Alachua County Commission hears criticisms of ACAR report, discusses roads that are in disrepair, and explores proposal for workforce housing

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their July 14 meeting, the Alachua County Commission commented on the Animal Resources investigative report and asked staff to look at paving some roads that aren’t in the 10-year plan, look for ways to fund the expansion of an early childhood literacy program, and explore a proposal to partner with the Florida Workforce Housing Council to expand affordable housing.

Click here to read about the maximum tax rates for FY2027, set in the evening session of the July 14 meeting.

General Public Comment – ACAR

During General Public Comment, several residents criticized the report created by an independent investigator in response to a whistleblower complaint regarding Alachua County Animal Resources (ACAR). Chris Deutsch said the report is “rife with subjective evidence in its conclusions” and is “shockingly full of vicious scapegoating and vilification of a former Outreach Supervisor, with no reason given for why they did that.” She said records of dogs that were euthanized originally showed that they were treatable, but those records were edited on the day of the euthanasia to say the dogs were unhealthy. She also pointed out that 50 Cent and Lilly, two of the dogs that were euthanized, were not mentioned in the report. 

Patricia Antonucci said the investigation “treated the whistleblower allegations as a personnel issue from disgruntled former employees instead of a serious and well-documented complaint about animal neglect and shelter management… By and large, the volunteers who offered to be interviewed sat for sessions where we were challenged instead of asked exploratory questions and forced to defend ourselves and our interest in ACAR animals.” She said the report has “timeline errors” and “devoted over two whole pages to speculating and improperly disclosing the identity of whistleblowers…, without ever even suggesting that the information these individuals shared was presented in anything but good faith. Their fear of retaliation was apparently well-founded. The immediate progression into ad hominem is the first clue that the report lacks critical, reliable substance.” She recited a long list of problems she saw in the report and concluded that it is “an overtly biased report reflecting an opinion rather than subjective conclusions after a thorough investigation.”

Melissa Wokasch pointed out that the report began with two pages of discussion about why the investigator believed former Outreach Program Supervisor Sarah Gilley was the author of the whistleblower complaint, and not Anthony Friedell, as the email states. Wokasch said the conclusion was “completely unfounded… The only evidence that was given was that Anthony was quiet and Sarah was more outspoken and a creative writer. That’s not evidence. That’s opinion.”

Wokasch said the only other evidence was an out-of-context quote that the investigator read as a statement that the email was written by a supervisor, but in fact that statement referred to a previous sentence about a supervisor who refused to sign off on specific documents. Wokasch said, “I was honestly stunned by that because it just seems so sloppy, and it’s just reading comprehension.” She said Gilley has not made any public statements since resigning from her position at the shelter: “She has remained completely silent on this issue, yet she is one of two people found at fault in this report… The entire report is framed in the context that [Gilley] wrote [the whistleblower email]… This is retaliation against someone who has not said anything, who has not made any personal allegations herself… The intent seemed to be to completely burn her to the ground… I cannot speak highly enough about her… I hope that something is done to remedy this because her reputation has been tarnished by this.”

Wokasch concluded by saying that things seem “really good” at the shelter right now, and “I’m so happy that we have an interim director who seems confident and invested.”

After General Public Comment, Chair Ken Cornell said, “I’m happy that we seem to be moving forward in Animal Services in a positive way… We’re not getting there fast enough, but man, we’re trying as fast as we can… I’m really focused on moving forward. That’s where I am.”

Commissioner Anna Prizzia thanked “everyone who’s leaned in on Animal Resources. We know there’s challenges there, and we are working towards the future.” She said the investigator’s report has “some gaps and some challenges,” but “I believe that the investigator did do their best to be objective and to look into the issues that were in the whistleblower report… I’ll definitely dig in, and I’m happy to meet with whoever wants to meet with me.”

Commissioner Mary Alford said, “I will say that it is not the report that I would have written, and I’m still digging in myself on a number of issues.”

General Public Comment – CR 234

Other residents complained about the condition of County Road 234, which is not in the County’s 10-year plan for repaving roads.

Alford said Commissioners received an email from Public Works Director Ramon Gavarrete, saying that two maintenance crews have been reassigned to road repairs. She said that “extremely scary” roads like County Road 234 and County Road 346 are “all over the county,” but “I do think by doubling the number of crews,… we can make a big difference.” She said crews have also been instructed to address an entire stretch of road if they go out to repair a pothole. 

During Commission Comment at the end of the meeting, Prizzia brought up CR 234 and said, “I really think we need to address this road. I brought it up before, we had a whole conversation about it, and we decided not to address it, but I’m just here to give it one more shot.”

Alford agreed, “I’m starting to agree with the residents that it doesn’t seem like it’s the best use of our resources to send crews out there weekly to continue to refill potholes, and we are having to pay out some claims [for tire and vehicle damage].”

Prizzia made a motion to ask the Public Works Department to put together a presentation of the top roads with complaints and issues regarding maintenance that are not in the current 10-year plan, with costs associated with repaving them. Alford seconded the motion.

Assistant Manager Tommy Crosby warned that there are a lot of challenges in trying to tweak the plan, including dissatisfaction from residents that some roads may “jump” the roads that are in the later years of the plan. He said he would be happy to have those conversations, though, including asking why “roads that are in definite disrepair” are not in “year one, two, three of the plan. Because they should be… Another 10 years on some of these roads, I can’t imagine what that looks like, other than patching, patching, patching.”

Cornell said the analysis was done in 2022, and “a lot of things have gotten a lot worse, a lot quicker than we anticipated.”

Alford said she didn’t want to abandon the plan, but she wanted to “figure out a way to fund more roads” and add them to the plan. 

Prizzia’s motion passed unanimously.

Gainesville Thrive

During a presentation from Gainesville Thrive about their early childhood literacy efforts, serving more than 3,700 children and delivering more than 85,000 books to families, representatives of the organization said they would like to expand their efforts to serve children county-wide; they said they could do that for $140,000. 

Alford said, “The scariest statistic that I’ve heard most recently is that 50% of adults are reading at a sixth-grade or below level, and that to me is why this is so important. If we can engage the parents with the kids, then we can raise the literacy level of the whole community… [We] have folks living in every single zip code that are going to need these resources, and I do support taking this to every zip code in the county if we can.”

Cornell said he also supported the program, and Prizzia said, “I totally support this… I’m sure we can find the $140,000.”

Alford made a motion to refer the program to staff “to look for ways that we can fund this, and maybe partner with some other county groups like the library or even Friends of the Library, that might be willing to help fund this, so that we can make this happen.” The motion passed unanimously. 

Florida Workforce Housing Council

Former Gainesville City Manager Lee Feldman introduced Mike Schutt from Plenary, who gave a presentation to Commissioners on behalf of the Florida Workforce Housing Council, a public agency of the state of Florida that implements Workforce Housing. The program focuses on housing for people with incomes between 80% and 120% of AMI (Area Median Income), but they plan to expand that range down to 60% of AMI for Alachua County. 

Schutt said the program has been implemented in California for over a decade, and it results in public ownership of the housing facilities while leveraging private tax-exempt financing and employing private-sector management to ensure “quality throughout the life of those facilities, all while retaining public sector oversight and control over the program.”

Schutt said the Council will be made up of multiple municipalities and counties in the state of Florida joining together under an Interlocal Agreement: “Alachua County, by joining the Council as a founding member, would have control over how the program is implemented in Alachua County, as well as broad oversight of the Council as a whole… and would also receive a benefit from any project that’s delivered.”

The Council, Schutt said, “acts as the conduit for the issuance of the debt, so there’s no recourse back to the County… All the costs and expenses of the individual project are funded by that project itself.” He said that after the debt is paid off, typically in about 35 years, the title of the property is transferred to the County, and at that point, “the County has the option… to do whatever it would like with that property.” He said any excess net operating income in any given year would go to the County, but the County “doesn’t incur any liability, costs, or responsibilities.” The properties would be exempt from property taxes. 

Schutt recommended that, based on discussions with local housing agencies, the County should authorize up to 500 units of housing, “and given the nature of the projects, that’s probably about two apartment facilities… Any projects implemented by the Council within Alachua County must be located west of Main Street.” He said the capital investment plan for those complexes must include programs to implement energy efficiency upgrades.

Prizzia said the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee saw the proposal as “not a silver bullet,” but a “good tool in the toolbox,… and we need all the tools we can get.” She said the program could target complexes that were formerly student housing but are no longer primarily serving students.

Schutt said Plenary’s role is to “provide the service to the Council of going out and identifying the project, structuring, raising the debt, and then providing that management and oversight of the projects over time to make sure that they’re implemented in accordance with the program on behalf of the Council.”

Cornell asked where else Plenary has done this in Florida, and Schutt said it has not yet been implemented in Florida, but his company is talking to “three or four other cities and counties,” including Hillsborough County, Pinellas County, and West Palm Beach.

Feldman said Moore Haven and Alachua County would be the two Founding Members of the Council, and then others could join through an Interlocal Agreement.

Cornell said he was in favor of the project: “Essentially, what we’re talking about is taking property off the tax rolls that would either be redeveloped to the private sector at a higher rate and providing more workforce housing by using tax-exempt bonds and exemptions from [property taxes] with an operator that would handle that on our behalf, limiting the exposure of the County.”

Commissioner Charles Chestnut said he also supported the idea and particularly liked the provision that requires maintenance of each property.

Crosby said staff has “not totally vetted everything about the program,” but they were “not disagreeable” to looking at it in more detail. He said the financial impact to the County would mainly be the loss of property tax revenue from the properties. 

Motion

Prizzia made a motion to refer the idea to staff to get all of the details and ask staff to “review the program implementation with the conditions that the County has already put on it, along with the request the applicant has made, and bring it back to us in August with the additional request that staff come up with a recommended minimum with regards to the affordability components, which we can always adjust if a project comes forward that’s needed and it makes sense. But also that we look into some form of tenant relationship being involved in governance, so that we have a tenant representative on the Council, or in some way represented in terms of the governance and the long-term advisory board, or something, some kind of structure that would allow the tenants to have some say, and being able to report and give us information about what’s going on in those locations, because I think what I’ve seen in all the projects that I’ve been working on with with colleagues across the country is that those that have some tenant oversight tend to have the best outcomes when it comes to long-term maintenance and management. And so I’d like to see that built into the project, if at all possible.” Alford seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously.