“We ain’t begging”: Gainesville City Commission asks School Board to clarify intentions for Citizens Field

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the June 18 meeting, the Gainesville City Commission set stormwater and residential trash collection rates and set a maximum fire assessment fee that would be 60% higher for a typical residential property; they also asked the Mayor to send a letter to the School Board, asking them to clarify their intentions for Citizens Field by August 31.

Previous articles about the June 18 meeting:

• Gainesville City Commission hears presentation from HangTime Golf, votes to explore options for selling/leasing Ironwood Golf Course
• Gainesville City Commission agrees to consider anti-ICE petition

Stormwater and residential trash collection fees

During the afternoon session, Commissioners unanimously set the initial stormwater special assessment at $150.65 per Equivalent Residential Unit, with the final rate to be set on September 10. 

They also set the initial rates for solid waste services (residential trash collection), with the final rates to be set on September 10. 

Kyle Stevens from Stantec, a consultant, said that because the billing will be once a year on the property tax bill, there are some additional costs, including the 4% discount that is available for paying the property tax bill immediately. He also explained that for the rates to be legally defensible, they have to be aligned with expenses related to each cart size. As a result of the consultant’s calculations based on that methodology, fees for FY27 will actually go down for all cart sizes except the smallest.

The current rates are shown below, along with the annual equivalent and the number of customers using that cart:

The proposed fees for FY27 (starting October 1) are shown below:

Commissioner Bryan Eastman said the new methodology “guts” the City’s pay-as-you-throw program, which encourages households to move to smaller carts. Commissioner Ed Book said, “Basically, the person who conserves the most got the greatest rate impact. That’s unfortunate.”

The initial rates passed 5-2, with Eastman and Commissioner Casey Willits in dissent.

Fire assessment fee

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Allison Teslia reminded Commissioners that the fire assessment fee can only fund fire protection services, not EMS or ambulances, for example. The assessment currently covers 53% of the eligible costs, about $12.9 million; Teslia offered three options, along with the amount of money they would raise and the amount paid by a typical single-family residential property (currently $153):

• 60% – $14.6 million ($173)
• 70% – $17 million ($202)
• 85% – $20.7 million ($245)

Interim City Manager Andrew Persons said the fire assessment fee will be an important part of the balancing scenarios the Commission will consider to close the current $12 million budget gap: “It is not intended to necessarily be a way for the City to balance the overall General Fund, but obviously, the more funds come from the fire assessment to fund the fire service, the less funds that come from the General Fund to supplement them.”

Motion

Eastman said he favored “giving ourselves maximum flexibility on this,” and he made a motion to set the maximum rate at 85%. Commissioner James Ingle seconded the motion.

Ingle said that if residents will be asked to pay more, the City should end its fire assessment exemption for property owned by nonprofits: “It’s something we’ve got to take a serious look at.”

Willits agreed, saying the current total charitable/religious exemption is $511,000, but at an 85% fire assessment fee, it would be $819,000, “so you’re really close to real money.”

The motion passed 5-2, with Commissioners Willits and Book in dissent.

The final rate will be set on September 10. 

Program for housing the homeless in their cars

During Commission Comment at the end of the afternoon session, Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut said that as staff looks into her previous request to increase the number of organizations that are eligible for Cold Night Shelter funds (from Community Development Block Grant funds), she hoped they would investigate a pilot in Broward County that is “housing the homeless in their cars… They have been doing that at Walmart,” where the homeless people could use the bathrooms when the stores were open 24 hours a day. She said the City could use a City parking lot.

Eastman said he was “very excited to hear about this… A significant amount of homeless families, in particular,… tend to like the safety of their car,… and having a safe place for them to go is very important… It’s one of the low-hanging-fruit, inexpensive options that… makes it a little less painful for those that are experiencing [homelessness] in a focused way.”

Persons said he has looked into it, and “one implication is that if we do it on public property, it would implicate the public camping requirements that were put into law.” He said, however, that he would do some research and send a memo to the Commission. He added that there might be more flexibility for this type of operation on a faith-based or private property.

Citizens Field

During the evening session, the Commission discussed the School Board’s recent decision to explore other options instead of building a stadium at Citizens Field. 

Interim Chief Operating Officer Brian Singleton said the City had Phase 1 and Phase 2 environmental reports that indicated the site of the current pool used to be the Alachua County Road and Bridge property, “so there is some more exploration that needs to be done there.” He said there used to be a permitted Alachua County dump in the fields north of the pool, so “there is some remediation work that needs to be done there.” There was also an underground heating oil storage tank on the Citizens Field site that was removed in the late 1980s; he said the tank was in “fair” condition when it was removed, and there was no evidence of any leaks, but there were “some soils with a smell to them” that were found to have low levels of oil, below EPA thresholds. He concluded, “So, to our knowledge, there is no contamination that needs to be remediated on the Citizens Field site.”

The agreements between the City and School Board (which were rejected by the School Board) comprised two documents: a purchase agreement and an interlocal agreement, with the School Board paying the City $5.5 million and the City providing stormwater mitigation, upgraded utilities, and the construction and maintenance of the stadium parking lot. The agreements required the School Board to build a $22-25 million stadium with a synthetic turf field and 3,000-5,000 seats, a press box, locker rooms, concession stands, restrooms, a PA system, scoreboards, and field lighting, and to maintain all those facilities. The School Board would have had three 90-day due diligence periods after signing the agreements, and they could have withdrawn from the agreement with no penalty. 

Singleton asked Commissioners to discuss how long to extend the School Board’s lease of Citizens Field and whether they want to consider site plans with no stadium. The current lease runs through the end of December 2026. 

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut: “In our heart of hearts, I believe that we’re all committed to Citizens Field, and so I would just like to hear what they have to say.”

Chestnut said she favored extending the lease a year at a time, “at least until we see what’s going to happen here.” She said she wasn’t clear about the School Board’s intentions, and she said she would make a motion asking the Mayor to send a letter to the Board, asking for clarification. She added, “In our heart of hearts, I believe that we’re all committed to Citizens Field, and so I would just like to hear what they have to say.”

Ingle said there would be at least one, and as many as three, new School Board members in November, which “throws an even bigger wrinkle into what it would look like, moving forward.”

Mayor Harvey Ward said he is “personally emotionally connected” to having a stadium there, and he never told anyone he didn’t want a stadium, “but we have other things that we can do that will serve the community in that space, that frankly will cost us less money.”

Mayor Harvey Ward: “The Citizens Field site is not a Brownfield. A Brownfield is a technical designation. That is not a Brownfield; it’s never been discussed as a Brownfield. The first time I heard that was at that meeting the other night. It’s not a Brownfield.”

Ward added, “A couple of other things I heard from that meeting: the Citizens Field site is not a Brownfield. A Brownfield is a technical designation. That is not a Brownfield; it’s never been discussed as a Brownfield. The first time I heard that was at that meeting the other night. It’s not a Brownfield.”

The Brownfield terminology came from the interlocal agreement, which discussed grants for potential Brownfield mitigation.

Ward also noted that funding for the project is “set. We’re good; we’re going to get this done… We have funds set aside to do this work.” He said he was willing to wait “a little bit longer” to give the School Board a chance to change their minds and to alleviate their concerns, but he thought the City would need an “unambiguous” answer by the end of August.

Eastman said he was happy to work with the School Board, but “the site becomes significantly easier from the perspective of a pure park if there’s not a stadium that has to have significant field space taken out to offset with stormwater,… [but] schools clearly need a place for the teams to play.” He said he was happy “to kind of give them a second whack at it” but agreed that a deadline was needed. 

Persons said he was willing to extend the agreement by another year, “but I don’t think it would be prudent to extend that beyond a year.” He said he was hopeful the City and School Board could still “come together and make this happen,… and there’s still opportunity to make other decisions, so we’re not necessarily at D-Day today.”

Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker: “I have heard the word ‘erasure.’… I don’t think anybody up here on the dais wants to feel that that is what is happening,… [but] we have to be intentional that it doesn’t happen.”

Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker said she was “tired of this back-and-forth, just to be honest… This has been exasperating for a number of different reasons.” She said she was focused on making sure that, if the School Board decides against building a stadium, the City would “make sure that something goes in that space that incentivizes economic development in East Gainesville.” She said whatever they put there should be “meaningful” and not just “some grass and some trees.” She said she’s heard the word “erasure” used in referring to losing Citizens Field, and “I don’t think anybody up here on the dais wants to feel that that is what is happening,… [but] we have to be intentional that it doesn’t happen.”

Ward agreed that they needed to be sure to “memorialize 75 years of Gainesville athletic history and community togetherness, one of the few places where people sit next to each other who don’t know each other and get to know each other… Attention must be paid, as they say.”

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut: “We shouldn’t be afraid to put this on the market, because I think we’re going to get a response… We ain’t begging, and I think people need to understand that.”

Chestnut said that if the School Board doesn’t want Citizens Field, they should “go to the private market… [There may not be a developer in Florida who wants to develop Citizens Field, but] I do believe, in the 49 states, there must be someone out there who wants to come and develop a facility… We shouldn’t be afraid to put this on the market, because I think we’re going to get a response… We ain’t begging, and I think people need to understand that.”

Motion

Chestnut made a motion to “authorize the Mayor to send a letter to the Alachua County School Board, asking for clarification on their desire to move or not move forward with a new stadium at Citizens Field and to respond by August 31.” Duncan-Walker seconded the motion. Chestnut later added a one-year extension of the School Board’s contract to use Citizens Field for high school sports.

Persons said 8th & Waldo is the largest project the City has ever done, “and it is in this location because A) It’s needed; B) It’s wanted; and C) It’s long overdue.”

The motion passed unanimously.