Alachua County Commission selects new district maps for Commissioner seats in narrow 3-2 vote

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the October 14 meeting, the Alachua County Commission selected a new map for County Commission districts on a 3-2 vote.

Redistricting

Following up on Commissioner Ken Cornell’s request from last week to discuss the maps at this meeting, Growth Management Director Jeff Hays said the County received 11 submittals from the public, and staff presented the current map and two other maps (Map 4 and Map 8) for consideration. Hays said there is a typo on Map 8: District 2’s percentage of the population should be a little over 19%, not 22%. 

Click here for higher-resolution maps and precinct information.

Cornell said, “You know, we are at-large, so there’s not a lot of urgency here, but I do think it’s an opportunity for us to adjust these.” He said that candidates for the 2026 County Commission election would need to live in the new districts. He also said he didn’t like Map 4, but he liked Map 8: “I like that it eliminates most of the split precincts, and I like the fact that it has two Commissioners that run east to west.” 

Commissioner Mary Alford said she liked Map 4 “because it gives a real strong support to eastern Alachua County… I think it gives people what they want in that area of the county. For me, it’s not great because I lose Micanopy, and that makes me very sad.” Cornell pointed out that the eastern part of the county would have two commissioners under that map. Alford pointed out that Alachua and High Springs are also split between two commissioners on that map. 

Commissioner Anna Prizzia said, “But all that means is that Alachua then has two commissioners that are thinking about them.” She said she liked Map 4 because it allowed Alford to “still be in your district, and it gave East Gainesville a voice.”

On Map 8, Prizzia suggested moving Precinct 3 from District 4 to District 2 and Precinct 37 from District 2 to District 4.

Wheeler: “My question is, why are we doing this now, so close to an election?”

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler said, “My question is, why are we doing this now, so close to an election?… Somebody please explain.”

Prizzia responded, “We’re doing this now because we’ve gone back and forth with the State on single-member districts, and right now we’re at-large, but we could be single-member districts if it rules that way, and we need districts that better reflect our community, rather than just pie slices.”

Chair Charles “Chuck” Chestnut IV said, “The problem I’m having right now — first of all, I don’t know who drew these maps… Second of all, will they meet the muster if it was challenged in court?… When in doubt, I vote no.”

County Attorney Sylvia Torres said the statute says they need to be “as nearly as practicable in population… The two things that you shouldn’t consider are where the voters are, as far as protected class, and the statute says very clearly that they cannot be drawn with intent to favor or disfavor an incumbent.”

Prizzia: “Everyone — I mean, Republican, Democrat, liberals, conservatives, urban, rural — have all been asking for better representation and districts that better reflect them. And I think that these do.”

Prizzia said, “Everyone — I mean, Republican, Democrat, liberals, conservatives, urban, rural — have all been asking for better representation and districts that better reflect them. And I think that these do… And so, to me, it makes a lot of sense to do it now, with the fact that there is a chance the court could rule that we have single-member districts.”

Wheeler said, “I’m not questioning the need to change… I’m questioning the timing,” and Alford said, “It’s better now than at a Presidential election.”

Motion

Prizzia said that doing it in a non-presidential election year gives people an opportunity to get familiar with the districts. She made a motion to advertise an ordinance to adopt Map 8 with the changes she proposed regarding precincts. Cornell seconded the motion and said he also wanted to move Precinct 27 into District 4 and Precinct 17 into District 3. 

Summary of changes to Map 8:

• Precinct 3 from District 4 to District 2
• Precinct 37 from District 2 to District 4
• Precinct 27 from District 3 to District 4
• Precinct 17 from District 4 to District 3

Torres cautioned that the population numbers on those changes had not been analyzed, but Hays said staff could move forward with preparing the ordinance and bring back their analysis of those changes. Cornell asked Prizzia to add a provision that the County Attorney’s office should review the map to make sure it would survive a legal challenge, and she agreed. 

Public comment

During public comment, Larry McDaniel pointed out that they just redistricted in 2021 and normally do it once a decade. He said that the districts’ impact on incumbents shouldn’t be a factor because “incumbents are not elected for a life term… It appears that elected officials are choosing voters, not voters choosing the elected official… There are no demographics submitted with this presentation…. Who put these packages together, and for what reason? There are four factors that must be measured: proportionality, competitiveness, compactness, and minority representation… I believe that we should stay where we are.”

Rodney Long asked why it was said that the County Commission is currently at-large, and Torres explained that voters approved a 2024 ballot measure to move from single-member to at-large districts, but a circuit court said the ballot question was not worded properly; the County appealed the ruling, and “when government appeals,… there’s an automatic stay, and that automatic stay could be lifted by the circuit court or by the DCA, [but] neither has even been asked to lift that stay.” She said that meant the results of the 2024 ballot referendum hold, so the County Commission would be at-large in the next election if the 1st District Court of Appeal does not rule before then: “The 1st DCA could speak tomorrow, or they could speak in two years.”

Wheeler: “There’s going to be so much confusion, nobody’s going to want to bother to vote.”

After public comment, Wheeler said the confusion expressed by the people who spoke is “the kind of confusion leading up to this election that I’m worried about… There’s going to be so much confusion, nobody’s going to want to bother to vote.”

Cornell: “This is an at-large election, so there actually won’t be any confusion. These districts are only drawn for the candidates, of where they live.”

Cornell said he had looked up everyone who has already filed, and their addresses would be in the same districts under the new maps. He added, “This is an at-large election, so there actually won’t be any confusion. These districts are only drawn for the candidates, of where they live. We, all of us,… except for two years, have always represented every citizen in Alachua County, unless the courts change it… And if the courts change it, if I’m still a Commissioner, I will clarify that wording, and I will put it back on the ballot because nothing, from my perspective, is more important than doing the will of the voters, and 72% of our population said they wanted us elected at-large.”

Wheeler said, “One more time — tell me why we need to do it. Somebody try again. I didn’t get it. Try a different way of telling me that this is a good year to do it.”

Alford said, “Number one, it’s not a presidential election year. That’s a main reason… We’re more than a year out from the next election… I think that getting this done now is important, plus we have a deadline that we have to meet in order to qualify for the next election… So we’re kind of on a timeline here.”

Prizzia said another reason is that Wheeler has said she will not run again, “and so, to me, it’s really important that we have districts that represent our community.” She said it’s also possible that Chestnut will not run again, and “we should do that now, when we will have open seats.”

The motion passed 3-2, with Chestnut and Wheeler in dissent.