Elementary school rezoning, WildFlowers music festival, WIN tickets
Hello from Gainesville, Florida. It's Monday, February 16, and you're listening to Street Smart. 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. Go see their beautiful gardens, funeral home, and tribute center for cremations, 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. Alachua County extended its mandatory burn ban as drought conditions continue. The drought places much of North Central Florida at risk of wildfire spread.
Seth:Because of the drought, the St. Johns River Water Management District declared a phase one moderate water shortage. The shortage applies to portions of Alachua, Baker, Bradford, and Marion Counties. The district said these counties have received less than 40 inches of rain over the past twelve months.
Seth:The Alachua Branch Library will open as a temporary voting precinct for the city's April. The city commission selected the new precinct after opposition to closing the Hathcock Center without a set alternative.
Seth:PK Yonge broke ground on a new $18,000,000 gymnasium. The gym is part of a campus revitalization project and is expected to finish in February 2027.
Seth:The City of Hawthorne announced that Reverend Joseph Williams passed away at 100 years old. Williams served in World War II, was elected as a city commissioner for fourteen years, and taught for decades as a pastor in the community.
Seth:Welcome back to Street Smart. I'm Seth Johnson, and I'm here with Nick Anschultz for his first episode. Welcome on.
Nick:Thanks, Seth. Good to be here. I've listened to the first two episodes with, you and Lily, you guys have done a great job so far.
Seth:Thanks. I know you've been busy covering different meetings that have kind of popped up on Friday, so you haven't been able to join us yet, but it's good to finally get all of the hosts on an episode.
Nick:Yeah. It's awesome.
Seth:Since you've been listening, Nick, you know, we were talking about the upcoming baseball and softball season last week, and we decided it'd be a good time to give out some tickets for the baseball season. What do you think?
Nick:I think that's a great idea. It's hard to believe that softball and baseball season are here already. It's time is flying by.
Seth:Did you go to a lot of baseball games when you were at UF?
Nick:I went to a few. Usually sat on the berm.
Seth:Well, two listeners to this week's episode of StreetSmart will get to win two tickets to this Saturday's game against Kennesaw State University here in Gainesville.
Nick:And it'll be a 05:30 start for the game on Saturday.
Seth:It's the same process as last week. Just listen to the end. Go to show notes and click on the link that says tickets. You can enter your name and information there. We will be picking the winner this Wednesday at 1PM.
Seth:But let's get straight into our featured stories. Nick, you're starting us off with school board rezoning. What's going on there?
Nick:Yes, that's so Alachua County Public Schools is currently collaborating with local engineering and planning firm JB Pro on a comprehensive planning initiative called Our Schools Future Ready. The three phase initiative launched this past November to address key issues like enrollment and school capacity, transportation and educational programs.
Seth:And it's not just this past November it started. This has been going on for several years. This is like the newest starting it back up again.
Nick:That's what I understand. Yeah. And Seth, I think you covered a lot of the rezoning a couple of years ago, right? When that was going on?
Seth:Yeah. A couple of years ago, I remember going out to Newbury and they had kind of a planning meeting there. They wanted input from parents and staff. And this is part of the process too why Newberry wanted to convert its elementary school into a charter school is through the rezoning process. They found Newberry Elementary School was at 131% capacity.
Seth:And this rezoning plan was really meant to address some of those capacity issues and facility issues. I remember going out there and covering it and it's been on pause. It's just kind of been an ongoing project and not had a final resolution yet, but maybe this time will be different because a final vote is planned, right?
Nick:That's right. Yeah, a final vote is expected to take place on March 12, where the school board will vote on the plan.
Seth:And what are you hearing from people now that they've launched nine maps, three for the elementary schools, three for the middle schools, three for the high schools? What's the feedback on that?
Nick:So at some of the feedback meetings I've attended, including in Hawthorne, there's been some opposition regarding the school closings. Hawthorne residents were particularly concerned about their school potentially closing. But I should note that this plan does not have middle or high schools closing. However, some elementary schools could be impacted. This includes Duval Early Learning, Williams Elementary, Rawlings, and Foster.
Seth:I know at the City of Gainesville meeting on Thursday that I was covering, they kind of brought up this plan and commission comment came up as well at a joint meeting between Archer and Alachua County last week. A lot of elected officials are taking a look and seeing how this will impact their community. I know Gainesville commissioners were very concerned. Both mayor Ward and commissioner Desmond Duncan Walker said this kind of upends what the city's been doing in East Gainesville as far as investing, trying to get economic development to come. If some of these East Gainesville elementary schools close, then what are the chances businesses are going to want to open?
Seth:People are going want to move to that area. Have you heard anything similar like that?
Nick:Yeah, I've attended a few of the community input session meetings, there were some similar concerns from the residents there. They were kind of worried about, is our school going to close? So yeah, I've been kind of hearing the same thing from community members as well.
Seth:Do you think there's any chance of a delay final vote? Because the final vote is scheduled for March 12, right?
Nick:Right. The school board is supposed to hold a special meeting on March 12, which will be the final vote on this comprehensive plan. It's hard to say if they're going to push it back right now just because there's community input sessions still taking place right now, so they're still trying to gather feedback, Something that they've been trying to stress the project leaders and project staff, this is not finalized yet. They're still taking in community input, and so none of the draft scenarios that are public right now are you know, confirmed. There's still going be some revisions.
Seth:Yeah, there could be some revisions to take in that feedback. But of course, they're going to have to do some rezoning at some point and, might leave some people less than happy. I know Commissioner Desmond Duncan Walker, that Thursday meeting I attended said she's shaking in her boots was her phrase on the idea of school kids who hear about their school closing, and they already need to push to get to school and this being just another blow to their motivation on going to school perhaps and staying in school. Interesting to follow. Definitely something that impacts every community here in Alachua County.
Seth:But for my feature story this week, we've got one that doesn't affect all of Alachua County, but a small unincorporated community here in Alachua County, and that's out in Melrose.
Nick:Yeah, I've driven through Melrose, Seth, but never really stopped to kind of take it in. So what's the big news that's going on right now?
Seth:Well, it's been going on for a while, but there's a two seventy acre parcel lane out there that was recently purchased by Wildflowers Music Park. And the owners want to use that property for an annual folk music and dance festival that happens out there that could draw in 5,000 attendees. Obviously, that's a big number of people for a very small unincorporated community. However, they say that annual festival could help pay for restoration on the rest of the property, which would be kind of a nature park open to the whole community to come to the hiking trails, smaller events. The project kind of started a couple years ago with kind of some rumors of a national organization coming in and starting this.
Seth:However, that national organization said, no, they're not moving forward. But, one of their directors has now kind of moved here and has started out this effort along with a lot of local backing. However, even with the local backing, there has definitely been a solid group of opponents to this project in and around Melrose. I know I went out to a protest they had in January and there were signs, a lot of places up and down Quail Street leading to this two seventy acre piece of property. You know, one fence had a black tarp over the side of it and spray painted no Wildflowers Music Park.
Seth:And that all came to a head on Tuesday night, last Tuesday, with a temporary use permit. So this temporary use permit would allow that festival to happen in March. And the organizers have already planned for that festival to go on, put out some advertising and such, relying on this temporary use permit to happen. And it was a packed room in Downtown Gainesville at the Alachua County Admin Building. They had to use an overflow room with another 30 or 40 people and had people sign in.
Seth:And the deliberation happened for almost six hours between staff presenting, the applicant presenting, affected parties presenting, public comment, deliberation. It was definitely a long meeting.
Nick:And so what was the final result of that meeting, Seth?
Seth:Yeah, the Board of Commissioners said they will allow the temporary use permit. They listed, I think, 15 different conditions on the festival happening, including hours of operation, when they can set up, number of attendees. There's also standards in there for how loud the music can be at the border of the property. But they will go forward with that festival. However, the commissioners did say, you know, this is only a temporary use festival.
Seth:It only allows you this one opportunity to have an event. You know, if it goes poorly, the county will take that into consideration the next time Wildflowers comes forward and ask for another event permit. But the leaders of Wildflowers Music Park definitely want to make it a permanent annual thing, something they don't have to always apply for a temporary use permit on. But the process for that permanent infrastructure will probably involve some kind of other planning process through the county. But there are a lot of people there in support, more than the people in opposition, although they definitely had a strong contingent as well.
Seth:Real quick, we're gonna hear from our sponsor, Forest Meadows, before we get into our news forecast and events section.
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.
Nick:Now for this week's news forecast. Gainesville will hold its state of the city on Wednesday at 10AM. The annual address will be at the historic Thomas Center with updates from the city commission on notable projects and initiatives.
Nick:The school board of Alachua County will hold two more feedback sessions this week. On Tuesday at 05:30, the district will be at Mabane Middle School in Alachua. On Wednesday at 05:30, the meeting will be at Westwood Middle School in Gainesville.
Nick:Newberry will have its state of the city on Thursday at 06:30PM. The event will be at the Municipal Building.
Nick:City of Gainesville has a regular meeting on Thursday where the commission will consider a $5,000,000 renovation to the GTEC Center on Hawthorne Road. The city will also decide on a nearly $2,000,000 renovation of the Wilhelmina Johnson Center.
Seth:Now for our events section covering upcoming family friendly events this weekend. Gainesville Unplugged will be happening on Saturday at Morningside Nature Center from 9AM till 2PM. There'll be a time to reconnect with nature and tour local vendors, live entertainment, and try your hand at creative projects in the makers area. There'll be a time to unplug from screens and get out among the trees.
Seth:At Homestead Park in Williston, it's the twenty twenty six Country Clash Battle of the Bands. It's a free event with a $1,000 cash prize for up and coming music artists in North Central Florida. There'll be vendors, axe throwing, and more. It starts at 11AM and runs until 6PM.
Seth:The Hale Equestrian Center here in Gainesville will have an open house on Saturday from one to 3PM. There'll be free pony rides, demonstrations, and activity stations.
Seth:All right, thanks again Nick for joining for your first StreetSmart episode. Wasn't too bad, was it?
Nick:No, it was great.
Seth:We'll have Nick on and Lillian on some more. We'll just keep on rotating between us and hope to bring you more local news on future StreetSmart episodes. And don't forget about those baseball tickets. And you can share this episode with a friend. Maybe they can sign up and get better chances of winning.
Seth:That's all we've got for this week's 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:We'll be back next week to round up more local news that matters to you. Please share StreetSmart to help us continue the work.
Seth:Our theme music is Sunset Sonata by Gainesville's own Now Leaving Space.
Seth:This episode is a production of MARC Media.
