‘No one has made more historic efforts at road repairs…’
September 17, 2026
BY JAKE FULLER
24 Comments
realJK
Roads don’t vote, and rural voters are mostly MAGA so there you have it. But their desire for shiny new exurb clearcut trees cookie cutter homebuyers won’t buy if they dodge around potholes to see them. Realtor campaign donors better wake up.
If you had done just a modicum of research, you would have discovered that the statement is true. The quarter of a billion dollar transportation plan is the largest roads investment in the County’s history. Does more need to be done? Yes. Is the Commission committed to doing more? Yes.
Leave it to you not to let the facts get in the way of a cartoon idea.
Had they funded infrastructure properly over the last two decades, our roads wouldn’t be crumbling today. It’s tough to move forward when you’re constantly dodging the potholes left by your predecessors—even current commissioners have admitted as much.
They passed the buck but didn’t admit their role in kicking the can down the potholed road.
The Myth:
Alachua County isn’t doing anything to fix the roads.
The Truth:
Alachua County’s road challenges go back decades. In 1977, the state ended its secondary road system and shifted maintenance responsibility to counties. Nearly 200 miles of roads in Alachua County.
Over time, the gas-tax revenues available for road maintenance failed to keep pace with inflation, construction costs and the growing expense of maintaining that much pavement. As the backlog grew, voters were asked three different times—in 2004, 2012 and 2014—to approve a dedicated transportation surtax (the tool the state gives county’s to raise the massive amounts of money need for roads capital projects). All three measures failed.
That finally changed in 2022, when voters approved a 10-year infrastructure surtax that included funding for roads. The current County Commission combined those revenues with gas taxes, property-tax dollars and state and federal grants to create a 10-year, $250 million Transportation Capital Improvement Program—the largest sustained transportation investment in Alachua County history. Over 80 projects are either completed, under construction, or in planning.
There is still plenty of work to do and even more funding is needed, but for the first time in decades, the county has historic funding levels and the program needed to begin to systematically address the backlog.
Fact: Two commissioners have been “serving”—mostly themselves—during the majority of those two decades.
Perception: It wasn’t until the public—thanks social media—became more involved and a commissioner was seeking re-election that roads became a priority.
One more fact for the potholed road: The County is THE primary reason for the backlog.
While the current efforts are both needed and appreciated, don’t blame the lack of fiscal resources for current road disrepair—the BOCC controlled those resources. Aside from hotels for the homeless, I’ll bet some of those resources were, and are, being spent allowing a significant number of county employees to work from home.
Y.V.F.I.Y.G.I., I always appreciate your anonymous comments and the opportunity they provide to clarify the facts.
1. Present and past Commissions have worked for decades to secure the funds for road work through the transportation surtax (the tool the state gives county’s to raise the massive amounts of money need for roads capital projects). The surtax ballot initiative failed three times.
2. Once it passed in 2022, the progress has been steady and historic.
Securing funds and using them as advertised are two different animals.
I always appreciate your protection and insulation of your leaders. If you were of a different variety, DJT might even hire you.
The county, by its own admission, has not seriously attempted to fulfill its responsibility to fund roads for FIFTY years. Every year, 1977 recedes into history and backlog grows. Yet every year the commissioners have voted to fund anything BUT roads.
The 2004, 2012 and 2014 surtax proposals failed because many people saw them as blank check requests for additional taxes with no requirement to spend the money repairing roads, particularly in rural areas.
Now we have a $25 million per year improvement plan when the county says the annual backlog is double that.
Hopefully the county has learned from current surtax and will communicate a plan of specific road improvements and repair programs for voters before the tax comes up for renewal.
The county, by its own admission, has not seriously attempted to fulfill its responsibility to fund roads for FIFTY years. Every year, 1977 recedes into history and backlog grows. Yet every year the commissioners have voted to fund anything BUT roads.
The 2004, 2012 and 2014 surtax proposals failed because many people saw them as blank check requests for additional taxes with no requirement to spend the money repairing roads, particularly in rural areas.
Now we have a $25 million per year improvement plan when the county says the annual backlog is double that.
Hopefully the county has learned from current surtax and will communicate a plan of specific road improvements and repair programs for voters before the tax comes up for renewal.
Here’s some ‘truth’ for you. The state of Florida turned over state roads to the counties in the 1990s. Why didn’t Alachua County plan for the additional expense of maintaining these roads? Instead, numerous commissions have duped the electorate into voting for additional taxes to fix the roads and then they spent some of the money on their pet liberal feel good garbage instead of fixing the roads. Back to you Mark and spin away.
So, I’m truly sorry to have to point this out: money does NOT equal results. Might I recommend you look to… oh, I don’t know, anything the government spends money on. For instance: how much has been spent on homelessness? The “war on drugs?” The war on poverty? Give a government a pile of money to spend on a problem, almost without exception they can find a way to make that problem worse, not better. So, you were saying that the cartoonist was drawing a cartoon that didn’t consider… wait for it, how much money was appropriated to address this problem?!? As though that data point might somehow be correlated with the government being effective? Useful? Producing the desired result of roads with fewer potholes? As they say in Boston: “Sha! Right!” Come on man. If you’re going to make an argument, at least don’t rely on: “look at the pile of money government is promising / planning / has available to spend to solve it…”. You’ve lost THAT argument before the words have left your mouth…
The Myth:
Alachua County isn’t doing anything to fix the roads.
The Truth:
Alachua County’s road challenges go back decades. In 1977, the state ended its secondary road system and shifted maintenance responsibility to counties. Nearly 200 miles of roads in Alachua County.
Over time, the gas-tax revenues available for road maintenance failed to keep pace with inflation, construction costs and the growing expense of maintaining that much pavement. As the backlog grew, voters were asked three different times—in 2004, 2012 and 2014—to approve a dedicated transportation surtax (the tool the state gives county’s to raise the massive amounts of money need for roads capital projects). All three measures failed.
That finally changed in 2022, when voters approved a 10-year infrastructure surtax that included funding for roads. The current County Commission combined those revenues with gas taxes, property-tax dollars and state and federal grants to create a 10-year, $250 million Transportation Capital Improvement Program—the largest sustained transportation investment in Alachua County history. Over 80 projects are either completed, under construction, or in planning.
There is still plenty of work to do and even more funding is needed, but for the first time in decades, the county has historic funding levels and the program needed to begin to systematically address the backlog.
Odd how the county thugs have all the money they need to waste on their pet projects! The parasites never asked the taxpayer for a special tax to fund their homeless housing, while the deadbeats do nothing to be worthy of other people’s income!
The county thugs love to blame the state way back in 1977 for the road issues, yet the thugs didn’t care about road conditions until 2004? Just proves what an utter waste of taxpayer money commissioners are!
I look forward to the day someone’s accident investigation is determined to be due to road conditions! I hope they sue the county thugs and win millions!
Your own public works director told the BOCC that they need to allocate $41 million a year just to keep the roads in the same (terrible) condition they’re in now. That’s why your messaging about “historic” funding levels ($25 million a year) is falling flat – we can all see the failure cascade in real time. So you can bluster all you want, the roads will keep failing faster than you can repair them, and we will keep mocking you.
Mark, mud slinging and personal attacks here show ignorance or bad data. The BOCC and GNV had so many objectives in those so called ‘fix the roads’ proposal, that actual road repair was watered down below even regular maintenance needs. BOCC only received 35% of the projected funds. GNV wanted bus hubs and bike trails. BOCC wanted to subsidize road offers for developers and wanted to fix main GNV roads, not unincorporated county roads.
What they are bragging about now is $250 million, OVER 10 YEARS. That $25 million per year is just over 1/2 of the needed MAINTENANCE PER YEAR. It doesn’t include the $1/2 billion backlog of roads needing rebuilding right now.
We could’ve paved all of Florida’s roads with bricks made of 14K gold instead of spending $38B (and counting!) on a purely elective war with Iran that has given us nothing other than expensive fuel, diminished international standing, and higher interest rates. But, yeah, let’s blame our lack of resources on the DemoncRats….
Agree about Israel/Iran. Now do Ukraine. I believe Ukraine has received well over $100 billion already. If you can’t see that both parties are war parties then you truly are lost.
The good for nothing county and city thugs would have pissed that 38 billion away like they do the millions they waste every year! The more the thugs take from makers, the more they piss away on takers!
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
So, don’t believe your eyes or your memory when you consider the shameful, neglected state of our roads year after year after year. Instead, listen to local Petty Minister of Propaganda, Mark Sexton.
It was only the recent backlash and upcoming elections that shamed local government into hastily slapping a few Band-Aids on a handful of roads.
You and the rest of our local government work for us, Mark, and you’d do well to remember that. We’re your bosses, and we say you are doing a terrible job. Your performance is rated as Unacceptable.
If you want to change that perception, then start working for the benefit of the citizens of Alachua county instead of criminal homeless transplants and illegals.
Jake, judging by the response you were right over the target as usual. Please never stop skewering the petty tyrants that think they deserve to live on our dime while being above criticism or accountability.
“It was only the recent backlash and upcoming elections that shamed local government into hastily slapping a few Band-Aids on a handful of roads.” Spot on, Gainesville Dad.
Setting aside the finger pointing where does it go from here? What could be the solution, one road at a time? If the county had the funding right now to repave every road that needs it how long would it take? I recall moving here in the early 1990s. Roads like NW 83rd street, 98th street, Wacahoota, Fort Clarke blvd, Rocky Point road, cr 337 were terrible back then and haven’t been addressed.
At this point I have lost hope for any major repairs with the prices of diesel fuel as high as they are. Any contractor estimates will probably double overnight as it takes petroleum products run the machines. The road surface containing petroleum itself is expensive to produce.
Roads don’t vote, and rural voters are mostly MAGA so there you have it. But their desire for shiny new exurb clearcut trees cookie cutter homebuyers won’t buy if they dodge around potholes to see them. Realtor campaign donors better wake up.
The logic of the Dems is that crappily done filled in potholes is much cheaper than speed bumps.
Thanks for this badge of honor Jake!
If you had done just a modicum of research, you would have discovered that the statement is true. The quarter of a billion dollar transportation plan is the largest roads investment in the County’s history. Does more need to be done? Yes. Is the Commission committed to doing more? Yes.
Leave it to you not to let the facts get in the way of a cartoon idea.
Go here to learn more if the facts interest you. https://engage.zencity.io/alachuacounty/en-US/projects/road-projects
More spin from the incompetent Left. Stop wasting taxpayer funds on the criminal homeless magnets and fix the damn roads!
You seem to be confusing facts for spin. Jake is the master spinner and gaslighter extraordinaire.
Had they funded infrastructure properly over the last two decades, our roads wouldn’t be crumbling today. It’s tough to move forward when you’re constantly dodging the potholes left by your predecessors—even current commissioners have admitted as much.
They passed the buck but didn’t admit their role in kicking the can down the potholed road.
The Myth:
Alachua County isn’t doing anything to fix the roads.
The Truth:
Alachua County’s road challenges go back decades. In 1977, the state ended its secondary road system and shifted maintenance responsibility to counties. Nearly 200 miles of roads in Alachua County.
Over time, the gas-tax revenues available for road maintenance failed to keep pace with inflation, construction costs and the growing expense of maintaining that much pavement. As the backlog grew, voters were asked three different times—in 2004, 2012 and 2014—to approve a dedicated transportation surtax (the tool the state gives county’s to raise the massive amounts of money need for roads capital projects). All three measures failed.
That finally changed in 2022, when voters approved a 10-year infrastructure surtax that included funding for roads. The current County Commission combined those revenues with gas taxes, property-tax dollars and state and federal grants to create a 10-year, $250 million Transportation Capital Improvement Program—the largest sustained transportation investment in Alachua County history. Over 80 projects are either completed, under construction, or in planning.
There is still plenty of work to do and even more funding is needed, but for the first time in decades, the county has historic funding levels and the program needed to begin to systematically address the backlog.
Take a look at the latest quarterly update:
https://engage.zencity.io/alachuacounty/en-US/projects/road-projects/updates/alachua-county-fy26-3rd-quarter-roads-update-42-projects-completed-44-underway
Fact: Two commissioners have been “serving”—mostly themselves—during the majority of those two decades.
Perception: It wasn’t until the public—thanks social media—became more involved and a commissioner was seeking re-election that roads became a priority.
One more fact for the potholed road: The County is THE primary reason for the backlog.
While the current efforts are both needed and appreciated, don’t blame the lack of fiscal resources for current road disrepair—the BOCC controlled those resources. Aside from hotels for the homeless, I’ll bet some of those resources were, and are, being spent allowing a significant number of county employees to work from home.
Y.V.F.I.Y.G.I., I always appreciate your anonymous comments and the opportunity they provide to clarify the facts.
1. Present and past Commissions have worked for decades to secure the funds for road work through the transportation surtax (the tool the state gives county’s to raise the massive amounts of money need for roads capital projects). The surtax ballot initiative failed three times.
2. Once it passed in 2022, the progress has been steady and historic.
3. Take a look at the latest quarterly update:
https://engage.zencity.io/alachuacounty/en-US/projects/road-projects/updates/alachua-county-fy26-3rd-quarter-roads-update-42-projects-completed-44-underway
Securing funds and using them as advertised are two different animals.
I always appreciate your protection and insulation of your leaders. If you were of a different variety, DJT might even hire you.
The county, by its own admission, has not seriously attempted to fulfill its responsibility to fund roads for FIFTY years. Every year, 1977 recedes into history and backlog grows. Yet every year the commissioners have voted to fund anything BUT roads.
The 2004, 2012 and 2014 surtax proposals failed because many people saw them as blank check requests for additional taxes with no requirement to spend the money repairing roads, particularly in rural areas.
Now we have a $25 million per year improvement plan when the county says the annual backlog is double that.
Hopefully the county has learned from current surtax and will communicate a plan of specific road improvements and repair programs for voters before the tax comes up for renewal.
The county, by its own admission, has not seriously attempted to fulfill its responsibility to fund roads for FIFTY years. Every year, 1977 recedes into history and backlog grows. Yet every year the commissioners have voted to fund anything BUT roads.
The 2004, 2012 and 2014 surtax proposals failed because many people saw them as blank check requests for additional taxes with no requirement to spend the money repairing roads, particularly in rural areas.
Now we have a $25 million per year improvement plan when the county says the annual backlog is double that.
Hopefully the county has learned from current surtax and will communicate a plan of specific road improvements and repair programs for voters before the tax comes up for renewal.
Here’s some ‘truth’ for you. The state of Florida turned over state roads to the counties in the 1990s. Why didn’t Alachua County plan for the additional expense of maintaining these roads? Instead, numerous commissions have duped the electorate into voting for additional taxes to fix the roads and then they spent some of the money on their pet liberal feel good garbage instead of fixing the roads. Back to you Mark and spin away.
So, I’m truly sorry to have to point this out: money does NOT equal results. Might I recommend you look to… oh, I don’t know, anything the government spends money on. For instance: how much has been spent on homelessness? The “war on drugs?” The war on poverty? Give a government a pile of money to spend on a problem, almost without exception they can find a way to make that problem worse, not better. So, you were saying that the cartoonist was drawing a cartoon that didn’t consider… wait for it, how much money was appropriated to address this problem?!? As though that data point might somehow be correlated with the government being effective? Useful? Producing the desired result of roads with fewer potholes? As they say in Boston: “Sha! Right!” Come on man. If you’re going to make an argument, at least don’t rely on: “look at the pile of money government is promising / planning / has available to spend to solve it…”. You’ve lost THAT argument before the words have left your mouth…
Happy oblige:
The Myth:
Alachua County isn’t doing anything to fix the roads.
The Truth:
Alachua County’s road challenges go back decades. In 1977, the state ended its secondary road system and shifted maintenance responsibility to counties. Nearly 200 miles of roads in Alachua County.
Over time, the gas-tax revenues available for road maintenance failed to keep pace with inflation, construction costs and the growing expense of maintaining that much pavement. As the backlog grew, voters were asked three different times—in 2004, 2012 and 2014—to approve a dedicated transportation surtax (the tool the state gives county’s to raise the massive amounts of money need for roads capital projects). All three measures failed.
That finally changed in 2022, when voters approved a 10-year infrastructure surtax that included funding for roads. The current County Commission combined those revenues with gas taxes, property-tax dollars and state and federal grants to create a 10-year, $250 million Transportation Capital Improvement Program—the largest sustained transportation investment in Alachua County history. Over 80 projects are either completed, under construction, or in planning.
There is still plenty of work to do and even more funding is needed, but for the first time in decades, the county has historic funding levels and the program needed to begin to systematically address the backlog.
Take a look at the latest quarterly update:
https://engage.zencity.io/alachuacounty/en-US/projects/road-projects/updates/alachua-county-fy26-3rd-quarter-roads-update-42-projects-completed-44-underway
Odd how the county thugs have all the money they need to waste on their pet projects! The parasites never asked the taxpayer for a special tax to fund their homeless housing, while the deadbeats do nothing to be worthy of other people’s income!
The county thugs love to blame the state way back in 1977 for the road issues, yet the thugs didn’t care about road conditions until 2004? Just proves what an utter waste of taxpayer money commissioners are!
I look forward to the day someone’s accident investigation is determined to be due to road conditions! I hope they sue the county thugs and win millions!
Your own public works director told the BOCC that they need to allocate $41 million a year just to keep the roads in the same (terrible) condition they’re in now. That’s why your messaging about “historic” funding levels ($25 million a year) is falling flat – we can all see the failure cascade in real time. So you can bluster all you want, the roads will keep failing faster than you can repair them, and we will keep mocking you.
Mark, mud slinging and personal attacks here show ignorance or bad data. The BOCC and GNV had so many objectives in those so called ‘fix the roads’ proposal, that actual road repair was watered down below even regular maintenance needs. BOCC only received 35% of the projected funds. GNV wanted bus hubs and bike trails. BOCC wanted to subsidize road offers for developers and wanted to fix main GNV roads, not unincorporated county roads.
What they are bragging about now is $250 million, OVER 10 YEARS. That $25 million per year is just over 1/2 of the needed MAINTENANCE PER YEAR. It doesn’t include the $1/2 billion backlog of roads needing rebuilding right now.
We could’ve paved all of Florida’s roads with bricks made of 14K gold instead of spending $38B (and counting!) on a purely elective war with Iran that has given us nothing other than expensive fuel, diminished international standing, and higher interest rates. But, yeah, let’s blame our lack of resources on the DemoncRats….
Agree about Israel/Iran. Now do Ukraine. I believe Ukraine has received well over $100 billion already. If you can’t see that both parties are war parties then you truly are lost.
The good for nothing county and city thugs would have pissed that 38 billion away like they do the millions they waste every year! The more the thugs take from makers, the more they piss away on takers!
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
So, don’t believe your eyes or your memory when you consider the shameful, neglected state of our roads year after year after year. Instead, listen to local Petty Minister of Propaganda, Mark Sexton.
It was only the recent backlash and upcoming elections that shamed local government into hastily slapping a few Band-Aids on a handful of roads.
You and the rest of our local government work for us, Mark, and you’d do well to remember that. We’re your bosses, and we say you are doing a terrible job. Your performance is rated as Unacceptable.
If you want to change that perception, then start working for the benefit of the citizens of Alachua county instead of criminal homeless transplants and illegals.
Jake, judging by the response you were right over the target as usual. Please never stop skewering the petty tyrants that think they deserve to live on our dime while being above criticism or accountability.
“It was only the recent backlash and upcoming elections that shamed local government into hastily slapping a few Band-Aids on a handful of roads.” Spot on, Gainesville Dad.
Setting aside the finger pointing where does it go from here? What could be the solution, one road at a time? If the county had the funding right now to repave every road that needs it how long would it take? I recall moving here in the early 1990s. Roads like NW 83rd street, 98th street, Wacahoota, Fort Clarke blvd, Rocky Point road, cr 337 were terrible back then and haven’t been addressed.
At this point I have lost hope for any major repairs with the prices of diesel fuel as high as they are. Any contractor estimates will probably double overnight as it takes petroleum products run the machines. The road surface containing petroleum itself is expensive to produce.