Cornell and Chestnut signal opposition to Newberry meat processing plant

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the June 27 Alachua County Commission meeting, Commissioners Ken Cornell and Chuck Chestnut indicated that they will likely vote to stop the proposed Newberry meat processing plant at the next opportunity.

Although discussion of the plant was not on the agenda, it came up at multiple times during the meeting, including right at the beginning, during the adoption of the agenda. During public comment on the agenda, Tamara Robbins asked for an update and discussion on the meat processing facility “because of the Governor’s veto on what was supposed to be a large chunk of the remaining funding.” She also said that, to her knowledge, no applications have been made for USDA grants: “Staff says there has–you guys don’t qualify, needs to be privately owned. So that needs to be cleared up.” Several other people echoed her request during public comment.

Cornell said he had intended to bring up the issue during the discussion of a budget amendment for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds that was moved from the consent agenda to the regular agenda as part of the motion to adopt the agenda. 

Plant is on July 10 and July 11 agendas

After the agenda passed, County Manager Michele Lieberman said that the meat processing facility is scheduled to be discussed in a joint meeting with the City of Newberry on July 10; the County Commission also has a discussion planned for their July 11 meeting. 

Chestnut said he didn’t want to wait until July 10 to get an update on the meat processing facility: “We should have an opportunity as a board to discuss what is our next move? What is going on with this? And where do we stand in terms of the funding? I think that’s important… I don’t want people to think we’re trying to hide something or do something behind the scenes. Let’s do it upfront and just get an update… Where do we go from here since the Governor vetoed the funding?”

“I feel like it actually feels a little sneakier… to do this today and have an in-depth conversation on it today, when it wasn’t on an agenda.” – Chair Anna Prizzia

Chair Anna Prizzia said an update is fine, “but we did already let the public know that we would be talking about this on July 10th and 11th, so I think that if we really, actually want to hear from all the public that have wanted to weigh in on this, they’re expecting that we’re going to talk about this on July 10th and 11th and did not know that it was going to be brought up at this meeting. So I feel like it actually feels a little sneakier… to do this today and have an in-depth conversation on it today, when it wasn’t on an agenda.”

Chestnut said he didn’t want to vote on it; he just wanted an update. The agenda was adopted, and the meeting moved on to the General Public Comment period, during which several speakers advocated for canceling the project.

County Manager: State funds can be requested for future phases

During the agenda item on the ARPA funds, Lieberman told the Board that the Governor had vetoed the appropriation of $1.75 million in State funds for the meat processing plant and said, “Staff will pursue USDA sources of funds allocated for small-scale facilities… The Board will be considering the Draft Work Scope for soliciting a Developer/Operation P3 [Public Private Partnership] partnership; that is what is on the agenda for July 11… As I said earlier, the joint meeting with Newberry… will be on July 10 and will include the overall agreement for the Environmental Park.” Lieberman said staff hoped to have proposals back to the board in the fall and that State funding could again be requested for future phases of the project, which could include expanding refrigeration, meat hanging space, additional services to small ranchers, workforce training, and food entrepreneurs.

Cornell said he wanted to have a discussion about the facility: “Let me first say, Chair Prizzia, that you have carried this project, I think, and you have done it in, what I’m gonna say, in a very brave fashion. I appreciated your op-ed that you wrote, I didn’t necessarily agree with it all, but I know this has been a project of yours, and I know that the veto was probably a disappointment, and I know that you would like to continue this project. I heard that loud and clear.”

Cornell said he thought it was an “off-ramp” when the State budget included only $1.75 million instead of the full amount needed. When the $1.75 million allocation was vetoed, he said, “I thought to myself, this is definitely an off-ramp.” He said that the current direction to staff is to move forward with the project, and he wanted to change that direction. He read from a list of “community needs… from east Gainesville to homeless assistance to what’s going on across the street [at the City of Gainesville] to housing to re-entry to Animal Services, the GrowHub.” He said ARPA funds could also be used for the City of Gainesville’s proposed Cultural Arts Center. 

No second for Cornell’s motion to discontinue planning for the facility

Cornell made a two-part motion to approve the budget amendment that was in the original agenda item and direct staff to discontinue working on the meat processing plant, cancel the agenda item for the joint meeting with the City of Newberry on July 10 – “just this item” – and ask staff to bring back recommendations for alternative uses for the previously-allocated $2.5 million in County ARPA funds.

Prizzia agreed that she had worked on the project a long time and that she thought she and the citizens who had spoken earlier in the meeting have “a lot of the same goals in common. Working towards local meat processing is actually really critical to a lot of the issues that we’re talking about: animal cruelty, social justice, and opportunities for good workforce development, and issues around climate change and the environment.”

Prizzia said she has been accused of being underhanded, but she’s passionate about the work she does: “That’s part of what being a commissioner is, is representing the voices and the work that you believe is good and right for the community and that you were elected to do, and I ran on local food.” She described the industrial meat production system and said, “We are complicit in that system, a broken system. Just like we have a broken system of incarceration… So if we want to contribute and change the way that we are contributing to the broken system, the first step in that is having local control.”

Prizzia accused Cornell of “putting words in the mouth” of the other county commissioners, who have voted for the plant every time it has come up for a vote. “So you keep putting words in their mouth that they want off-ramps, and maybe they do, but I think they cautiously understand that this is an important issue.” She said there is a small number of vocal community members who are against the facility and “there’s been a national vegan organization organizing against it, [but] that does not tell me that the citizens of Alachua County don’t want this.”

Prizzia said she was “frustrated” that Cornell was trying to stop the plant “at a meeting when it’s not on the agenda… just because you don’t think it’s something that we should do.” Speaking to the public, she added, “While I know that we don’t agree on this individual project, I hope you know that we agree 100% on the way that our animals are treated in the animal industry and the fact that we need to eat less meat, and we need to eat better meat, and we need to be working on regenerative agriculture… I have never tried to hide anything… This project is a passion of mine, it is something that I care deeply about because it is a large part of our local food system.”

Commissioner Mary Alford wanted to wait until July 10 and “hear from the public, give the public a chance to comment… But I can’t support the motion, which I don’t believe was seconded, because I do believe that we need to give the public a chance to comment.”

“I’ve been in that position before, where I’ve had to be the deciding vote, and it’s not pleasant, and I was really looking forward to having an out.” – Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler also did not want to make a decision before meeting with the Newberry City Commission. She said, “I was truly excited that the Governor had denied it because that gave us an easy way off… I’ve been in that position before, where I’ve had to be the deciding vote, and it’s not pleasant, and I was really looking forward to having an out. But there is not an out, clearly, to me right now, until we meet with the Newberry folks and I hear what they have to say regarding this project.”

Chestnut said he was with Cornell “to some degree, but I think it’s important to hear from the City of Newberry, in terms of their reactions to the veto of the funding from the Governor.”

“I preliminarily moved forward in December; I regret that now because I think we could have spent some more time looking at other things. But I did that, so now I’m doing everything I can to change that.” – Commissioner Ken Cornell

Cornell responded, “Thank you, commissioners. At least now I know that you’re still open to that off-ramp.” He said he had no problem waiting until July 10 but added, “I preliminarily moved forward in December; I regret that now because I think we could have spent some more time looking at other things. But I did that, so now I’m doing everything I can to change that… Hopefully we can change direction on July 10 or 11.”

Cornell made a motion to approve staff’s recommendation for the ARPA funds budget amendment, which was to move funds that had been allocated to broadband projects into the general fund; the funds will still be “cordoned off” for broadband projects, which will be discussed in July.

The motion passed unanimously.