Skinner: Unnecessary sidewalk endangers children
Letter to the editor
Our family purchased the property at 1325 NW 2nd Street in the 60s.
We have been a valued business/school and neighbor for over 60 years. The railroad was not a problem, but the rails-to-trails replacing it has served as a resource for many individuals, forcing us to police the area, put locks on water faucets, block electrical outlets, post “No Trespassing” signs, and make frequent calls to the police. At times we’ve had to hire security people to protect our students.
Now it has been decided that, after 60 years, it is critical that a sidewalk run the length of our property. We received no notice. We arrived at work and were told we had to move our vans as a sidewalk was to be installed. We protested, and work was stopped for the day so that we could make calls. Messages were left, as phones were not answered. The next day continued as the day before – only workers arrived to move water lines! Again, no prior notice.
On February 13, a number of City people met with us at 10:30. We asked WHY a sidewalk was necessary, and we were told it is needed to meet ADA requirements. NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE!
Apparently ADA needs to supersede the safety of 200 children. Pofahl Studios is a school with students age 3 and up. Our students sit on the benches in front of the studio to eat lunch or snacks.
The proposed sidewalk would be 5 feet away from children sitting around in leotards and tights! Inviting and leading strangers directly into contact with our children! It does not make sense. Something bad is going to happen.
The sidewalk just installed south of 13th Street links directly with the rails-to-trails that runs behind our studio (students do not exit to the rear of the building, limiting contact with strangers) and continues to 16th. People with walkers and wheelchairs regularly use this route. The advantage is that there is a marked pedestrian crossing at the trail and 14th as well as a bus stop. The sidewalk is an expense that is not necessary.
The group that met with us on the 13th worked on a compromise, and most seemed to get the idea. Later that day, two of the key City people came to apologize that they were not able to convince people higher up to change their mind.
Bottom line: The City is ignoring the safety of over 200 children. They obviously do not care. It is unforgivable.
I have lived in Gainesville since 1953. I am frustrated, hurt, and extremely disappointed in my city.
Judy Skinner, Pofahl Studios
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These have been going up all over the city and they are fairly poorly planned out. Many of the replacement sidewalks are an eyesore as well. I don’t intend to vote for Casey again if he runs for re-election. He just doesn’t get it.
The problem with city is the people who run it. The voters put those people in office.
Put a fence up with a little area for picnic tables, in this day and age, it would probably be a good idea anyway, if your concerns are in good faith and you aren’t virtue signaling to get your way.
My sister used to dance at that studio, I’m sure you guys have the money to move to a new and better location, or do a few quality of life upgrades and improvements.
If there is no sidewalk where will people walk? In the street?
People should walk in the street, so little white girls in leotards can sit outside and eat their lunch in “safety”?
Whats to stop some crazy person from pulling up in a car, jumping out and snatching one of them? So the best solution would be a gate or fence and a little picnic area in the green space, you also have street parking and two parking areas, why not take a little corner near the back of the building and make a picnic/lunch area.
The city is ignoring the safety of over 200 children, when its your responsibility as the business owner to keep them safe while in your care, right, got it.
You got the money, spend it on keeping the kids safe.
Contrary to what some think, people walk in the street, panhandle in the medians, and throw the trash from their handouts everywhere.
I think the point by the city is to have pedestrian safe streets throughout the city.
Stop deflecting so that you can talk trash about homeless people, bums and litter bugs, lol.
The safety of the city and citizens takes precedence over the arbitrary and fear mongered concerns of a business owner.
Let’s also be honest, she isn’t running low income housing packages and programs, 200 kids a week coming through there, of middle and high class families.
They could easily put up a fence if it was really a concern, look at all that green space to be utilized just in the picture.
Plus the tone of her letter its like she is screaming bloody murder over something that she could take steps to mitigate. Also when I used to go there to pick up my sister with my Mom, there were never kids out front without at least 3-4 parents sitting in the street in their cars.
Last but not least, a ballerina is nothing more than a model with talent.
Eventually they all end up as some rich mans fodder.
Another really stupid comment
It was genius, it just flew over your head.
You should add a No to the front your name because that’s just a plain ignorant statement to make.
The comment is correct and valid!
I’m not deflecting talking about the homeless, I’m talking about the trash the homeless people leave everywhere. From the looks of things they’re too lazy to walk 20 feet to a trash can. If you’re really going to be honest you’ll acknowledge the majority of trash in and around the city is left by those who don’t care, don’t own property here, and are recipients of handouts. I’ve often commented about the people who run redlights AND the idiots who fail to use crosswalks and text/read their phones while walking. I guess they lack common sense too and as many of us know, you can’t fix stupid. You keep blaming it on everything else though, you sound like Ward’s do-boy.
By the way, look around, times have changed since those days of picking up your sister with your mom.
Ward’s do boy hahahaha, if you only knew.
This article was not about trash, running red lights or crosswalks.
It was about a sidewalk being placed for pedestrian safety, and a business owners concerns about said sidewalk.
You old Yankees, need to understand us Southerners have become hip to your rhetoric and fear mongering, it does not work anymore.
I’m pretty sure parents still sit out front of Pofahls in their cars waiting on their kids and thus indirectly keeping an eye on the kids that may be sitting out there already, smh.
And once again, you illustrate just how little common sense you actually have.
You wouldn’t care to articulate would you? lol
What steps could she take? Move the business that’s been in the same location for 60 years?
Put up a fence on the three feet of green space she’d have once the sidewalk is installed? Don’t you think she would have put up a fence decades ago if she could have?
Contrary to your belief, Skinner and Tuttle aren’t dripping in diamonds. They run Dance Alive and a lot of the revenue from teaching the littles helps fund the touring company.
Putting in that sidewalk is a definite safety issue for Pofahl’s.
I know the studio and its location well as I took lessons at Pofahl’s for more than a decade as a child in the ’80s and early ’90s. Back then, we weren’t allowed to sit outside after dark because of safety concerns. During the day, however, we’d sit out front and have a snack if we had back-to-back classes
The City should pay for a privacy fence in front of the park benches, too. To protect kids from predators walking from nearby ITM counseling center (city allowed, too).
I concur!
There’s no need for the sidewalk when there is a paved walking trail that goes behind the building that extends from 16th south past University (I forget exactly where the trail ends).
Y’all are literally behind a Main Street, Publix and next to a bus stop. You are so blessed in your walking, dancing bodies that you do not even realize there are disabled people who actually live in that neighborhood, that are just trying to get by in their wheelchairs on a lumpy street.-sidewalks stay in better condition than the street, and safer for people in a wheelchair to be seen by vehicles!
Join the growing group of local business owners planning to throw Mayor Harvey Ward out on his ear at his next election, along with Eastman and Willits.
Ms. Skinner, you’ve been here over 50 years and suffice it to say, this is no more the city you grew up in than it is mine. The liberal lunatics have taken it over and infested it with their regressive policies. I don’t know which side of the fence you tend to fall, but hopefully it’s the right side and hopefully someone will hear your concerns and provide a compromise that benefits both parties. My guess is they, (the City), wouldn’t like it if signs were posted outside or security of some sort. Good luck!
Typical democrat policies and decisions ruin everything.
Democrat or Republican, how is putting sidewalks on city streets a bad thing!
Do you not think about what you say, before you say it?
You people are mentally ill.
The two party system has this country going bonkers,
There was a German guy who tried to warn us about the two party system, and the people who would use it to their advantage.
These is the greasers vs. The preps all over again, lmao.
Even when one side has a good idea that would benefit all, the other side says hell no, simply because its not their own idea and it came from the other side.
Common Sense over red and blue.
Common Sense over me vs. you.
Sober up
We’re mentally ill? LOL. Who puts in an unnecessary sidewalk in front of a business with a bunch of children in leotards and tights? Who ignores the pleas of a female business owner who has been a top contributor to the arts in this community for decades?
No notice to the business prior to “move your vans” relayed by the construction crew? Rather odd, but the Gestapo rarely announce when they are coming to rough people up. Why go to all the expense of the myriad of new sidewalks when so many streets are in HORRIBLE condition? Where did this money come from? Must be some grant or something they want to spit away before the waste is found out. No sidewalk there ever? Now it is priority number 1. I do find interesting some of the seeming hate for the owners of the studio who have worked hard over the years to maintain the business. They can afford it, they are rich, and so on. It must be for only white people as one commenter seemed to say. The facts should be told, and the hate a divisive talk kept to a minimum.
Another clown operation from clowns elected by clowns.
It’s so bizarre when there’s a paved trail behind the studio, now they suddenly “require” an ADA mandated sidewalk in front of the studio? That block (lot) is very long, and the City can’t afford that expense. Bizarreville.
I do believe the fools at City Hall are digging and about to pour concrete on PRIVATE property.
Best course of action is retain a competent attorney.
pretty sure that are is already Right of Way. it may suck, but most times people’s property rights don’t go all the way to the street.
Considering there is a paved path 20 feet away, the additional sidewalk is ridiculous. People can walk with their open containers behind the studio and the city can install lights with the money instead of this ridiculous project. Waste of money. And no Pofahls shouldn’t pay for anything – the city should put up a fence and make it safe since they’re imposing this change.
Y’all are literally behind a Main Street, Publix and next to a bus stop. You are so blessed in your walking, dancing bodies that you do not even realize there are disabled people who actually live in that neighborhood, that are just trying to get by in their wheelchairs on a lumpy street.
“First I’ve heard of it,” said Arthur, “why’s it got to be built?”
Mr. Prosser shook his finger at him for a bit, then stopped and put it away again.
“What do you mean, why’s it got to be built?” he said. “It’s a bypass. You’ve got to build bypasses.” — Douglas Adams, “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
How about the sidewalks to nowhere the city loves to require?
https://www.wcjb.com/2025/02/13/its-joke-gainesville-residents-frustrated-over-sidewalk-construction-ordinance/
If this is family purchased property, where does the property line end? honestly, looking at the picture, placing a sidewalk there seems unnecessary. We still have roads that desperately need to be repaired and a random sidewalk is the way they choose to go?
They are literally next to a bus stop, behind the city’s MAIN street and Publix. Other people exist and have to get to where they are going with out the risk of being run over by 200 dance moms.
Those dismissing the concerns of the business owner will be the first to complain when She moves the business west out of Gainesville, closer to the money and her clients. Then they will complain about the blight of the East side (or near east side). Gainesville gets what it deserves. Perhaps a few armed security standing along her private property line is what the city wants?