October 10 Alachua County Commission Regular Meeting
Press release from Alachua County
ALACHUA COUNTY, Fla. – The Alachua County Commission will conduct its Regular Meeting on Tuesday, October 10, 2023, in the Jack Durrance Auditorium on the second floor of the Alachua County Administration Building (12 S.E. 1st Street, Gainesville). The meeting begins at 11:30 a.m. The evening meeting is canceled.
Meetings can be viewed on Cox Channel 12, the AC TV app (Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku), or the County’s Video on Demand website.
During the Regular Meeting, the public can make comments at the meeting in person or call in during the 12 p.m. (noon) comment period. Callers will have three minutes to comment on anything not on the agenda and three minutes to discuss anything on the agenda. Callers can choose either or both. Those commenting on items on the agenda will not be allowed to comment again on agenda items if attending the meeting in person later in the day. The call-in number is 1-929-205-6099. When prompted, enter meeting ID 873 5974 1977. Callers can hear the meeting while on hold and can use the system to listen. If you wish to comment, Raise Your Hand by dialing *9 (star nine). Once you are called on by the last four digits of your phone number, unmute your phone by dialing *6 (star six).
Items of interest:
- Approval of a Proclamation declaring October 2023 “Cybersecurity Awareness Month” in Alachua County, Florida
- Approval of a Proclamation declaring October 2023 “American Pharmacists Month” in Alachua County, Florida
- Retirement Recognition for John Nazal, Traffic Maintenance Supervisor, Public Works Department
- Recognition of Court Services Staff for their Pretrial Re-Accreditation
- Recognition of the Alachua County Office of the Jail staff on their Accreditation
- Appoint Full Member to Arts Council vacancy with a Term Ending September 30, 2024.
- Consider applications for Economic Development Advisory Board with a term ending September 30, 2025, and a term ending September 30, 2026
- 2023 Quarter 3 July-September Length of Service presentation
- 2024 Legislative Priorities discussion
- Pine Hill Forest Strategic Ecosystem Special Area Study Scope of Work
- Request to Advertise a Public Hearing to consider Updates to the Recreation and Fire Protection Impact Fees and the Mobility Fee
- Ranking of Request for Proposal (RFP) 23-434 Parking Structure for the New Alachua County Court Complex for Facilities Management.
- Approval of Work Scope for Fresh Food Pathways Program Management Services
“Fresh Food Pathways” sounds like another gov’t displacement of common sense.
Do you understand what this is or are you just critisizing with no knowledge of the program?
Item K2 is of interest to all who hate seeing their tax dollars wasted and given to special interests with an unnatural relation to county staff. The county manager needs to register as a lobbyist for Celebration Pointe. You all need to pay attention to this boondoggle called WMA the World Masters Association being promoted by a few insiders. In April 2025 they want to host 6000 Europeans over the age of 35 for ten days for an Olympic style track meet. K2 says they want $2.75 Million MORE subsidy for Celebration Pointe for this WMA which is too big an event for Gainesville to host. This is after they gave $36 million public money to Celebration Pointe for an overpriced Sports Center, owned by Alachua County but built and run by two of Celebration Pointe’s 70+ shell corporations used to make the cash flow impossible to trace. The WMA event will be a disaster of traffic, transportation, and lack of infrastructure, yet Celebration Pointe lobbyist Lieberman is hell bent on throwing unlimited of our tax dollars to the Celebration Pointe owner, with or without approval by the BOCC. Why?????
This is wrong on so many levels. The County didn’t give Celebration Pointe $36 million. It is a county-owned facility. They entered a management agreement with CP. Saying that WMA is too big is just silly. A Gator football game is orders of magnitude larger and our infrastructure handles it just fine. The County has dedicated $1 million in Bed Tax to the event, period, and the $2.7 million is an ask to the State. There will be millions in economic impact to the County and it will put the Event Center on the map, internationally.
The county Minister of Propaganda used to post under his real name. Your post is wrong on so many levels.
Standard Fox Newz type response. Say “$36 million is wrong” while offering no numbers of your own to tell your version of the truth.
2021 event center budget tax money in the project.
$30,000,000 Borrowed money by Alachua County t be paid back with future bed tax income
$2,320,000 State of Florida economic development money paid for by the taxpayers of Florida
$3,500,000 IRS tax deduction for the “donation” of the land on an IRS Form 8283 signed by the county as a “charitable donation” without an appraisal. Celebration Point made up the property value. Allows CP to avoid massive federal income taxes. To a lay person the land appears vastly overvalued. FYI Donald J. Trump is in court today in New York; some of the charges are for overvaluing charitable donations on a Form 8283 to avoid taxes. Can you explain why it is illegal to do this in New York but legal to do so in Florida?
Total $35,820,000 funds from local, state and federal treasuries. Tell me again why $36 million is wrong. I’m waiting.
A Gator football game is normally one day, and 90,000 fans. Half of them live in Gainesville, and the other half are mostly Florida residents who drive in for the day. Perhaps 10,000 to 15,000 cars and a few campers. Here and gone. The city has been doing games for 100 years and knows how to handle it. The WMA proposes perhaps 6000 people flying in from Europe and staying 10 days. The Gainesville airport cannot handle that many people. Public transportation cannot handle that many non-driving Europeans.
The Sports Center contract says they will not come to the county asking for any more money. It has been open 3 months and CP is back begging for $2.75 million more tax dollars. In violation of their signed contract. If the BOCC gives in this Sports Center will never end being a money pit sucking in tax dollars.
OMG the humanity please for the sake of all things decent and proper put some pants on Alan.
Len C. at the Chronicle often writes about serious wastes of tax dollars. He should be all over this whole Celebration Pointe and World Masters Association ongoing massive drain of tax money into a single pocket.
The tax dollars come from the Bed Tax paid by visitors to the county. It is an ideal use of this revenue. The Event Center will have millions in impacts throughout the County. Hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc. the money coming into the Center is used to operate and maintain the facility. If a profit is made, it is shared by the County and its partner who is operating the facility.
CP Events has a 30 year contract. They control spending, and the books. I will bet money that in 30 years there will NEVER be a profit to be shared with the county. That is just slick talk from a smooth talking snake oilsalesman to con the BOCC to approve this Sports Center fiasco. Which they foolishly did.
If I lived in Newberry, I would be very upset that my single member district Commissioner Prizzia continues to squander untold millions of tax dollars to enrich the hotel and restaurant owners in Celebration Pointe rather than upgrade the dangerous Newberry road 337 to benefit current county residents. If you don’t vote her out of office in 2024 all the blame is only on you. European senior citizens have a much higher priority than Newberry residents in Prizzia’s value system. Please vote accordingly.
This is paid for with Bed Tax dollars paid by visitors. It can’t be used for roads. Far from being squandered, it is the ideal use of these dollars. It will bring millions in economic impact to hotels, restaurants attractions, and businesses. CR 337 is on the County’s pavement management Plan.