"I love this business, and despite the difficulty, I still have a very emotional feeling about this business," said Mary Carroll.
Mary Carroll is the 81-year-old matriarch of Northeast Driving School.
She's watched over the business and the books for the past 15 years.
She said she loves her job as an employee of the Beach Blvd. business, but in 2005, she watched the business she helped to build deteriorate. It seemed enrollment dropped 70% almost overnight.
"The registrations had declined, tremendously. I could not understand what happened," she said.
What happened was a new deal.
An exclusive contract between Ponte Vedra entrepreneur Ken Underwood and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Inked in July of 2005, the contract gave Underwood the exclusive rights to publish and advertise in the Official Florida Drivers Handbook for five years, with an option to renew for another five.
"It was devastating to people. It ruined their businesses," she said.
The state put the contract out to bid, and was asking a million dollars.
Underwood came back with the only offer: $200,000.
The state accepted and his business, The National Safety Commission, immediately set out to print more than a million copies of the book for the public, and 750,000 for high school students in Florida annually.
"They put it in the public schools, and the public schools are not allowed to promote for-profit business," she said.
Area school districts confirmed that they distributed the books to their students, and the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles notes it was all part of the deal.
Inside the books: full page, color ads for Underwood's online driving business, LowestPriceTrafficSchool.com.
The book is available directly through the DMV's website, which competitors said gives Underwood an unfair advantage, and the illusion of being the state's traffic school.
"It almost created a monopoly. Lots of schools went out of business," said Carroll.
During the early years of the contract, Underwood was incredibly active in Tallahassee, spending more than $700,000 on lobbyists and political donations.
In 2007, lawmakers passed legislation that would have prevented any advertising in the handbook.
Senator Mike Fasano of New Port Ritchie drafted it.
"I wanted to level the playing field and have everyone have an equal opportunity," said Fasano.
But then-Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the legislation.
Records show companies Underwood owned donated more than $7,000 in a single day to Crist when he was running for Governor the first time around.
Crist did not return calls for comment.
But more people started asking questions about the deal in 2008 when it came to light that one of Underwood's lobbyists was married to the Executive Director of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles when he was awarded the contract.
"When you start getting into that gray area, it does cast a shadow on the investment and how he got it...if somebody else had bid," said defense attorney Richard Kuritz.
Since the beginning of November, First Coast News has reached out to Kenneth Underwood and his legal team multiple times for comment on this story, traveling to his million dollar home on Ponte Vedra Beach on three occasions, only to be turned away.
But defense attorney Richard Kuritz has followed the case, and thinks the deal was just a smart business decision.
"When you add $700,000 to get a $200,000 contract, you clearly know something's going on. And he was willing to spend the money. He got the contract, nobody else bid," he said.
The Department started thinking differently, however, and in 2009, they told Underwood they wouldn't be renewing his contract.
Court documents show the department wanted to "hit the reset button" and "use a different model."
But Underwood understood the contract to mean he had the right to renew, so he sued the department.
"In that contract, he has a right to renew. There's not anything in there that says the state has to agree," said Kuritz.
The first court agreed with him, and ruled he could keep printing the books, but the Appellate Court ruled for the department, saying it had the right to revoke the contract.
Now the suit is likely headed to the Florida Supreme Court.
"There's a lot of money involved in it. He's definitely going to fight this all the way," he said.
Right now, Underwood is still printing the books, and he's still active on the political scene. He even donated more than $14,000 to Senate President Mike Haridopolis's failed U. S. Senate run in May.
Haridopolis did not return calls for comment.
Mary wrote to Haridopolis to ask if Underwood's donations influenced his policies.
In fact she wrote to Charlie Crist, and everyone else who received money from him.
She said she never got one reply.
"I learned a lot about how things work, unfortunately. I learned a lot about politics," she said.
If the case makes it to the Supreme Court, Mary plans to follow it right to the bitter end.
But even if they rule against Underwood, she said he'll be just fine.
"It will even the playing field. It will be fair."