Gainesville charter amendment, High Springs fire and police workshop
Hello from Gainesville, Florida. It's Monday, May 11, and you're listening to StreetSmart. I'm Lillian Hamman. StreetSmart is a weekly podcast from Mainstreet Daily News where we cover local news that informs, engages, and inspires listeners like you. A big thanks to our sponsor, Forest Meadows, where compassion meets experience.
Lillian Hamman:Check out their beautiful gardens, funeral home, and tribute center. 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. Here's the top headlines we're rounding up. Gainesville City Hall celebrated the opening of its new plaza after months of construction.
Lillian Hamman:The plaza has a speaking platform, sister city's garden, the MLK Junior Memorial Gardens, and a tribute to Gainesville's Rainbow Crosswalks that were removed last year. Alachua County Fire Rescue chief Harold Theis announced his retirement last week. He's been with the county for thirty two years and will finish his time at the May. UF student Kate Hancock was featured in a documentary about the Hurricane three hundred bikepacking challenge, a 350 mile bike race where you pack everything with you and camp along the way. The race happened in February and took five days to finish.
Lillian Hamman:Alachua County Library District broke ground on a new building in Micanopy. The standalone library will feature community rooms, computers, a teen space, and more when it opens next year. Gainesville's RTS bus service lost around half a million riders during the first six months of this fiscal year compared to last year. Gainesville cut routes which impacted the ridership numbers. The city is still planning to build a new West Side transfer station off Tower Road.
Lillian Hamman:Luke's New York bagels will open a new location off Northwest 39th Avenue with lots of perks, including an extended menu. But the expansion means its original walk up location on Main Street near Depot Park will close. 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.
Lillian Hamman:Thanks again for listening to StreetSmart. I'm Lillian Hamman, and I've got one question for Seth Johnson who is in studio for me today. Seth, referring to that bike packing story, 350 miles of riding and camping, what's the farthest you've ever biked?
Seth Johnson:I've definitely not come anywhere close to 350 miles of pedaling. I think I got close to 34 or 35 once in high school on one trip, but definitely nowhere close to that 350 miles in five days you were going, going, going all the time.
Lillian Hamman:Yeah. I think the farthest I've ever gone is 40 miles, and that was on a stationary bike in an air conditioned gym without having to endure the elements camp or sleep on the way or anything. So kudos to Kate.
Seth Johnson:Unfortunately, our feature stories aren't about biking, so probably a little less fun. But still important and happening in our community. Lillian, do you wanna start or should I kick us off?
Lillian Hamman:I'll get us started with High Springs and then you can bring us home with the city of Gainesville's meeting from last week.
Seth Johnson:Sounds good. What happened in High Springs last week that we should know about?
Lillian Hamman:Yeah. A city commission workshop on Thursday was all about fire and police and how to address long term sustainability for both of the departments in the budget.
Seth Johnson:And by long term sustainability, whether or High Springs even has a police or fire department.
Lillian Hamman:That's right. They started talking about cutting both of the departments completely last summer to address some fairly large deficits, and they're still using utilities to supply their general fund. And currently, police and fire take up 64 of High Springs' entire budget. Staff said it should be around 30.
Seth Johnson:And And I think we've mentioned before on StreetSmart, High Springs is the only city in Alachua County besides Gainesville, which is obviously kind of in a different league, it's much larger, that has both police and fire service. But all of these other smaller cities kind of pick one or the other. High Springs is burdened and blessed with both. How did residents feel about it at the workshop?
Lillian Hamman:The majority of the residents said they were absolutely willing to pay for it. One woman said that she would rather not eat out for the whole year and save up that money to use on her fire assessment than to lose the services.
Seth Johnson:Now, High Springs already has the highest millage rate in the county that's kind of recently as they've pushed the millage rate to kind of fund police and fire. But if it's not enough, what alternatives does the city have?
Lillian Hamman:I think that's kind of the elephant in the room is they don't feel like there are any others. The city manager said that they're at a point where their sewer is 100 maxed out and they can't they can't bring on new developments, even ones like Bridlewood that have already been approved until they expand that. The chiefs for each department presented what proposed personnel cuts would look like, and, you know, both of them came to the conclusions that it just wouldn't be safe for the departments or the city. So, again, add or draw of whether to eliminate departments completely or find some other way that didn't come up in the workshop. On Thursday of this week, the county and High Springs are gonna meet again, and the fire services will come up, and they're gonna try and come up with ways that they can work together and maybe help balance out the the needs.
Seth Johnson:Yeah. Obviously, the county will be a very important partner depending on which way the city of High Springs goes. Be interesting to see how this plays out. It's gonna be a while, but thank you for following it with us, for us. So coming down US 441 and into the city of Gainesville, the Gainesville City Commission had a meeting last week and covered a couple important items.
Seth Johnson:The first one is a charter amendment that could come before voters in November. That charter amendment passed last week and will return at a future city meeting before too long. When it does, it's gonna need six of the seven commissioners to approve it before it gets onto the ballot. Now, the charter amendment is about special elections to fill a vacancy on the commission. So if there's a resignation or something else that forces a commissioner off the dais, how is that seat filled?
Seth Johnson:Currently, that seat is filled through a special election if there's not already a regular election planned within the next six months. If there is a regular election scheduled in the next six months, then that vacancy is filled. City commissioners can appoint someone to fill the role temporarily until that normal regular election is held and the voters put someone into the spot. Pretty simple. Right?
Lillian Hamman:Yeah. I'm tracking.
Seth Johnson:The issue is those special elections cost over $200,000 each and they are not easy to put on. It takes a lot of coordination with the supervisor of elections department. So the alternative that this amendment proposes is that the city commission would appoint someone to fill the vacancy until the next regular election. So city of Gainesville terms are for four years, but there's elections every two years that city commission seats get, you know, voted on. So at most, you would have a city appointee who would be serving for a little over two years who wasn't elected by voters, would be appointed by the entire city commission.
Seth Johnson:Now one caveat on all this is that if the vacancy occurs pretty close to when the next regular election is scheduled, then it might not be the next regularly held election. And the time frame they put on this is six weeks before the start of qualifying. So if someone resigns and there's only four weeks until the qualifying period starts, it won't happen at that election. It'll be two years at the next regular election. And the city staff said that's because they wanna give candidates time to actually put forward a campaign and qualify.
Seth Johnson:The commissioners approved it unanimously of the four of them that were at the meeting last week, and it will come back soon. And we'll see if it'll be put on the ballot in November and what the voters think about it. And the second topic from that meeting last week that I wanted to touch on real quick is kind of interesting because it's about a 10 foot strip of land.
Lillian Hamman:Woah. That is smaller than the studio.
Seth Johnson:Yes. However, this strip of lane does extend further. So, it's a narrow and long strip of land and it's right on University Avenue. The 10 foot strip of land was offered to the city as a right of way, which is what the city uses to put utilities through and sidewalks through and other public infrastructure. And that land for the right of way was offered to the city of Gainesville back in nineteen o five, over one hundred and twenty years ago.
Seth Johnson:However, according to all the documents people can find, the city of Gainesville never officially accepted the right of way into its codes and no utilities or public infrastructure was ever put on that 10 foot strip of land. Instead, over time, the neighboring parcel, which was always privately owned, always kind of encroached upon it. So, that neighboring lot was bought and there's a developer trying to put forward a multi story development. So, they got approval for this development and then found this 10 foot strip of land, and the agent for the developer said, you know, city staff thought the best way would be to come forward and ask the city of Gainesville to vacate, so to kind of give up that right of way that was never in use. Now, city staff didn't review anything the agent said, and they said the right of way vacation followed all requirements for the city and that they had no use for the piece of property.
Seth Johnson:But then it came time for a motion, and mayor Ward asked for a motion if anyone wanted to put something out there. And there was kind of hesitancy from the other three commissioners. Mayor Ward asked if anyone would second the motion. And when no one did, he said the motion dies for lack of a second. As mayor, he can't second that motion.
Seth Johnson:And if neither of the other two are willing to, then the motion dies and the item is done for.
Lillian Hamman:Such are the ways of a weak mayor system.
Seth Johnson:Yes. Now, the one other agent for the developer quickly came up and said, we'd actually rather you guys make a motion to kind of delay this item until the full commission is present instead of just letting it die like it had. And so, that's a motion that was made and seconded and voted on unanimously to push the item back till I think the May when the full commission is expected to be there. And, it'll be interesting to see what the full commission says. We're gonna take a quick break to hear from our sponsor, Forest Meadows, before we bring you the news forecast and events segment.
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Seth Johnson:Now for this week's news forecast. Tonight at 7PM, Alachua County and the city of Newberry will hold its annual joint meeting with AgTech and forward focused initiative on the agenda. The Archer City Commission will meet tonight to swear a new commissioners Bill Lewandowski and Jennifer Rossi. Alachua County's board of county commissioners will meet Tuesday for an open board discussion at 09:30AM followed by a regular meeting at 11AM. The regular meeting will include an item on delivering broadband assistance to unserved and underserved areas in the county.
Seth Johnson:The Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority will convene on Wednesday at 05:30PM and discuss a storm water and solid waste bill collection agreement with city. A Hawthorne special commission meeting on Wednesday will discuss designs for a new resource center and calling the election on June 3.
Lillian Hamman:Now for our events segment covering upcoming family friendly events this weekend. Morgan Wallen will perform at the 0 Dome Friday and Saturday as part of his Still the Problem tour. Friday night at Tioga Town Center will feature the Zach Petty Band for a free outdoor concert starting at 7PM. The next day, also at Tioga Town Center, will be a spring art show benefiting Girls Place. The event will feature dozens of local artists, makers, and creators to browse through.
Lillian Hamman:It's also time for the 80 edition of the Newberry Watermelon Festival. It'll happen at the Countryway Town Center from 9AM to 4PM. I am definitely looking forward to some watermelon to cut through this thick Florida humidity and nothing like going to the Newberry Watermelon Festival to satisfy that craving. It's a staple of Western Alachua County and is one of the longest running watermelon festivals in the country.
Seth Johnson:What's a real staple is that, watermelon seed spitting contest. Nothing makes me vote for a local official more than how far they can spit a watermelon seed, and it's also a reason I'm never running for elected office. Just can't quite get it out there.
Lillian Hamman: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. We'll be back next week to round up more local news that matters to you. Take a minute to share StreetSmart and help us continue the work. Remember, click on the link in the show notes to find more free local news at main street daily news dot com or pick up a print copy around Alachua County.
Lillian Hamman:Our theme music is Sunset Sonata by Gainesville's ska band Now Leaving Space. This episode is a production of MARC Media.
