(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . A Rural Calling: Pam Mitchell [1] ['Taylor Sisk', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2025-11-12 “Guilty as charged,” Pam Mitchell will respond to accusations of NIMBYism. Absolutely, firmly: Not in her backyard. Mitchell is the fourth generation of her family to call Milton, on Florida’s panhandle, home. The Blackwater River runs through Milton before emptying into Blackwater Bay, a half-dozen miles to the southeast, en route to the Gulf of Mexico. The Blackwater gets its name from the nutrients that leach out of vegetation, a sharp contrast to its sandy bottom. Considered one of the most pristine sand-bottom rivers in the world, it’s sought out by kayakers, canoeists, and tubers. It’s a source of great pride and essential income. Blackwater River near downtown Milton, Florida. (Photo by Hillary Herbert) “My family’s always been real tied to the river,” Mitchell said. “My granddaddy had a little rickety boathouse there.” “We just all grew up with the river in our backyard. The river was everyone’s backyard.” In 2018, Mitchell and her husband, Jerry, founded Milton’s Concern Citizens, with a mission, Mitchell said, “To restore honesty, transparency, and accountability” to city government. They felt outside developers held undue influence over certain council members. The Mitchells subsequently formed Save Blackwater River to address a particular issue of growing concern. The city had been informed by the state Department of Environmental Protection that it had to stop dumping sewage from its wastewater treatment plant into the Blackwater River, but had failed to act. The plant was more than a half-century old, the city had grown considerably since then, and capacity was also an issue. The Mitchells demanded responsible action from the local government. But when plans were announced for the construction of a new treatment plant, they recognized that something wasn’t right. A portion of the designated property was wetlands that feed into the Blackwater, with a steep slope. The fear was that with heavy rain, flooding would occur, and untreated sewage would dump into the river. And yet no alternative sites had been proposed. Further, a proposed site for effluent spray fields was atop the city’s drinking-water supply. The state DEP confirmed concerns of potential contamination of the water. In time, Pam and Jerry Mitchell were joined by other alarmed citizens, including David Samples. Originally from the Detroit area, Samples came to Milton to attend flight school at Whiting Field, met his wife, Jean, a local girl, and went on to a career in the Marines. The Samples returned to Milton upon his retirement. Samples came on board as the president of Save Blackwater River. Then, in 2024, the Concerned Citizens helped recruit and support a slate of candidates for city council that swept four incumbents out of office. Plans are now moving forward for a wastewater treatment plant in a location farther back from the river, on more solid ground. Pam Mitchell and David Samples. (Photo by Taylor Sisk) “The river gets in your blood,” Mitchell said. It’s a defining element of the culture; a communal backyard. That community has pulled together in its defense and in one another’s. Stewards of the River Milton Mayor Heather Lindsay’s family has likewise lived here for generations. The city is one of the oldest in the state, incorporated under the Florida Territorial Acts of 1844. Linday has found family graves dating back to the mid-1800s. Whiting Field, one of the Navy’s two primary pilot training bases, is just a few miles north of town. “We’re a military town,” Lindsay said, “and we’re really proud of that. But we’re also a river town.” “We really have a wonderful paradise that everyone can enjoy,” she said. “We need to respect and be good stewards of it.” The Blackwater River is a summer home for Gulf sturgeon, an armor-clad fish that’s considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act. When they arrive, they congregate in a particular area of the river and estivate, a form of hibernation in which they stack themselves – “almost like cordwood,” Mitchell noted – until things cool back off and they return to the Gulf. The Blackwater is one of two places where the sturgeon are known to do this – a precious refuge. “We thought that was going to be the winning part of our case, and we got a lot of people on board with that,” Mitchell said. “You know how people get all warm and fuzzy about manatees? Well, the sturgeon were kind of our armored manatees.” But after hiring a hydrogeologist to examine the site of the proposed treatment plant, they confirmed that much more was at stake. Direct discharge of effluent into the river was most certainly also a human issue. “Pam Mitchell and others really stepped up,” Lindsay said. They were asking questions most assumed had already been answered. At a city council meeting in October 2022, things got particularly ugly, Lindsay said, with one city official seeming to suggest that those asking the questions were domestic terrorists. “I think that illuminated for members of the public just how stubborn some of our elected officials and city staff leaders were,” she said. “As far as, ‘This is what we’ve decided to do, and we’re not going to entertain your questions on what we’ve decided to do.’” “They did their dead-level best to humiliate us,” Mitchell recalled, “to make us tuck our tail. But what they did is they energized people.” Getting Busy The Concerned Citizens launched a Change.org petition, “And right off the bat, we got about 10,000 signatures,” Mitchell said. “There were people from all over that had been to Blackwater River State Park and had canoed and kayaked our river, and they signed our petitions.” Mitchell, Samples, and others – notably, Rick Rogers, a former board member who has since passed away – would show up at public events, Hall’s Hardware, Gulf Coast Gun & Outdoors, Piggly Wiggly, “anywhere people were congregating,” Samples said, to share information, collect donations, distribute yard signs, and gather signatures. A local plumbing company donated porcelain toilets, and turd tosses (not actual turds; stuffed ones) were held. “The kids loved that,” Mitchell said. Samples would sometimes dress up as Mr. Turdy. David Samples as Mr. Turdy. (Video submitted) In addition to Samples, Pam, and Jerry Mitchell, board members include Vickie Mullins, Dan Mullins, and Francesca Sciolino. They constitute, Pam Mitchell said, “a very strong, very dedicated board that’s allowed us to make a difference.” Then, in the 2024 election, the city council was overhauled. “I think the public had just had enough of the way the government had not been taking seriously the concerns of the public,” Lindsay said. Among those elected was Ashley Fretwell. For her, like so many here, the river was integral to her upbringing. “I grew up in the bay fishing with my grandfather,” she said. Fretwell, her husband, and their kids have a pontoon boat that “we’re on all throughout the summer,” she said. “We just spend a ton of time on the river, fishing, hanging out, swimming, tubing, camping.” She and her husband went out with Samples on a tour of the site of the proposed treatment plant. She was convinced of the potential consequences and decided to make her first run for public office. Plans are moving forward for the design and construction of a new wastewater treatment plant, Fretwell said, and the city has purchased land for spray fields. ‘Not a bomb thrower’ Lindsay recalls how some members of the previous city council, and some on staff, acted “as if they had been victimized” by having their actions called into question. “The public has a right; it’s a basic First Amendment right,” she said. “We’re all supposed to know this, from schoolchildren on up, that we have a right to bring our grievances to our government, and we should not be humiliated or punished for having done so.” “How the public banded together and continued coming forward, continued supporting one another to bring their message to the Milton government, that whole process has been inspiring to me as an American,” Lindsay said. That, she asserted, is how democracy works – “that people can get together, they can present their grievances to their government, and when their government doesn’t listen, they can go door to door, educate the voters, and help the voters get inspired to come out and change their government.” Recently, a Milton resident told Mitchell that during the pandemic, she would listen online to city council meetings for entertainment. “And I said, ‘Do you listen to them now?’ ‘Nah; now they’re boring.’ Which is what you want. That sounds silly to say, ‘I want a boring meeting,’ but our meetings just devolved into, like, a food fight. It was that bad.” Mitchell will settle for boring. She’ll also settle for never again being escorted from a council meeting, as she once was – though it was not an altogether unpleasant experience. The police chief, who escorted her out, “was so sweet. One of my friends said, ‘It looked like he was escorting you to the prom.’” Mitchell has been called an activist, but prefers the term “advocate.” “I’m not a bomb thrower. Let’s change the hearts of the people, let’s educate them, and make a difference. That’s what we’ve tried to do.” This region is growing rapidly. Mitchell, Samples, and their colleagues recognize that and the need to prepare for it. “We never said, ‘Don’t put a wastewater treatment plant in,’” Samples said. “It wasn’t that we were trying to stop them from anything.” It was about protecting a cherished waterway and a community. It was about making more informed decisions. It was about transparency. This issue has strained the community. But Lindsay believes it has ultimately rendered it a more cohesive one. Mitchell, she said, has been “absolutely a central unifying figure.” “She’s a difference-maker because of her commitment to her values and her willingness to speak up about those values,” Lindsay said, “and her hard work in bringing people together who share those values to get organized.” “A Rural Calling” is a Daily Yonder profile series featuring people throughout rural America who are making significant contributions to their communities. Related Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailyyonder.com/a-rural-calling-pam-mitchell/2025/11/12/ Published and (C) by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailyyonder/