Alachua County Commission votes to advertise ballot referendum for at-large districts, divest from investments in corporations

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the May 14 Alachua County Commission meeting, the board heard an update on the Florence Landfill, voted to advertise a ballot referendum for at-large County Commission districts, and voted to divest from investments in corporations.

Florence Landfill

After the General Public Comment period, Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler asked County Attorney Sylvia Torres for an update on the Florence Landfill, and Torres said the original parties are in mediation, with a status report due on June 7, “and at that point, they will say whether they’ve come to an impasse or whether they intend to continue to litigate. If they continue to litigate, that would be when we would intervene, because the Court can’t do anything with it right now, anyway.”

Ballot referendum for at-large County Commission districts

Torres told the board that charter amendments can be initiated via an ordinance from the County Commission, via a Charter Review Commission, or via a citizen initiative petition process, and based on direction given to her by the board on April 9, she was requesting approval to advertise a public hearing on June 11 for a vote on the ordinance that would put the referendum on the November ballot.

Torres said the referendum would “return your charter to pre-2022 language [and] would say that all five Commissioners are elected on a county-wide basis by the electors of the county.” She said the “only real decision in this, if you decide to move forward, is whether you want the effective date to be January 1, 2025, or you would like to set it at some earlier date.”

Motion

Commissioner Ken Cornell immediately made a motion to authorize advertisement of the ordinance “which would, if approved by a majority of qualified electors of Alachua County voting in the referendum, amend the charter to return to at-large voting for all County Commission members.” 

After the motion was seconded, Cornell said, “Many of the members in my district are not happy with the fact that, during this election, they will not have a voice; they will not be able to vote for any of the three seats. And so I think it is completely appropriate that I represent the folks in my district, listen to them, and put this back on the ballot for the citizens to decide.”

Public comment

During the earlier General Public Comment agenda item, two people spoke about the ballot referendum.

Bill Radunovich complained about “an influx of a large amount of dark money coming into our politics. And that’s, of course, how we got to where we are now, through the use of dark money funding lies and disinformation, dark money and State intervention… Approving this on the ballot for this fall is not an example of trying to get a re-do because, you know, one side lost, but it’s really a way to give the people of the county some time to really debate the issue and make a fully-informed decision, rather than being misled at the last minute by secretly funded campaigns.”

Anthony Johnson said, “This idea that somehow people… are determining their vote based on junk mail, I mean, that is a threat to democracy… If people aren’t smart enough to vote based on the items and issues, they’re the threat to democracy, but I think this is all a red herring… The people want the freedoms that are granted by single-member districts… If you’re not doing your job as a district County Commissioner, the people in the district have a right to fire you.”

During public comment following Cornell’s motion, Kali Blount said the 2022 referendum “passed by something like 2,500 votes. Those two PACs spit out a whole lot of money and sent out thousands and thousands of pieces to try to persuade people, so that vote is damaged and should be re-done in a fair way.”

J. Maggio said, “Every single time you hear somebody say there was an election – in your brain, say, ‘It was an unfair election with misinformation.’ Every time anybody ever says, ‘There already was an election,’ first of all, they should be ashamed of themselves. Shamed. And second of all, you all are going to say, ‘But it was an unfair election with misinformation,’ and they’re going to know you’re thinking that, be embarrassed, and hopefully sit down in shame. Please put this on the ballot.”

Evelyn Foxx, President of the Alachua County branch of the NAACP, said the “misinformation… was particularly in the black community, but it was done all over the county. So we are just delighted that we can go back… and put this amendment on the ballot in November. I don’t understand how people could think that voting for five Commissioners versus one is better.” She said it would be “very, very unfair” if people could only vote for one Commissioner.

Roberta Gastmeyer said she is “a politically active community member,” but “you might find it really strange to know, at this point, that I have no idea which of you lives in my district. And I like it that way. Because when I come to talk to you, I feel like each one of you is my representative and that you feel the same, that you represent me. And so I urge you to pass this today, please, and I look forward to working on the public education campaign so that our community is better educated this time around for the vote.”

Susan Bottcher said, “Let the voters decide. We can have the discussion of the merits of one system versus the other in the coming months, but let’s let the voters decide.”

Bobby Mermer, Coordinator of the Alachua County Labor Coalition, said, “The ACLC supports putting this on the 2024 ballot… But it’s important to remember exactly what happened in 2022. We were told by the bill’s sponsors that the reason we were deciding on this in 2022 was to put the question of Springs County to rest. Springs County supporters, at least publicly, claimed that their biggest concern was representation… The same sponsors, or I should say the sugar daddy of the bill sponsors, turned right around and made this, not an issue of representation but an issue of disinformation, specifically targeting our black community, with local black leaders quoted out of context, the national NAACP’s position on single-member districts out of context because in most places, single-member districts are a necessity to ensure representation of communities of interest that are geographically concentrated, which we don’t have here, right – the context isn’t the same here in Alachua.”

Mermer said that because of the campaign, “People voted in ways that they later regretted… I have never seen a campaign like that before,… which is why we support putting it on the ballot so we can finally, for once, have a fair debate on the merits of at-large districts.”

Tamara Robbins said she comes to a large number of County Commission meetings, and “nobody’s here every three minutes, speaking to their representatives who are all sitting here… Where are they, if they want to be represented?” She said this year is “the test run for a single-member district election, right? 2024… If you all think that single-member districts is going to give you representation, then I would highly expect you would be running some massively qualified candidates, and you would have money being raised, and you are going to show this community why single-member districts gets you representation… Put up or shut up.”

Tyler Foerst said the North Central Florida Labor Council favored putting the referendum on the ballot and said it was “really about a fair democracy and a fair fight. So what we’re asking for is a fair vote, and I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.”

Jo Beaty said there is “no diversity of thought” on the Alachua County Commission, resulting in laughter in the meeting room. She said, “There has already been an election. It was done. I think Ms. Robbins’ point is, it’s an experiment. Let’s see what happens now… Let this election run, let’s see how it goes… You haven’t even had one election this way. I don’t think you should waste any more time, and you should vote this down today.”

Two other women also supported placing the referendum on the ballot.

“What do you mean, I only get to vote for one Commissioner?”

After public comment, Commissioner Anna Prizzia said she’s been knocking on doors, and “again and again and again, I hear, ‘What do you mean, I only get to vote for one Commissioner?… Wait, I’m confused. What district am I in?’… We have an opportunity for people to really get educated and understand the issue and understand the opportunity and for the voters to have a chance to really make this decision with all the information. Because I think that while it was voted on last time, it was done in haste, and it was done with a lot of misinformation out there – that wasn’t in the forums, it wasn’t in the discussions that led up to the election, it was very last-minute, and it was a rushed effort. And there was a lot of money dumped into one side of that. And I can tell you that the voters are confused, the voters did not understand, and the voters are now frustrated.”

Chair Mary Alford said she has had similar experiences “with people being confused and not understanding… I do think the one good thing that’s come out of this is the public education side of it about how elections work, because a lot of people did not understand that.”

Wheeler said it typically takes three votes to pass something, “so if you are voting for all of us, you can assure pretty much that you’re gonna be able to influence enough to get things passed that you’re interested in… But what people are not realizing is that all of these districts intersect in Gainesville. All of them do. And so we’re talking about the bulk of the population of each district being in Gainesville.” She said the election this year will be “an interesting exercise.”

The motion passed 4-0, with Commissioner Chuck Chestnut absent. 

Divestment from corporate investments

During commission comment, Cornell made a motion to direct staff to bring back an updated investment policy that would eliminate any corporate investments. At the April 23 County Commission meeting, a member of the public had asked the County to divest from Lockheed Martin because, she said, the company “supplies the Israeli military with fighter jets and missiles.” Cornell followed up on that later in the meeting by saying, “I do not support our investments in any military providers, especially Lockheed Martin, and is there anything we as a board can do to instruct our investors about that?”

Prizzia responded to Cornell’s motion, “I think this is a wise move… It’s not something that we’re required to invest in, or even necessary. And so rather than try to deal with anything that might not be pecuniary or might fall amiss of what the State allows us to do or not do, I think it’s just wise for us to stay the course with the very prudent and thoughtful and conservative investments that we can do and not move on with the corporations.”

In response to a question from Robbins during public comment, Cornell said the board had expanded the authority “a while back because historically, we’ve only invested in U.S. securities, or really preservation and principal type safe bonds. And so this direction would ask the Clerk to bring that back, so that’s all that we could invest in with our monies.”

Alford said she thought they’d only started investing in corporations in “2019 or something – it’s only been just a few years.”

The motion passed 4-0, with Chestnut absent.