To the Editor:
Dear Commissioner Dean,
I very much enjoyed meeting with you recently to discuss the Workforce Housing Project for Wildwood Road in St. Augustine. In preparing for our meeting, I had learned a little about you, but spending time with you made such an impression that I decided to delve deeper into your background and career. What I discovered left me amazed at how much you have accomplished in your life and all that you have done for environmental preservation in Northeast Florida. I learned that you had served as Gov. Reubin Askew’s environmental adviser, as attorney for the State Land Planning Agency, general counsel for the Florida Department of Natural Resources, executive director of the St. Johns River Water Management District for 17 years, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District where you led the Everglades Restoration Program, a member of the Board of Directors for the Audubon Society for Florida, and even as a member of the Interstate Council on Water Quality Policy.
When I drive through Ponte Vedra Beach, it seems that every other house on Ponte Vedra Boulevard has a campaign sign for you in their yard, and I’m sure this is due to your tireless work on the beach restoration project for this area, which was decades overdue. Restoring our dunes not only protects the local ecosystem for wildlife on our beaches but also provides the first line of defense for our homes against erosion and storms. Efforts like these ensure our homes and property remain protected both now and in the future.
It was also amazing to learn that you were one of the key figures in securing the sale, dedication and acceptance of the Guana Preserve with 11,000 acres and five-and-a-half miles of beachfront as a state park, to be preserved forever for our citizens. The Peyton family certainly deserves an incredible amount of credit for their selfless willingness to give up miles of beachfront developable land and thousands of acres of beautiful uplands on the peninsula where thousands of homes could have been built. It’s mind-boggling to think of the value that those lands would now have for development, but thanks to the Peyton family’s generosity and government servants like you who made it happen, they will now be preserved for all time.
The Guana Preserve holds a special place in my family’s heart, as well as for many others like us. I lived on Neck Road from the early ’90s until a few years ago, and now own the only private island in the Guana, where I hope to build a humble cottage soon to spend the rest of my days among the sable palms and the orange grove I have been planting. There have been countless hours spent in my little swamp boat exploring Guana Lake and adventuring in the peninsula part of the state park. My children, Peter and Ally, grew up learning everything about the flora and fauna in the Guana, and those experiences left an indelible impression on them that shaped their paths as adults.
Jimbo Stockton’s boys, Jamie and Bobby, are the same ages as my son Peter and my daughter Ally, and Jimbo and I spent many days with the kids exploring the Guana. I recall one hike in particular from the Guana Dam to Neck Road where we lived. We started our journey at the dam, a place with a lot of history for Jimbo. His grandfather had built it in the 1950s to create Lake Ponte Vedra, originally for duck hunting, and Jimbo often spoke about how his granddad had always wanted the land to be preserved. As we set off, the kids proudly showed up sporting huge backpacks that Jimbo and I ended up carrying in very short order. When we stopped for lunch and to fish at McNeil’s pond, we discovered why the backpacks were so heavy … The kids, about 10 years old at the time, had packed enough canned goods to trek across the entire state! That was an adventurous hike — I also remember that we came across a large rattlesnake that someone had unfortunately killed, and the boys had quite an argument about who would get to carry the rattlesnake back home. Only someone with boys would understand why little boys would even want to carry a dead rattlesnake, but I can remember like it was yesterday that the boys worked up a system for taking turns passing the rattlesnake around, and Ally got so upset that she was not included … “Dad, the boys won’t let me carry the rattlesnake!” She petitioned the “Dad Court” for a ruling on the matter, and Jimbo and I made sure that she got her equal rattlesnake-carrying time!
This story may seem a little trivial until I tell you that when Ally went on to UNF for college to major in biology, she joined a research team studying herpetology (amphibians and reptiles). Her research made it onto the front page of the Florida Times-Union and earned her the moniker “Gopher Tortoise Lady”! Together, Ally and an engineering student, Kevin Nguyen, invented a robot capable of driving into gopher tortoise burrows and filming, providing information not only on the health of the turtles but also on all the other animals that utilize their burrows, including rattlesnakes! Ally went on to get her PhD at Rutgers University in cell and developmental biology and recently completed her postdoctoral work at MIT. She will be starting a new position at the end of this year as a professor at the University of Colorado, where she will lead her own research group. Ally ended up marrying her research partner, Kevin, who also grew up in Ponte Vedra, and I am now blessed with two beautiful grandchildren. Their wedding was on the edge of the Guana State Park. I remember asking Ally what inspired her to accomplish all that she has in her career, and she said simply that it was her experiences growing up in the Guana. Waking up every day surrounded by nature helped her develop her love of the outdoors and science. Similarly, my son Peter was influenced by his days in the Guana, building treehouses and chasing critters around, and has developed a lifelong love for nature. Hopefully, his kids and grandkids will do the same. Peter lives in Palm Valley and owns a successful marketing company called Launchpad Creative. He is an avid fisherman and hunter, and his company, among other industries, specializes in marketing for the boat manufacturing industry.
In closing, I want to take a moment to personally thank the Stockton family for having the vision to assemble the land so many years ago, and the Peyton family for their incredible generosity in choosing to preserve it. But most of all, I want to thank you for making it all happen. Your efforts have led to what I believe is the most significant contribution to the environment of St. Johns County that we will ever see. This is a legacy that will touch the lives of generations to come.
Forever grateful,
Pete Legeza
The Legeza family
