Alachua County Commission asks for pause on Thelma Boltin Center, reappoints Poet Laureate, awards “circular economy” grants

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the September 9 meeting, the Alachua County Commission voted to ask the City of Gainesville for a pause on the demolition of the Thelma Boltin Center, reappointed E. Stanley Richardson as Poet Laureate, adopted focus areas for their Strategic Guide, and awarded “circular economy” grants.

During the adoption of the agenda, Commissioner Anna Prizzia made a motion to defer a discussion of new rules for advisory boards to a future meeting and pull the Zero Waste Grant applications from the consent agenda for discussion. After Tamara Robbins asked questions about the Emergency Management Plan presentation that was on the consent agenda, Prizzia also asked staff to prepare a presentation on that plan for a future agenda. The motion passed unanimously.

General public comment

General public comment stretched for an hour and a half, which Chair Charles Chestnut IV described as “a historical thing for this board.”

Seven people spoke about the pending demolition of the Thelma Boltin Center, asking the board to ask the City of Gainesville to pause while they try to find a private organization to save the building. Six people asked the board to intervene with the City of Alachua to stop developments in the Mill Creek Sink area, warning that final approvals can now be done by staff, so there may not be a hearing in which the County can appear as an affected party.

Thelma Boltin Center

Regarding the Thelma Boltin Center, Commissioner Mary Alford said she was “disappointed that they would move to the point of demolition, since we were partners in the project, without talking to us about it.” The County provided $1.5 million of the $3 million that was initially approved to stabilize the building. 

Commissioner Ken Cornell agreed, saying he thought the County should be “brought into the loop” on joint projects. He pointed out that the County already sent a Chair letter, and “it fell on deaf ears.” He said the money should come back to the County if it won’t be spent on the Thelma Boltin Center. 

Prizzia: “It’s really frustrating that every time somebody’s not happy with what their City is doing, they come to the County and they ask us to put pressure on their City Commissioners — like, they are your elected officials. If you don’t like what they’re doing, then get into that ballot box and change the situation.”

Prizzia said she thought it was a City of Gainesville issue: “It’s really frustrating that every time somebody’s not happy with what their City is doing, they come to the County and they ask us to put pressure on their City Commissioners — like, they are your elected officials. If you don’t like what they’re doing, then get into that ballot box and change the situation… Do I think the building should be protected? Yes. Do I think it should be protected to the tune of $7.5 million dollars? Absolutely not… There are other ways that we can celebrate that history that don’t come with a $7.5 million price tag.” She said the City should have notified the County before having a discussion about demolishing the building, but she didn’t think the County should get involved.

Cornell suggested sending a Chair letter asking for a 90-day pause so the County Commission could refer the issue to their Historic Advisory Board and to staff to evaluate the information available about the building and possibly pursue grant opportunities. Alford agreed and made the motion, and Cornell seconded it. Cornell clarified that he intended the Historic Advisory Board and staff to look at potential grant opportunities, not take on the project itself. 

Chestnut: “I thought we were kind of like a partner in this, to some degree, but apparently we weren’t, and that disturbs me.”

Chestnut said he supports historical structures and supported sending a letter asking for a 90-day pause. He said, however, that he was disappointed because “I thought we were kind of like a partner in this, to some degree, but apparently we weren’t, and that disturbs me… We always wind up looking like the big bad guy for some reason, and I don’t understand that, and all we’re trying to do is help.” He was also disappointed that the City had not responded to the previous Chair letter or alerted the County to the pending decision on demolition. 

Chestnut said the County could not afford to purchase or renovate the building: “The economic future is a recession, folks, and we’ve got to prepare for that. I’m not an economist, but common sense tells me that’s going to happen, with the tariffs and all of that other stuff, and funding is going to be real tight for governments in the future.”

The motion passed 4-1, with Prizzia in dissent.

Poet Laureate

The board evaluated a ranking of four applicants for Poet Laureate: E. Stanley Richardson, the current Poet Laureate, had 115.6 points; Lola Haskins poetry had 94.6; Superior Moves Records, LLC had 91.4 points; and Elignment had 73 points. Haskins spoke at the beginning of the meeting and said she would like to have an annual reading of “happy poetry,” along with an event during National Poetry Month in which members of the public could come and share their favorite poems. She said she likes to get people into the woods, in silence and without phones, to write “plein air poetry. Nobody else does this, but I’ve done it all over the country, and it’s really, really great.”

Cornell made a motion to appoint Richardson as Poet Laureate, and Prizzia seconded the motion. 

Richardson said the gap in points between him and the other applicants “speaks for itself.” He said he recently performed a free community reading at Heartwood Soundstage of many of the poems he has composed as the County’s Poet Laureate over the years. This past Sunday, he organized the 13th Annual ArtSpeaks, and he plans to put his poem “Eden” to music with the Gainesville Chamber Orchestra for the County’s 250th anniversary celebration. 

Prizzia asked the Arts Council to consider setting a tenure for the Poet Laureate position, maybe 10 years, “so we could support him and the hard work he’s done to bring up other young poets in our community… and hopefully get them engaged in becoming the next Poet Laureate.”

Richardson said he was “totally against a 10-year cap on it. I think it should be open. One of the things why I always apply is to make sure we have applicants, and good applicants, and they’re not just giving it to me because they like me. They give it to me because I had the best application.”

During public comment on the motion, Tamara Robbins said she thought Richardson has done an excellent job, but she suggested expanding the funding for the program and adding a second poet: “I think it’s important that we diversify in this community and that we encourage people to participate.” She said she heard Richardson say he applies because he thinks it encourages other people to apply, but “I don’t see that. I think that it will discourage people to apply if they see that the same person just gets appointed every time… It seems a little stacked. And it’s not that he’s not deserving of the position, he’s good at it, but don’t you think you want to see what somebody else has to offer?”

The motion passed unanimously.

Strategic Guide

The board also unanimously adopted 10 focus areas and board level objectives for their strategic guide:

• Economic development
• Emergency services
• Environment and conservation
• Housing security
• Land use and infrastructure
• Parks and public spaces
• Public health, Social, and Youth Services
• Public Safety and Social Justice
• Transportation
• Waste Management

Click here to see the Strategic Guide and board level objectives. 

Cornell made a motion to adopt the Strategic Guide, adding Food Systems under “Economic development,” changing “zero waste” under “Waste Management” to “circular economy,” adding “circular economy” under “Economic development,” and adding a mental health component under “Housing security.” Prizzia seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously.

Land conservation projects

The board also approved a 10-year Management Plan for the Lochloosa Slough Preserve and approved the purchase of the 66.25-acre Watermelon Pond property for $902,789.

Zero Waste/Circular Economy Grants

Moving to the item that Prizzia pulled from the consent agenda, the board took up the ranking of recipients for two Zero Waste Grants, which Prizzia renamed to “Circular Economy Grants.”

The County’s procurement board gave a score of 80 points to Lost and Found GNV LLC, 61.67 points to O-Town Compost Inc., and 53.33 points to The Repurpose Project, Inc.; they ranked Lost and Found GNV first and O-Town Compost second for the two $40,000 grants. 

Prizzia said she “couldn’t follow the line of reasoning [in the scoring]” because Lost and Found GNV is “a brand new business” that is not operating yet. She said that in her experience in the University of Florida Office of Sustainability, working with “the apartment move-out situation and the volume of it… I can just say that the volume of waste and the logistical coordination and the efforts and the amount of investment is much higher than what I see in this grant application.” She said she would reduce their score by 20 points, but she thought O-Town Composting’s score was correct because “they have the equipment, they have the logistics, they have the experience.” She said she also thought the Repurpose Project application was incorrectly scored, and she gave her scores: 61.67 points for O-Town Compost, 63.33 for The Repurpose Project, and 60 for Lost and Found GNV. She wanted to award the grants to The Repurpose Project and O-Town Compost. 

Public Works Director Gus Olmos said, “I understand scoring is somehow subjective, but we’ve  got professional, knowledgeable staff scoring these proposals, and they scored based on the information they’ve got in front of them.”

Prizzia said, from her experience, there was “no way… that that business (Lost and Found GNV) can execute what they say they’re going to execute for $40,000 and move 1,100 tons of waste out of this community.”

Alford said she would support Prizzia’s motion, “given your experience and experience in this.”

Olmos said these grants are to fund pilot projects “to prove concepts and see if they work or not.”

Prizzia said the other option would be to split the grant between the three applicants, but Olmos said that Lost and Found GNV and O-Town Compost both said they would need the full funding; only The Repurpose Project said it would take partial funding.

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler said she would like to fund them all: “Maybe we just need to look at the budget that we put aside for these.”

Assistant County Manager Tommy Crosby said his staff had already had to move things around to find $80,000 in the Solid Waste fund, “so I would not recommend providing more funding to this area right now, out of that fund.” Olmos added that the initial funding for the grants was $200,000, and three of them were awarded last year, for $120,000; two of those, for a total of $80,000, went to The Repurpose Project.

Wheeler said she supported giving the grants to Lost and Found GNV and O-Town Compost since The Repurpose Project already received two grants, but Prizzia said this grant would let The Repurpose Project expand to a different waste stream.

Substitute motion: award $40,000 grants to all three companies

Cornell said, “I think it’s a priority, that we need to ask staff to find the money. So I’m going to move a substitute motion that we award $40,000 to all three and we ask Tommy to find $40,000 somewhere… I want to award them all.” Prizzia seconded the motion.

Crosby said, “Obviously, it’s the board’s budget, and all I do is give it advice. We will obviously find the $40,000 if that’s the motion today. All we can do is provide recommendations and parameters, and the reason why we are in the very good financial condition we are in and the budgets that we have produced, as opposed to everything else you’re seeing all over the state and across the street… That part’s up to the policy makers; we will drive the budget to wherever you take it.”

Cornell’s substitute motion passed unanimously.

Commissioner comments

Alford said she would be forwarding a Washington Post article to the other Commissioners that “took me back to the discussion that we had about housing and our Comp[rehensive] Plan and the idea of doing a four-point inspection as a way to identify issues with housing.” She said that she had attended a recent Safety and Justice Board call for NACO, and they said a pending bill could make changes to FEMA resiliency grants: grants for projects to maintain a resilient community would require a 40% local match, but “if you have an innovative approach to resiliency projects, which I think this would be, it’s a 90/10 match, and that’s awesome. 10% local… So I think this is something we should look at doing, because I don’t know if anybody else is doing this particular way of looking at resiliency, of evaluating the housing stock, and looking at ways to address deficiencies in order to maintain housing stock in the face of a disaster.”

Cornell said they should “chase every federal dollar that we can grab, if it’s in line with the local values that we’ve expressed… That Washington Post article sounds like you could have written it.”

Motion

Alford made a motion to ask staff to “take a look at the idea of utilizing wind mitigation inspections and four-point inspections as a way to evaluate our housing stock and look at ways to get ahead of problems with housing so that we can keep people in the housing that they’re in, at a lower cost than rehousing them later, and utilize the potential funding from this potential… bill… to provide that 90% match to communities doing good resiliency work.” Cornell seconded the motion.

Alford also suggested partnering with an organization she believes is called the National Insurance Institute as a partner in increasing resiliency, “because that’s something that’s going to need to happen across Florida if we’re going to survive ongoing, increased hurricanes and possible reduction of FEMA support, as well as, you know, an aging population, I think it’s just kind of a perfect storm.” 

Prizzia asked whether Alford intended to evaluate housing in general or limit it to the County’s housing programs, and Alford said she would start with the County’s housing programs. Prizzia also reminded the board that they had passed a housing rights code that was later preempted by the State.

Alford said, “I don’t think this would trigger that same kind of reaction, because I think this is a way that a lot of people get new roofs put on their house” and could save on their insurance premiums because the new roof meets wind mitigation standards.

Chestnut said, “What about those who can’t afford to get the wind mitigation done?” and Alford responded, “Well, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to pay for it, for certain populations. Not everybody, you know, but if we have SHIP housing out there that doesn’t have a wind mitigation but qualifies for it, and we can save those people in our SHIP housing $1,000 on their insurance, then we should be doing that… [The local match] would come from housing funds,” which she said could be expanded to include resiliency. She said she just wanted staff to explore the idea and see whether it makes sense. 

Wheeler said, “For people who can’t afford homeowners’ insurance, FEMA is going to be gone… Between FEMA and the insurance companies, you know, we’re in trouble. We’re going to be in trouble in Florida, particularly with storms. So it doesn’t matter if we do wind [mitigation]… If the insurance company’s not going to pay unless you’ve already paid out $20,000, which is the deductible, or FEMA is not going to be around to have any government money, I feel like asking staff to do that is just one more job.”

The motion passed 4-1, with Wheeler in dissent.

Jail visits

Alford also encouraged the other Commissioners to spend time at the jail. Cornell asked if it could be “non-escorted,” and Alford said, “Well, I’ve been through there non-escorted because I snuck in.” She said the inmates were “so happy to talk to you, to talk to a County Commissioner, and tell you about what’s going on in their world… They were really hoping that more folks would come spend time there.” She added, “They’re also giving away Narcan in the lobby now.”

Florence Landfill

Responding to a comment from the earlier general public comment period about the Florence Landfill, Cornell said, “The citizens are looking for a [closing] date and some direction, and this board passed the Comp[rehensive] Plan amendment with regards to making sure that we always think about equity, with regard to the social justice with regards to these decisions… As we move closer to the end of this year, this Commissioner is going to want to take some hard positions and get the public involved. And I don’t want this to keep going in 2026 the way it’s gone in 2025, and so that’s all I’ll say today. If a majority of this board agrees with me, then it’s time that we start to communicate to the public what the plan is for relocating our C&D [landfill] to a place that’s not in a neighborhood.”

County Attorney Sylvia Torres said the County could potentially ask a judge to rule on that date, but not before “the earliest date that we can support under the statute.” Cornell said, “Okay, fair enough.”

Mill Creek Sink

Regarding the Mill Creek Sink, Cornell made a three-part motion: “First, ask the Attorney to give us a written update on the 14-point motion so that the citizens kind of know where the County is, with regards to the previous direction we’ve given; that’s part one. Part two, I think we should forward the correspondence that we have previously forwarded to Theriaque and the City of Alachua to their new attorney, Scott Walker… And then the third is a question [about] what we can do as a board to intervene as an affected party or get involved in that.”

Torres said the City can now administratively approve the final plat for Tara Forest West, but other developments have applications for an infrastructure plan and a special exception, and “those have not been scheduled.” She later clarified that Tara April and Tara Phoenicia will need infrastructure plans, and Tara April, the stormwater project, will need a special exception.

Prizzia asked staff to expand the County’s public records requests with the City of Alachua to make sure they have “all the information at our disposal, should we need it.” Cornell removed the third part of his motion (intervening as an affected party) and added Prizzia’s request (“that we re-engage and make sure we have a good process set up for public records between Alachua County and City of Alachua staff and elected officials”) as the new third part to his motion. Wheeler seconded the motion. 

After public comment, Cornell added a fourth part to his motion, asking the County Attorney to connect with the National Speleological Society’s attorney “to see if there’s any benefit to that.”

The motion passed unanimously. 

MV Transportation

Prizzia said she had reached out to several Gainesville City Commissioners and the Mayor about MV Transportation because the County is “between a rock and a hard place… We don’t have buses, we don’t have bus drivers, we don’t have infrastructure, we don’t have an app. We don’t have any of the things that would be necessary to provide that legally-required transportation as of January 1.” She said they were “all amenable to working with us and don’t want to leave us in the lurch.” She asked staff to set up a meeting with City staff to put together a plan for paratransit outside the city limits of Gainesville.