Alachua County catches up with rural cities
Hello from Gainesville, Florida. It's Monday, May 18, and you're listening to StreetSmart. I'm Seth Johnson. StreetSmart is a weekly podcast from Mainstreet Daily News, where we cover local news that informs, engages, and inspires listeners like you.
Seth:A big thanks to our sponsor, Forest Meadows Funeral Home, where compassion meets experience. Check out their beautiful gardens, funeral home, and tribute center. Formations, funerals, and memorials all in one trusted place. With exceptional care and personal attention, Forest Meadows is here to honor every life with care.
Seth:Here's the top headlines, we're rounding up.
Seth:Florida's Surgeon General visited UF's McKnight Brain Institute in Gainesville to announce new funding grants. The grants will support Alzheimer's disease research and total $4,200,000 given to eight Florida institutions, including the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and the University of Miami.
Seth:It's National Emergency Services Week, and LifeSouth Community Blood Centers is encouraging people to celebrate by giving needed blood donations. Donors who give during May will get a t shirt and gift card.
Seth:Alachua County partnered with Windstream to install broadband in four underserved rural areas. That project recently reached 80% completion with deployment near High Springs, Island Grove, and Orange Heights.
Seth:The University of Florida selected Kevin Robert Orr as the new dean of the College of the Arts. Orr currently serves as the head of the School of Music at UF.
Seth:Five new candidates have entered the Gainesville City Commission races since Mainstreet's last roundup of candidates in February. The qualifying period is coming in the June. The new candidates include a longtime Gainesville Sun editor. As always, visit mainstreetdailynews.com for more details on our stories. Thanks to our generous members, this news stays free for the whole community with no paywall.
Seth:Thanks again for listening to StreetSmart. I'm Seth Johnson, and with me today is Lillian Hamman, who's gonna try to seek her fortune in Micanopy this week and become a star with the filming of A Land Remembered happening there on Wednesday.
Lillian:That's right. Yeah. And I just finished the book, and it's quite the read, I would recommend. Might have to do it for my upcoming summer reading recommendation that you do for Main Street.
Seth:Oh, boy. Little preview. So you're gonna crash the set on Wednesday?
Lillian:I am yeah. Gonna try and grab some photos, maybe interview some cast members. Word on the street was they were gonna allow locals to be extras. I haven't heard if that's been confirmed or not, but you might just wanna stick around just in case.
Seth:Sounds like Hollywood is coming to Alachua County and Alachua County is coming to a lot of rural cities around the area. It's part of their annual joint meetings with all nine municipalities. They were in High Springs just last week along with Newberry. They were in Waldo and Hawthorne as well earlier in the year. And then they're going to be in the city of Alachua here soon.
Seth:Lillian, you've been covering a lot of those meetings since they're in the rural area. What are some of the big topics the county has been emphasizing?
Lillian:Each city is going to have its own different items on their agendas, unique to that specific city, but the county is bringing some consistent topics as well. And those have included a presentation on the Forward Focus Initiative, which the county launched over a year ago. It's a three phase project focusing on East Gainesville, some of those areas like Hawthorne and on just that side of the county, kind of look at what are some of their struggles, what are some things they're doing well, but just really trying to pinpoint their needs and what could bring some more economic impact if they had the resources. Middle of phase two right now. And then, the other big topic the county has been talking about to each of the cities has been the potential impacts if the state were to eliminate property taxes.
Seth:Yeah, that's definitely been all over the news and up to voters probably ultimately to see how that's going to go. But I wanted to touch on the Forward Focus initiative for a little longer because even though it focuses on Eastern Alachua County, they brought it up in Newberry as well to say, what's Newberry role in that initiative? What was that conversation like?
Lillian:They did. And even though this project has been focused more on the Eastern side of the county, staff said that they're learning things that they could implement on the Western side as well, particularly in some of the smaller areas like Archer and places that might have similar struggles as the smaller communities out east. But the county really encouraged Newberry who is just, you know, running away with lots of agricultural and entrepreneurship success, to take their strengths and reach out to these other cities and see how they can help and partner. And Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler has been a big advocate for a Santa Fe College satellite campus in Hawthorne. And if they were to get that, she's said that a lot of the natural water and wetlands over there could be good for aqua marine research that Santa Fe College hasn't been able to do elsewhere yet.
Lillian:And if they were to partner with Newberry, with a lot of the research into the new technologies that they're doing over there, it could be a pretty sweet and fruitful partnership.
Seth:Yeah, playing focus on Eastern Alachua County definitely affects Western Alachua County too, and hopefully some synergies there. Something that affects the whole county are those property tax reform talks going on in Tallahassee. What was the county's messaging on that?
Lillian:Yeah, the county manager, Michelle Lieberman, laid out a bunch of numbers about what they're expecting their budget is going to look like and then how those numbers translate to each of the city's budgets. And there's definitely a lot of unknowns about what could happen to counties and cities across the state. County staff said an extreme proposal could potentially force cities to give up their charters or force counties to consolidate. Staff also said there's been a lot of talk about, you know, the voters are gonna get to decide the vote. But Michelle Lieberman said it could likely just be decided by, you know, eight to nine counties in South Florida that have the largest populations because only 60% of votes are needed to pass.
Lillian:She also said that people are going to continue paying property taxes anyways because they still have to fund schools.
Seth:Yeah, it's definitely a topic the county's been pushing their perspective on a while and definitely some concerns that they've had on what this property tax proposal looks like. Still a lot of question marks out there, but interesting to hear how they're going to the different cities and talking about it. Another connection with the small city is with High Springs in Lauter County. Lauter County heard a update last week on its broadband deployment program. It dedicated around $14,000,000 of its ARPA funds from COVID-19 relief towards this broadband and entered into a contract with Windstream to do it a little over a year ago.
Seth:And Windstream reported back to the county last week to say it's over 80% done with the project. That includes kind of four main areas where they're focusing on, which is Orange Heights, Island Grove, and then kind of north and south of High Springs. The Alachua County Commissioners were really excited about the information that they got and said that they wanted to share it with High Springs. Now the county also meets with the city of Gainesville, but they actually meet four times each year. Obviously, city of Gainesville, the big juggernaut in the center of the county.
Seth:So a lot more programs and synergies there with the county to kind of be up to date on. Their next meeting is gonna be at the June and it's gonna focus on the Hartwood neighborhood and the Eheady project, which is where the new UF urgent care is off of Hawthorne Road and the city's planning other services to go there as well along with Southeast 15th Street. So that's the plan currently. Now the county also had a special meeting last week to talk about just Downtown Gainesville. The county obviously owns a lot of property right in that area from the civil courthouse to the County Admin Building and then across the street as well.
Seth:Commissioner Anna Prizzia convened that meeting to talk about how the county uses its property to assist with a Downtown Gainesville revitalization. The county's plan on moving all of its admin services into the civil Courthouse, which will leave the current admin building kind of empty and open for what comes next. And so the county wants to have another special meeting with just itself before doing another joint meeting with the City Of Gainesville likely in the fall that focuses on just downtown Gainesville. So definitely a lot going on and a lot of coordination between the county and city on a lot of different projects.
Lillian:And remember, can learn more on all these stories and past meetings, upcoming meetings on our website, mainstreetdailynews.com. Right now, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor, Forest Meadows, before we bring you the news forecast and event segment.
Sponsor:At Forest Meadows, our commitment is simple. Exceptional care, personal attention, and respect for every family we serve. Forest Meadows offers every option in one trusted place. Visit our beautiful gardens and glass front niches, or plan ahead for cremation, funerals, and memorials at our funeral home or tribute center located on our cemetery grounds. Forest Meadows where compassion meets experience and every life is honored with care.
Seth:Now for this week's news forecast. Alachua County will hold a special budget meeting on Tuesday. Each of the county's constitutional officers are expected to give an overview of their budgets. That includes the county sheriff, tax collector, property appraiser, supervisor of elections, and the clerk of the court.
Seth:Alachua County's Development Review Committee will consider project approvals on Thursday, including one for the county's Jonesville Park.
Seth:The Gainesville City Commission will convene on Thursday. One item on the agenda includes vacating a 10 foot strip of land that deadlocked the commission just a couple weeks ago. It'll be back for a vote.
Lillian:Now for our events segment covering upcoming family friendly events this Memorial Day weekend. It's another pick your free concert Friday with each starting at 7PM. At Bo Diddley Plaza, there will be contemporary jazz from Mind Walk. At Tioga Town Center, Whiskey Jones will play 100 proof rock and roll or join playlist at the point at Celebration Point.
Lillian:The Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention is turning eight years old and as a part of a birthday bash, will have free admission on Saturday. The bash will include face painting, a petting zoo, and first access to a brand new exhibit about snow.
Lillian:The Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center will host a Florida Emancipation Day celebration on starting at 10AM. The event will feature vendors, performances, activities, and educational opportunities, and it will be one of the first events in the city of Gainesville's journey to Juneteenth.
Lillian:Join Blackadder Brewing Company at its brewery for a community cleanup day from nine to eleven a. On Saturday. All supplies will be provided.
Lillian:And you can get your Memorial Day cookout fix at Cypress and Grove Second Annual Burger Wars on Saturday from four to eight p. M. Your vote will help judges award prizes to local food trucks including best meat burger, best vegan burger, and best overall burger.
Seth:A lot of free concerts on Fridays, definitely options to end the work week. Which of those would you be choosing and going to jam out at?
Lillian:I'm pretty close to Bo Diddley. So I've been to a few of those concerts. And that's also where I've seen now leaving space who does our music for StreetSmart. But I probably would go over to Tioga or Celebration Pointe and try something new.
Seth:A good option and definitely plenty of time to do it this weekend with an extra long three day weekend with Memorial Day on Monday in exactly a week. Hopefully, have time and your family and friends to celebrate the special holiday remember those who've given their lives and sacrificed for the country. And even though it's a holiday, we will be back with a StreetSmart episode on Monday. And that's all we've got for this week's StreetSmart podcast brought to you by Mainstreet Daily News and made possible by our generous members. Another special thanks to Forest Meadows for believing in local news and sponsoring us.
Seth:Please share StreetSmart to help us continue the work, and remember to click on the links in the show notes to find more free local news at mainstreetdailynews.com, where you can pick up print copy across Alachua County. Our theme music is Sunset Sonata by Gainesville ska band Now Leaving Space. This episode is a production of MARC Media.
