Alachua zoning, High Springs qualifying and Waldo school
Hello from Gainesville, Florida. It's Monday, August 3, 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. The city of Gainesville broke ground Friday on its Southwest Public Safety Center. It's a $22,000,000 project and marked the largest public investment into that quadrant of the city in recent memory. With the construction, neighbors protested the way the city clear cut the property of all three, with the city paying nearly $1,000,000 in tree mitigation funds for the site.
Seth:The school board of Alachua County approved the district's twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven budget, totaling nearly $611,000,000. The budget is slightly larger than the current one, and the board proposed a millage rate increase for the next year.
Seth:The University of Florida will install Stuart Bell as its fourteenth president during an inauguration set for November 18. Bell started the position on July 1 after unanimous approvals from the board of trustees and the presidential search committee.
Seth:Longtime Gainesville activist, Pam Smith, will receive the Susan B Anthony award later this month. She helped to organize the Southeastern Women's Health Conference and helped to found Gainesville Women for Democracy.
Seth:A thirty day bid window is open for proposals to buy or lease Ironwood Golf Course. A local coalition announced its bid called the track for the project. And UF alumni from North Carolina's Hangtime Golf jump started the process, saying they want to invest millions to enhance the public golf course.
Seth:For more information on any of these stories, visit mainstreetdailynews.com. Thanks to our generous members, our journalism stays free for the whole community with no paywall. Welcome back to StreetSmart. We are glad you're joining us this week.
Seth:I'm here with reporter Lillian Hamman. And over the last fourteen days or so, you might have noticed a new byline on our website.
Lillian:Yes. That new byline is our new photojournalist, Walker Smith. He comes to us through the Report for America program, but Walker's already been busy coming along, taking photos with us and a couple stories. Seth, you've gotten to share a byline with him. So definitely hitting the ground running in his first week.
Seth:Yeah. It's been quite busy and we wanna bring him here into the studio to talk with you guys about his background in journalism, what excites him about Main Street, and what he's been learning about Gainesville and Alachua County, and just get to know a little more about the personality behind the byline. So you can look forward to next week's episode being an interview with him instead of our normal programming, and then we will be back the week after that with your regular news roundup. For this week though, we are hitting some of the outlying areas after being in the city of Gainesville for a couple weeks. Lillian, as our rural reporter that falls squarely on your shoulders, what's been going on?
Lillian:Make sure to buckle up. We're gonna take a tour all across Alachua County today, touching on Alachua, High Springs, and even Waldo.
Seth:Alright. I'm ready. Locked in.
Lillian:Okay. So starting in Alachua, I joined a bunch of community members on Monday at a twelve hour marathon meeting in City Hall.
Seth:Yeah. That's a long time to be in Alachua City Hall and listening to commissioner speaking.
Lillian:It was. There were plenty of breaks for snacks, dinner. The court reporter needed to rest her fingers, so definitely not the most fluid meeting. And then they also had to take a break because it was during their normal meeting hours or a budget workshop as well. So the reason for this super long meeting was because the farmlands commercial development was under consideration for rezoning.
Lillian:The hot topic about this particular development is that it could potentially bring a Walmart along US Highway 441. And Walmart has a little bit of a history in Alachua about twenty years ago. President sued the city over how they tried to bring one in then. So, yeah. Definitely, lots of people not for it.
Lillian:But also, there are people that are for it and want to see it come and, just bring more business to the city instead of having to drive elsewhere for Walmart.
Seth:But obviously, this was not a straightforward rezoning, first of all, being twelve hours. And then also, people were questioning whether or not the land use portion that was voted on previously was sufficient. Right?
Lillian:That's right. So the land use had been approved three to two. However, normally, it takes two votes, two different hearings to be able to, you know, ultimately confirm that. The land use attorney for the city, Patrice Boyce, suggested that the city could only use one. They didn't need to go through the two step process.
Lillian:The city faced some pushback and legal questions but decided to move forward. Boyce said during the hearing last week that the code is ambiguous for the city and that it it could, you know, go either way with how many hearings. So they moved forward and the meeting was just chock full of presentations from, you know, designated affected parties, from the applicant themselves, from staff, lots of cross examination. Some of the biggest things that came up were there have not been any hydrogeologic tests done on the property, testing for how a potential development could impact the water supply. While staff said that's not required at this stage, approving the rezoning would allow the city to be able to require those.
Lillian:Another thing that came up was Alachua County thought affected party status, and they submitted a condition to the applicant that they needed to provide an engineering and environmental study demonstrating how the development and its storm water facilities could impact the land and an existing contamination plume that is lingering from the neighboring Northwest landfill that the county owns. So like the land use hearing, this rezoning was approved three to two. Same commissioners in descent, commissioners Jacob Fletcher and Jackson Yuma. And the item for rezoning will come back before the city commission at their August 13 meeting for a second vote.
Seth:Moving just down the way to High Springs, they've been having some action for their upcoming city election.
Lillian:It's definitely gotten interesting over there. So they had a qualifying period where candidates can apply to qualify for the election from July 20 to the twenty third. That window closed, so that was a Thursday. And then that following Monday, the city announced that four candidates had qualified. Soon after they announced that, the city scheduled a special meeting for Thursday of last week to vote on reopening the qualifying period.
Lillian:So what happened, according to the city, was they used outdated forms in the qualifying packet that they gave to the candidates, including, you know, a loyalty oath, campaign oath, those kinds of things, and they needed to use ones that had been passed by the state earlier this month. During the special meeting on Thursday, staff said that they didn't receive those updated documents from Alachua County supervisor of elections until, like, a few hours after the original qualifying window had closed.
Seth:And emails between the High Springs clerk and the supervisor of elections show that High Springs, on the advice of its attorneys, decided to reopen the qualifying period versus risking any other legal risk by people accusing them of having done it incorrectly.
Lillian:One of the candidates, Ross Ambrose, he actually is a former commissioner in High Springs. He showed up at the meeting and he said that the city clerk had the candidates already re signed the new forms that Friday. So they had already technically been submitted the new ones before the city wanted to move forward with reopening for the qualifying period. So he disagreed with moving forward with opening the windows again, and he said that there would be a conflict of interest to have two sitting commissioners that have their seats up for election being able to vote on whether to open the qualifying window again. So mayor Andrew Miller, is running for reelection, he elected to abstain from the vote.
Lillian:And then, vice mayor Wayne Bloodsworth Junior said he is not planning to qualify. He's retired and he will not be running for election.
Seth:The qualifying window will reopen later this month. That'll be interesting to see if any new candidates do enter those races because then they'll have a potentially big impact on the November elections.
Lillian:And lastly, we're going to zoom over to Waldo.
Seth:Where's Waldo?
Lillian:Oh, I'm still looking for it. But I think I found it when I did a story on a new private Christian school opening up in the no wing of the city hall, which has been the wing that has housed previous schools.
Seth:Right. Constellation Charter School was there for a couple school years.
Lillian:Yeah. And then the school board shut it down before the end of last school year, fighting, you know, safety concerns and things. So Waldo has gone through a bout of schoollessness for the past year.
Seth:And what's the remedy?
Lillian:The remedy is Grace Christian Prep School. They actually have a location in Gainesville that opened up in 2024. I spoke with the founder of the school and the principal, and they said they've since quadrupled their numbers there, and they have, raised their test scores, you know, significantly. So seeing a lot of improvements, and they're looking forward to bringing that to Waldo. A big part of their model is trying not to use a lot of technology, you know, using it when necessary, but they've seen classrooms that the teacher just puts up YouTube videos for the entire day or classroom session and they just don't, you know, wanna do that.
Lillian:They wanna try and have that one on one student interaction. So they do try to keep classroom sizes small. They're actually adding some extracurriculars this year like soccer, flag football. They've got a math team and they're really trying to encourage a lot of involvement from parents.
Seth:I know Waldo is excited to have a school again. It sounds like as another option for parents and families. And they've also got the Paper Bag Deli that has officially opened there, so things are happening. We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor before we get to 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 experienced and every life is honored with care.
Seth:Now for this week's news forecast. The school board of Alachua County will review school grades for the past year on Tuesday starting at 6PM. The school board members will also discuss a potential new partnership with UF Health Shands.
Seth:Alachua County has two special meetings this week. On Tuesday and Thursday, the county commissioners will review department budget as the fiscal year comes to a close.
Seth:The Gainesville City Commission is also back behind the dais on Thursday starting at 10AM for a regular meeting.
Lillian:Now for our event segment covering upcoming family friendly events this week. The Gators are back. UF soccer is opening its season at 1PM on Wednesday with a match versus Miami here in Gainesville. The exhibition game is free for everyone.
Lillian:Later at 08:30PM on Wednesday, Casino's Restaurant and Bar is hosting a comedy night. Attendees will experience talent from around the country, and anyone can sign up for free starting at 07:30PM.
Lillian:The Harn Museum will open Thursday evening for art after dark. Visitors can browse all exhibitions with additional programming and insight from museum staff during the free event.
Lillian:The ninth annual indoor pickleball showcase will be away up at the Alachua County Sports and Events Center in Celebration Point on Saturday and Sunday. Although registration to play has closed, go out and watch one of the most highly anticipated sporting events of the year.
Lillian:The Greater Gainesville International Center is hosting an international market on Sunday. Starting at 11AM at United Church of Gainesville, the free event will feature samplings of food, crafts, and games put on by local international and Red City neighbor.
Seth:And that's all we've got for this week's StreetSmart podcast brought to you by Main Street Daily News and made possible by our generous members. You can access more free local news at mainstreetdailynews.com. Make sure to be on the lookout for our special episode next week as we talk to our new photojournalist, Walker Smith, and take a minute to share StreetSmart and help us continue to work. Our theme music is Sunset Sonata by Gainesville's Ska band, Now Leaving Space. This episode is a production of MARC Media.
