Alachua County Commission discusses Parker Road extension, Cornell’s memo on homelessness, term limit referendum

BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their February 27 meeting, the Alachua County Commission voted to extend Parker Road (NW 122nd Street) north of Newberry Road, discussed whether to officially publish Commissioner Ken Cornell’s memo on homelessness, and began discussing a ballot referendum for term limits.
Parker Road extension
Growth Management Director Jeff Hayes explained that the road will be one part of filling in the transportation network in the western part of the county between Newberry Road and 39th Avenue. The road will eventually connect with NW 39th Avenue and an extension of NW 23rd Avenue.

The agenda item on the February 27 meeting was an agreement with the owner of the property on the northeast corner of the intersection for the County to purchase the right-of-way and the drainage rights for $1,050,000, split between a cash payment and a Multimodal Transportation Mitigation credit that can be used when the property owner constructs a development; the County will also need some temporary construction easements before construction begins.
The road extension will go to NW 17th Avenue in the South Pointe development.
Commissioner Anna Prizzia made a motion to approve the agreement.
During public comment, a representative from the South Pointe neighborhood said the residents support the extension because it will give them an exit from their neighborhood at a light. She asked that the County expedite the extension as much as possible.
Hayes said that depending on how long it takes to get permits from FDOT and GRU, the County could start construction on the extension at the beginning of 2025.
The motion passed 4-0, with Commissioner Chuck Chestnut absent.
Cornell’s memo on the responsibilities of the City and County regarding homelessness
During commission comment at the end of the meeting, Commissioner Ken Cornell asked if anyone objected to asking the County’s Communications Department to share his memo (found here) on social media. Prizzia said, “I kind of do, actually… I just feel like this becomes another potential tit-for-tat… Not that that’s what you intend with it, but… it feels like there’s this tension between the City and County with, like, who’s paying for what, and I just don’t want to create more tension with the City than I feel like we already have.”
Cornell responded, “I don’t feel like there’s any tension with the City at all.” When Prizzia asked why he wrote the memo, he said, “I don’t want to be surprised. I’m having PTSD. I don’t want to be surprised in October or September or August about a funding request that’s coming from GRACE. I want the City to prioritize GRACE.”
Prizzia said she didn’t think it would be helpful to put the memo out on social media: “What you’re saying in this letter… is ‘City, don’t come back and ask us for more money related to GRACE’… And maybe that’s what you’re trying to say, and that’s fine, but that’s something we say to the City, not something we say on social media.”
Cornell requested a policy meeting so the board could “flesh out our position” before their joint meeting with the City Commission, later in March.
Chair Mary Alford said, “I think the important thing right now is to acknowledge that we have an emergency with respect to housing… And that’s what my goal is, in meeting with Mayor Ward, is to say we together, going forward, are working hand-in-hand to solve this… Because if we have the opportunity during budget season to partner, for instance, on some downtown rehousing project that has some private backing, I want to be able to have that conversation… If we can say to the private sector, ‘We can help you buy property, you help us solve the problem,’ you know, maybe we can make something happen.”
Referendum on term limits
Cornell also brought up the bill to establish term limits for county commissioners that was proposed in this year’s legislative session; the bill did not pass this year, but Cornell said, “I think, from what I’m hearing, it’s inevitable. If not this year, next year.” He asked his fellow board members to start thinking about putting a referendum on the ballot in 2024 for 12-year term limits for county commissioners. The bill that was introduced this year established 8-year term limits but would have only applied to counties that did not already have term limits established in their County Charters, and Cornell said, “It might be something that we want to just be proactive with.”
County Manager Michele Lieberman agreed that the bill will eventually pass, but “the more communities that have the 12 years, it’s harder for them to go with eight.”
We have an emergency with respect to vagrants they have lured here from all over the country (not ‘an emergency with respect to housing’).
I could be wrong but it reads like one member wants to be very clear with the city on no more funds for grace, or whatever is of similar flavor in the future, and two seem to be of a mind where they will provide funds again if the city comes back and says “we’re broke”, or “it’s partially a county issue too”.
It seems Mr. Cornell may be the one county commissioner who has finally wised up to the fact that the city now views the county as a piggy bank to fund an endless list of social programs the city can no longer afford. Non-city voters can only hope this wisdom comes to the others soon.
12 years is about 8 too many for these types.
If there’s a housing emergency, it’s because we’re in a college town. Use your brains and logical thinking abilities, no PhD needed. 👹🤡💩🍦🍦🍦
It appears that County Commissioner Ken Cornell, so far, is the only member wanting to address the every growing homeless problem in our community and the funding of the City Commission’s homeless center – Grace Marketplace – which has become a Costly and Dangerous Enabling Center.
I expect County Commissioner Chuck Chestnut will have a lot to add to the discussion.
It is obvious to those living in East Gainesville and others who read the GPD crime reports – the Gainesville City Commission has allowed Grace Marketplace to become a MAGNET for people to come from all over the state and country to receive FREE taxpayer funded services – a public health and safety nightmare for our community.
NO residency requirements or Police Clearances being conducted at Grace Marketplace to receive FREE services paid for by GRU customers and taxpayers.
Ken Cornell’s policies over the last eleven years were instrumental in creating the homeless problem.
Now that the problem is out of control and the heat is on, he wants to rebrand himself and now become dudley do-right.
Looks like they want to build roads all over the woods in the N. West of the county but, they let important roads like N.west 23rd ave decay more and more, it’s like running a gauntlet now using it, more pot hole’s of any road I have seen in a long while.
The extension on 122nd Street was supposed to begin in 2023 per the county’s road schedule. They have surveyed the crap out of the area. Originally they said South Point could not start building a new section before the road was in as well as Buchanan Trails could not be built before the road was in. South Point has exceeded their traffic count quota for their entrance to Newberry Road. So they need the light to ease traffic trying to get out of their existing entrance. Why does the commission need to vote on it?
The only stumbling block was the road actually enters the corner of the land that was mentioned. So maybe that is why they needed to vote. My biggest question, is why the road going into Haile Plantation was resurfaced before 23rd Ave? I guess someone that has some sort of influence lives in Haile. Twenty third ave has been bad since I was in high school in the 80’s.
Omg, Cornell….what a child! Short man syndrome much?!?
Stop buying property with our money to house more homeless!!
12 yr term limits??? how about 4?!?
Cornell: put 3 masks on and take a booster Covid shot. I don’t believe one word you say. Close Grace down and ship the vagrants out of here…you guys have ruined the county…we have a vagrant/bum problem, not a housing problem! Mr. Peabody is one smart dog!
It seems that the commissioners aren’t going to understand this issue fully until it affects their lives personally. Until they have to train their dogs to urinate in the shower because they’re terrified to go outside of their homes at night or until their parents are sitting in their cars in the driveway of their own homes terrified to get out of the car and go inside the house because some deranged person is screaming and writhing in the street. These are real stories from real neighbors right here in Alachua County. These incidents were reported by the Alachua Chronicle. You can’t make this stuff up!
These idiots do not want term limits. This is nothing more than group of idiots that meet monthly and can never seem to make common sense decisions. To many commissioners worrying about their public appearance instead of what is best for the county community.
Can they get the ‘homeless’ to fix the roads to pay for their new lodging? I didn’t think so. Harvey got Joe to give him some ‘free’ gubment $$$ and now it’s burning a hole in their pocket and they will ‘solve’ the affordable housing while we foot the bill AND get to drive on bad roads!
Is that Pat from SNL get on the County Commission?
“An annual Point In Time count, which attempts to locate and record the numbers of homeless people in Marion County, indicated that for 2022, there were 488 people in shelters and 188 people unsheltered.”
Guess Marion County’s Republican Commission likes luring the homeless there too
You missed the “2,000 to 3,000” recent estimate for Alachua County.
That’s “2,000 to 3,000 unhoused” meaning not in shelters.
625 in 2022, about the same as Marion, 931 in 2023.
The point is neither county created the problem as you allege. It’s a national problem and fluctuates yearly for a variety of factors. Both counties had much higher numbers a decade ago. You can criticize certain actions by those dealing with the problem but cut the “Its their fault” BS.
https://www.flhealthcharts.gov/ChartsDashboards/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=NonVitalIndNoGrpCounts.DataViewer&cid=8675
The linked site shows Alachua county with 931 and Marion with 454 in 2023. Alachua has a population of 293k, Marion has 404K. So Alachua county has approximately *triple* the homeless count per capita of Marion county.
Of course its a LOT easier to find a decent job in Marion County.
The year prior they were much closer in number. As I noted this indicates that the problem is not uniquely Alachua County’s or of locations with Democratic majority governments. Most of the posters here claim it is.
Note also that in 2022 Marion County had a higher number of sheltered homeless, a goal most posters here claim is unjust as well as a lure for more homeless to come here.
Let’s cut the knee jerk reactions and “get off my lawn” recommendations and strive to deal intelligently to a national problem – there always have been and will continue to be dysfunctional people in society.
Of the Florida counties with population greater than 250k in 2022, Alachua is tied with Escambia and Pinellas for the highest per capita homeless rates in the state; all are about double the state average.
There is a difference between being transitory homeless and being a hobo/bum, although they count the same in the statistics. There is also a difference between helping people get back on their feet and enabling vagrancy or addictive behaviors.
I hesitate to judge a taxpayer’s opinion as knee jerk when they get fed up with seeing the same hobos populating the same patches of woods for years. They see the disastrous results that approaches similar to our local governments’ have caused in places like Portland, San Francisco and Austin.
Why is it that the same democrats that claim we have a housing emergency, and we can’t even house our own people, are totally fine with an open border allowing millions more in? It is hypocritical … but that is their way .. they are always hypocrites ..
So term limits are now a thing since we have Single Member Districts….. the democrat establishment were completely against term limits as well as anything else that would dilute their power and offer other voices of the community to be represented on the board. I can’t laugh hard enough at Cornell wanting to be “Proactive Ken”.. He could have been proactive and helped to get the Single Member District on the ballot but chose not to even listen to school kids when they came to a county meeting. Personally I am against term limits, and am more against one party rule. Term limits have never introduced a fairer or more constitutionally minded governmental body.
I’m against term limits for both executive and legislative bodies, but if the legislature puts a limit on the executive, than the same rules should apply to them as well
Well we already know that the Congress lives by the “Rules for thee not for me” mantra