In Lake City, a show of hands for Alachua County

Special to Alachua Chronicle

BY JESSE FLETCHER

LAKE CITY, Fla. – About thirty minutes into a candidate forum in Lake City last Thursday, Chase Brannan asked the room for a show of hands: who here is a fan of Alachua County?

Click here to watch the candidate forum.

He did not wait long for an answer. “I’m not a fan either,” he said with a grin, before turning to what he called the “horrific condition” of Alachua County’s roads. Brannan’s point was fiscal: Alachua County operates on a budget of nearly a billion dollars and still cannot maintain its roads, while the fiscally constrained counties around it manage on a fraction of that and have better roads. Brannan said he would like to take that on as a pet project and see Alachua County maintain its roads.

From the audience, someone called out, “There are thousands of voters in Alachua County.”

There are. Roughly a fifth of House District 10 sits in the northern part of Alachua County, alongside Baker, Bradford, Columbia, and Union counties. State records show Brannan has accepted $1,500 from Alachua County first responders this year: $1,000 from Gainesville Professional Firefighters and $500 from Fire Rescue Professionals of Alachua County.

Brannan’s comments about Alachua County are noteworthy because Marshall Rawson argued in these pages that Brannan had refused to meet him anywhere in Alachua County, even after the Alachua County GOP invited him. Notably, Rawson never raised this issue in Lake City; neither candidate mentioned it.

The debate and the tone

The event was held at the North Florida Arts & Sciences Academy. The format was two-minute openings, a minute of rebuttal at each candidate’s option, prepared questions, then questions drawn at random from a hat. Rawson has objected to forums built on pre-selected questions, and he stated during the forum that one of the drawn questions duplicated what he called the original pre-scripted questions. He answered it anyway.

The tone ran opposite to what the pre-debate sparks would have predicted. Rawson opened cordially and twice waved off his rebuttal time with a simple, “I’m good.” Brannan came in hotter and stayed aggressive. His sharpest moment came early: Rawson criticized Rep. Chuck Brannan’s votes on agricultural enclave legislation and the Live Local Act as state preemption of local zoning authority, and Brannan used his minute to object to the framing entirely. He said he did not know why his opponent kept mentioning his term-limited father, who is not a candidate in the race. The room cheered.

Two accusations about money

Both came from Rawson.

Rawson first accused Brannan of taking large contributions from South Florida and out-of-state developers, alleging a promise to greenlight their proposals. Rawson said Brannan had taken the money and then polled the district, found overdevelopment was a liability, and repositioned himself as “pro-smart-growth.” During his rebuttal minute, Brannan disputed Rawson’s characterization of the donor and described him as a timber owner rather than a developer.

The second accusation, on data centers, came near the end. Both candidates said flatly that they oppose hyperscale facilities, with Brannan calling them a nuisance that consumes too much water. Rawson then added a jab, “Voters will not find any AI data center lobbyists on my campaign finance reports.” The implication that they might be found in Brannan’s contributors brought the loudest reaction of the evening. 

Rawson closed the night by inviting voters to look at who is financing each campaign. 

The substantive split

Beneath the friction sat a real disagreement about state appropriations to local governments.

Brannan’s pitch is that fiscally constrained counties cannot buy what they need (ambulances, fire trucks, fire stations) from property taxes alone, and his job would be to bring those tax dollars home before Jacksonville, Miami, and Orlando claim them. He said Union County was unable to respond to 300 emergency calls because the only ambulance was already on a call.

Rawson takes nearly the opposite position. He said he would not support appropriations that saddle taxpayers with ongoing liability: an appropriation for a new fire station would pay for the building, but local governments are on the hook for operations expenses, so they increase taxes, as he said Bradford County did through a fire assessment. Government, he said, needs to tighten its belt like everyone else.

On Amendment 3 (“Save Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes”), Brannan endorsed the current tiered homestead exemption proposal and said he would like to establish a “funding formula” to provide state money to fiscally constrained counties after the homestead exemption goes up. Rawson said Amendment 3 does not go far enough, floated a one-to-two-percent sales tax increase to cover the gap, and said local government across the board needs a “haircut.”

They split again on immigration, where Rawson faulted the Legislature (Chuck Brannan’s votes included) for shifting immigration authority to the Agriculture Commissioner.

What it comes down to

Rawson asked voters whether they want a representative who brings Tallahassee to the district or one who brings the district’s values to Tallahassee. Brannan argued that results come from relationships with Tallahassee, that a one-man show gets nothing done, and that he will get results.

The primary is August 18, and the district’s demographics indicate that the winner of the Republican primary will likely win the seat in the General Election.

Voters in northern Alachua County have the opportunity on August 18 to decide which of these men will represent them for the next two years.