Gainesville Neighbors Join the Fight Against City Commission’s Zoning Changes
Press release from Gainesville Neighborhood Voices
Mark the time and day: At 5 p.m. Wednesday, July 13, at City Hall, four Gainesville City commissioners are expected to abolish single-family zoning throughout Gainesville on a 4-to-3 vote.
At-large Commissioner Reina Saco is one of the four anti-family-neighborhood votes; the other three signaling they will eliminate single-family zoning are the term-limited Mayor, Lauren Poe, and Commissioners David Arreola and Adrian Hayes-Santos, all of whom who leave office in January.
Poe is arguing that opening land for development near downtown Gainesville, Depot Park, and the University of Florida, including in several historically African-American neighborhoods, will reverse racist land-use legacies.
But a growing body of Gainesville residents are poised to reject that rationale.
More than 60 residents, representing a diverse group of neighborhoods, expressed alarm at the potential for wide-spread disruption of existing communities and land-use patterns at a meeting organized to prepare a fight against the proposal.
Without exception, all 60 residents vowed to contact city commissioners, circulate petitions, and attend the upcoming July 13 meeting, to stop the potentially disastrous series of comprehensive-plan and land-use changes.
Gainesville residents who want to join the protest are invited to sign an online petition at https://www.change.org/2SaveOurNeighborhoods and speak at the upcoming July 13 City Commission meeting.
Those mfers
Please sign the petition and share it with everyone you know via email, Facebook and word of mouth. Have your voice be heard. Click on this link; change.org/2saveourneighborhoods You can also text it to people by typing it in the message space. When you send it it becomes an easy to click on link for your friends. Ask them to also share widely. We can stop this if we all pitch in! Thank you!
At the workshop the first three citizens speaking against it came from the eastside. They’ve seen first hand what happens to their home values and family neighborhoods when “equity” brought subsidized rentals next door. It’s not pretty.
I really hope these liberals wake up and see what the left is doing to this city, county, and country
Please sign the petition and share it with everyone you know via email, Facebook and word of mouth. Have your voice be heard. Click on this link; change.org/2saveourneighborhoods You can also text it to people by typing it in the message space. When you send it it becomes an easy to click on link for your friends. Ask them to also share widely. We can stop this if we all pitch in! Thank you!
Their idea of the perfect City of Gainesville would be similar to the gray Soviet bloc communal apartments where nobody owns a car and shuffle to a government run food distribution center.
I signed the petition and forwarded it to friends.
However I’m not sure what the outcome will be for this dogmatic commission of idiots.
January cannot come quick enough to rid Gainesville from this dangerously incompetent commission and mayor.
Thank you for your efforts! Please don’t give up now. Continue to spread the petition. They vote on July 13th, next Wed. This is our time frame, so keep it up. If you tell 5 more people and they each tell 5 more this will mushroom.
Disgraceful to take on the most controversial matters on the way out the door. Expect nothing less from cowardice leadership. And quite sick of the so-called liberals ignoring the black community telling them this is not what they want. These folks have never cared about equity. Just look at how they dismantled the EO office and installed a puppet. Wake up Gainvesville!
We just woke up. The sleeping majority has decided to draw the line at permanently changing our neighborhoods by opening the floodgates for developers who want to replace homes with quadruplexes that they can extract high rents from indefinitely. Please sign the petition and share it every chance you get. Have your voice be heard. Now that we have over 1,200 signatures they are responding because they are afraid this thing is going to go viral. Help us make their fear come true. here’s the link; change.org/2saveourneighborhoods
Would have never moved to this city 2 years ago if I’d known of the spectacle this city leadership has put on since and continues to act reckless and without a clue. This has to be some of the worst leadership of any municipality in the United States. From the mayor on down to the commissioners. May move on.
Thank you for your insight. They will hear your voice in city hall when you sign this petition. The commissioners get updated with every signature and see your comments that you leave on the website after you sign. Now that we have over 1,200 signatures they are responding back because they are afraid this thing is going to go viral. Help us make their fear come true. here’s the link; change.org/2saveourneighborhoods
Curious what brought you to Gainesville if I may ask.
Escape while you can or convince several others to think more like you.
Wacko Saco is anti-family because nobody will have her. Is anyone actually surprised?
Arreola doesn’t understand the family concept. All he ever needs his family for is money and a little suckling now and then.
Santos is hoping multi-unit housing will give him more opportunities to see some scantily clothed co-eds.
Poe, well he’s just Poe. Po’ excuse for a father, husband or a man.
If they abolish single family housing they better leave more than office next year. Pretty confident protestors will show up in their front yards.
She’s anti-American and pro-PLO. Single-family neighborhood suburbs are almost exclusively American, and she wants to destroy that. The worst are neighborhoods with fabric and character (way too TRIBAL), and a Christian neighborhood would seem the worst of all to her. Why should you spoiled Americans get to enjoy something that the poor Arabs trying to occupy Israel can’t have. Live in strife with your new neighbors and hate yourselves. You don’t deserve peace and quiet if the Palestinians don’t get peace and quiet. She should obviously be working as some sort of junior associate at a law firm instead of pretending she’s a big decision maker. Her Cuban family in Miami must be super-embarrassed by the little communista in their family.
I signed the petition and shared it with several others.
What would these bozos be doing if they weren’t on the commission? Poe would likely be back in a public high school classroom teaching teenagers. Saco would be back at work at the Gainesville ID office, giving IDs to illegals. Hayes-Santos was a Lyft driver, right? I don’t think Arreola has any real skills other than aspiring to be the next Andrew Gillum (but with no law degree). What would Ward be doing? Selling used cars at Gainesville Chevrolet, perhaps? (I realize Ward does not support the proposed changes). My point is that NONE of them are people who were ever trusted to make big decisions. Was Poe ever even an assistant principal? In the game of life, they are barely more than pawns, but they are trying to act like kings and queens. Let the people decide what they want to do with their city. People actually go to school to learn the science of making decisions, and they haven’t (so painfully obvious with one massive blunder after another).
The 2021 Florida Statutes (Removal by Recall Petition) Committee of Electors
Title IX
ELECTORS AND ELECTIONS
Chapter 100
GENERAL, PRIMARY, SPECIAL, BOND, AND REFERENDUM ELECTIONS
View Entire Chapter
100.361 Municipal recall.—
(1) APPLICATION; DEFINITION.—Any member of the governing body of a municipality or charter county, hereinafter referred to in this section as “municipality,” may be removed from office by the electors of the municipality. When the official represents a district and is elected only by electors residing in that district, only electors from that district are eligible to sign the petition to recall that official and are entitled to vote in the recall election. When the official represents a district and is elected at-large by the electors of the municipality, all electors of the municipality are eligible to sign the petition to recall that official and are entitled to vote in the recall election. Where used in this section, the term “district” shall be construed to mean the area or region of a municipality from which a member of the governing body is elected by the electors from such area or region. Members may be removed from office pursuant to the procedures provided in this section. This method of removing members of the governing body of a municipality is in addition to any other method provided by state law.
(2) RECALL PETITION.—
(a) Petition content.—A petition shall contain the name of the person sought to be recalled and a statement of grounds for recall. The statement of grounds may not exceed 200 words, and the stated grounds are limited solely to those specified in paragraph (d). If more than one member of the governing body is sought to be recalled, whether such member is elected by the electors of a district or by the electors of the municipality at-large, a separate recall petition shall be prepared for each member sought to be recalled. Upon request, the content of a petition should be, but is not required to be, provided by the proponent in alternative formats.
(b) Requisite signatures.—
1. In a municipality or district of fewer than 500 electors, the petition shall be signed by at least 50 electors or by 10 percent of the total number of registered electors of the municipality or district as of the preceding municipal election, whichever is greater.
2. In a municipality or district of 500 or more but fewer than 2,000 registered electors, the petition shall be signed by at least 100 electors or by 10 percent of the total number of registered electors of the municipality or district as of the preceding municipal election, whichever is greater.
3. In a municipality or district of 2,000 or more but fewer than 5,000 registered electors, the petition shall be signed by at least 250 electors or by 10 percent of the total number of registered electors of the municipality or district as of the preceding municipal election, whichever is greater.
4. In a municipality or district of 5,000 or more but fewer than 10,000 registered electors, the petition shall be signed by at least 500 electors or by 10 percent of the total number of registered electors of the municipality or district as of the preceding municipal election, whichever is greater.
5. In a municipality or district of 10,000 or more but fewer than 25,000 registered electors, the petition shall be signed by at least 1,000 electors or by 10 percent of the total number of registered electors of the municipality or district as of the preceding municipal election, whichever is greater.
6. In a municipality or district of 25,000 or more registered electors, the petition shall be signed by at least 1,000 electors or by 5 percent of the total number of registered electors of the municipality or district as of the preceding municipal election, whichever is greater.
All signatures shall be obtained, as provided in paragraph (e), within a period of 30 days, and all signed and dated petition forms shall be filed at the same time, no later than 30 days after the date on which the first signature is obtained on the petition.
(c) Recall committee.—Electors of the municipality or district making charges contained in the statement of grounds for recall, as well as those signing the recall petition, shall be designated as the recall committee. A specific person shall be designated in the petition as chair of the committee, and this person shall act for the committee. The recall committee and the officer being recalled are subject to the provisions of chapter 106.
(d) Grounds for recall.—The grounds for removal of elected municipal officials shall, for the purposes of this act, be limited to the following and must be contained in the petition:
1. Malfeasance;
2. Misfeasance;
3. Neglect of duty;
4. Drunkenness;
5. Incompetence;
6. Permanent inability to perform official duties; and
7. Conviction of a felony involving moral turpitude.