crestview.”
