Gainesville City Commission discusses Citizens Field, passes red light camera ordinance on second reading and school zone speed camera ordinance on first reading

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their May 15 regular meeting, the Gainesville City Commission approved a contract for curbside food waste collection, discussed Citizens Field, and passed a red light camera ordinance on second reading and a school zone speed camera ordinance on first reading.

Curbside food waste collection

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut drew attention to an item on the consent agenda, a sole-source contract with Stephan H. Barron dba Beaten Path Compost for weekly curbside food waste collection for $164,360 for FY25. Chestnut said the Commission had received “lots of letters regarding curbside food waste collection… When it’s on consent, it means that we are in agreement with almost everyone who’s been writing to us… So that means we are passing the issue. We agree.”

Commissioner Ed Book agreed that Commissioners had received “more emails and contacts on that than, I think, any other agenda item over the last two weeks,… almost basically 100% enthusiastically in support.”

Commissioner James Ingle added, “Gainesville is clearly a town that loves its compost.” He also said he was happy to see ratification of a contract for RTS employees on the consent agenda. The consent agenda passed unanimously.

GFR Station 5 closed due to roach infestation

During a Gainesville Fire Rescue update, Commissioner Bryan Eastman asked for an update on the closure of Fire Station 5. Assistant Fire Chief Adam Hinton said Station 5 is behind the Gate station on NW 13th Street, and the crew and truck had to be moved to Station 3 about two and a half weeks ago because of “an ongoing problem with roaches that we weren’t able to correct with just routine maintenance.” He said Station 5’s territory is “not abandoned. We’re currently covering that by Fire Station 8 from the northwest, Fire Station 4 from the southwest side, and then Station 1 covers some of the southern part of that territory. And then Engines 3 and 5 will cover the northeast section of that territory on a temporary basis until we can get the station restored.”

Brian Singleton, Special Advisor for Infrastructure, said his department has been “actively trying to locate where [the roaches are] coming in from. They’re external pests; they’re not household pests.” He said they had done a smoke test the previous day and think they’ve found the issue: “There’s a hole in a pipe in an external cinder block concrete wall behind kitchen cabinets, so it’s not easy to get to.” He said they’re working with a plumber to figure out how to fix it. He added, “It is the highest priority for our facilities team right now. Once we get that repaired, we’ll do some monitoring to see if the issues still persist or if they’re coming in from another location. Once we’re confident that we’ve found the source, we will do a professional cleaning through an external party so we can get them moved in, but we’ll be working after hours, weekends, whatever it takes to get this station restored as soon as possible.”

Eastman asked whether this has had any impact on response times, and Hinton said, “I’m not comfortable with it long-term, but for the short term, you will see some increased travel times in the area, but not significant.”

Citizens Field

City Manager Cynthia Curry said the School Board is currently working on a letter of intent for Citizens Field redevelopment, and that letter should give both parties a baseline for discussions. 

Mayor Harvey Ward reminded the Commission that the stadium is “a component of the overall property there… There is nothing precluding the City of Gainesville from making improvements and decisions about the rest of the complex while we figure out what to do with the stadium… We don’t have to wait and do everything at once – nor should we, in my opinion, as there are actions that we can be taking to remind the community that we can be trusted to move forward with this without waiting to make a decision about the stadium itself.”

Curry said she has already directed Singleton to start working on the demolition of the Fire Administration Building.

Chestnut went through a long list of provisions in the 1984 contract for the use of the stadium and the subsequent amendments, asking for details on whether the School Board had made the required capital expenditures for each five-year period. She said, “The public accountability concern here is – a failure to maintain transparency or fulfill capital investment promises over a 40-year lease would suggest an inability to act as a responsible steward of public resources.”

Chestnut also asked for information about the condition of the stadium and any complaints that have been made about “unsafe bleachers, poor lighting, unclean restrooms, or infrequent field maintenance.” She also expressed concerns about adequate insurance, the use and maintenance of the parking area, and City access to the property for its own events.

Motion

Chestnut made a motion to direct the City Attorney and City Manager to review the lease agreement with the School Board, identify any services not delivered that the School Board committed to, and return to the City Commission with the information in June. Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker seconded the motion. 

Curry said she had already been working with staff on these issues and had asked the Sustainable Development Department to do a “very thorough walk-through” of the stadium.

Roxy Gonzalez, Director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs, said she had already collected much of the information and had “a good list” of completed projects and their costs from July of 1984 to June 30, 2024. She said the School Board has re-sodded “certain sections of the field to make it playable” after receiving recommendations from the turf management staff at the University of Florida. 

Eastman favored taking “a step back and a breath” to let the City Manager and the Superintendent discuss the next steps “before introducing more questions into the process,” although he said they were “really great questions.”

Gonzalez said the current contract goes through the 2025-26 school year, “and then after that, I don’t have another contract in place.”

Commissioner Casey Willits said, “I think some of this is fine; I just don’t want it to be in any way accusatory that they won’t be a good partner in the future, because I think they’ve worked somewhat well with us over the years, but I don’t know all the details at every five-year step, so I think it’s reasonable to ask so that we’re prepared, rather than we get a big contract in front of us, and then we have all these questions.”

Ward said these are “entirely appropriate questions to ask before we enter into another contract,” but as a parent with a child who “intends to be marching on that field this fall,” he had concerns about where students will participate in all the activities that are now held at Citizens Field. He added, “The whole community has been using this for a lot longer than 40 years, and we need to be aware of the weight of history moving forward, as well.” 

Ingle said that in such a “giant undertaking,… it’s important for us to look at potential partners…  I think the School Board is definitely on that list of potential partners that could make this a more viable project, but like with any potential partners, I think we need to go into that [with] eyes wide open.”

Chestnut said she agreed with Ward that elements of the property can be separated out so they aren’t held up by discussions about the future of the stadium. She added, “I am not opposed to looking at having the private sector take Citizens Field and develop it. If we give this to the private sector, we have part of that property back on the tax roll. I’m very interested in the tax roll at this time, as you all can imagine. So I’m not opposed to that. I think that we need to be very open-minded when [the consultants] come back, because there are lots of ways that we need to look at this.”

Chestnut said she was fine with some flexibility on the dates for returning with the information, instead of a hard deadline of June.

Eastman asked if Chestnut would be comfortable changing the second part of the motion to “identify services committed to by the School Board and the delivery of those services” because “it does feel somewhat accusatory when you’re just asking us to identify services not delivered by the School Board through that agreement.”

Chestnut agreed with that and also agreed to change the third part to bring back the information “at a future meeting, which does not mean December.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Red light cameras

After voting to schedule a special election on GRU governance in November 2025 (the full article on that will be available next week) and a lengthy update on the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department, the Commission took up the second reading of an ordinance establishing red light cameras (click here for our article on the presentations on the red light and school zone speed camera ordinances, with more detailed information).

Eastman proposed adding a section to the red light camera ordinance specifying that “the money retained by the City of Gainesville shall be used to administer the traffic infraction detectors authorized by the Gainesville Traffic Safety Enhancement Act.” He said that after a number of years, cities have small amounts of money left over after spending the proceeds on public safety initiatives, and he wanted to see that money “used for traffic safety capital projects that improve the safety of multimodal transportation across Gainesville.”

Motion

Curry said she was fine with the change, and Eastman made a motion to adopt the ordinance on second reading with that change.

Commissioner Ed Book said that some people think about the ordinance as a “big brother concept, and it’s a pilot… We’re using it specifically for traffic safety,… for the violations that are going to occur that could cause loss of life, hurting pedestrians, hurting our bicyclists.” He also reiterated that the determination of whether an incident is a violation will be made by an independent administrator within the police department.

The initial red light cameras will be placed at NE 39th Avenue & Waldo Road and NW 23rd Avenue & NW 6th Street, but the ordinance authorizes cameras at 16 intersections:

• NE 39th Avenue & NE Waldo Road
• NW 23rd Avenue & NW 6th Street
• Windmeadows Boulevard & SW 34th Street
• SW 34th Street & Archer Road
• W Newberry Road & NW 62nd Street
• SW 16th Avenue & SW 13th Street
• SW Archer Road & SW 23rd Drive
• University Avenue & Main Street
• Hull Road & SW 34th Street
• NW 13th Street & NW 16th Avenue
• SE 4th Avenue & SE Williston Road
• SW Archer Road & SW 40th Boulevard
• W University Avenue & W 13th Street
• W University Avenue & W 34th Street
• SW 20th Avenue & SW 62nd Boulevard
• NE 39th Avenue & NE 15th Street

Curry said she will bring recommendations for additional cameras to the City Commission for approval before implementing them.

The motion passed 6-0, with Ingle absent.

School zone speed cameras

GPD Captain Summer Hallett told the Commission that a Florida statute allows Florida municipalities to partner with contractors for speed detection systems in school zones, and the City has decided to “piggyback” off the City of Plantation’s contract with RedSpeed. A violation leads to a fine of $100 and carries no points; a citation from an officer for speeding in a school zone would be “much higher” because fines are doubled in school zones. From the $100, $60 goes to the policie department, which pays RedSpeed; $12 to the school district; $5 to the crossing guard program; $5 to FDLE training; and $20 to the State of Florida.

GPD recommended starting with school zone cameras at Talbot Elementary on NW 43rd Street and Lincoln Middle School on SE 11th Street. 

Eastman said he would like to make the same change to this ordinance that he made to the red light camera ordinance, and City Attorney Dan Nee said his office would do that for the second reading.

Motion

Eastman made a motion to approve the ordinance on first reading with his amendment about spending any excess funds on capital projects that improve the safety of multimodal projects.

The ordinance passed 6-0 on first reading, with Ingle absent.