St. Johns County to invest $15 million on various improvement projects

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — What would you do with an extra $15 million in your budget?

“We need to pay teachers more, need to help senior citizens,” Beverly Bertwell said.

“Any of that quality of life thing, I think it’s always a good thing to spend some money on if they have extra,” Susan Lillie said.

St. Johns County commissioners are now in the enviable position of having an extra $15 million to reinvest into the community.

Some of the money came from savings from previous years.

Commissioner Jeremiah Blocker said the county was also thinking ahead.

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“These were dollars that we had saved wanting to make sure that they went towards critical needs,” Blocker said.

One of those critical needs is improving sidewalks. Blocker said it’s one of the things citizens have requested and now they have the money for it, but that’s not all.

“In addition to that, parks and recreation. We have a lot of parents, we have growing families,” he said.

It’s in the beginning stages, but county leaders are looking to build a regional park and library at World Golf Village.

The surplus money will also go towards beach renourishment and boat ramps.

“We want to make sure we were wisely investing this back in our infrastructure,” Blocker said.

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Cox Media Group