Tis officially the season of Jolly, Christmas lights, and Mariah Carey here in the swamp. On the City Commission we’re ringing in the new year by saying goodbye to one Commissioner, preparing for a new one, preparing for some new projects, and choosing how to go forward on others. Here’s what the City of Gainesville has going on in December.

First, Some Good News

The City was awarded an $800,000 Safe Streets for All grant to keep our streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists by assessing where low light conditions have an impact on safety.

Alachua County’s Central Receiving Facility officially opened November 14th, creating a central place where those going through mental health crises can be brought and treated through Meridian Healthcare. For a lot of mental health and substance abuse crises the default is a police officer or an ambulance. The criminal justice system isn’t the right place for someone in a mental crisis, and neither are high-cost hospitals. This facility, funded by a mix of city, county, state and federal funds, creates a place where police and other service providers can go 24/7 to deal with these more sensitive and specific crises, creating a more humane, efficient system of safety and care.

With a four-year-old in tow, Christmas time is a really big deal and every little tradition is a lot of fun. Thankfully the community has a lot going on for Christmas this year.

The 2024 “Very GNV Holiday Parade” is this Saturday in downtown, featuring grand marshall Shaquille O’Neal. The parade starts at 12 p.m. down University Avenue, followed by a Kids Holiday Dance Party at 1 p.m., with a Holiday tree lighting at the Thomas Center that night starting at 5 p.m. If one parade isn’t enough Shaq for you he’s also doing a DJ set at Vivid that night as “DJ Diesel”, although I doubt it’ll be very Christmas-y.

At the end of December, December 28th at 2 pm, is Gainesville’s newest most whimsical parade: the Flying Pig Parade. Come see dancing dinosaurs, grave diggers, giant skeletons, and hippie bands on trucks to round out the year.

There are a ton of cool Christmas light displays this year, and our family has some of our favorites. Rainbows End has a bunch of huge displays every year, and Winter Wonderland at the YMCA is open for its second year. Some local hero puts together a map every year of Christmas lights so you can see some of the best displays, and they have the 2024 one up now.

There are also some new restaurants in Gainesville you can bring out of town family to: Indian Aroma opened on SW 13th Street where Blue Gill used to be. A vegan pizza place, Wild Pie, is open at 309 NW 13th St at the bottom of the Hub. There’s also a First Watch and a BAMBUU Asian Eatery opened in Butler Plaza.

Sine Die

December 12th marks the last day of the “term of office”, which legislative bodies refer to as “Sine Die”. That will be celebrated tonight at around 6:00 for the final full Commission meeting. This is a celebratory send-off of all the commissioners ending their time in office, with memories given by staff/commissioners and gifts for the outgoing commissioners.

The turnover is pretty minimal this go around. Comm. Cynthia Moore Chestnut and Comm. Desmon Duncan Walker both won their reelections convincingly, so they will be serving for another four years. The only one leaving is Comm. Reina Saco, who will be replaced by James Ingle at his swearing-in on January 6th.

Despite a relatively short time in office, Reina is our longest-serving commissioner serving through a tumultuous four years. She won her election in March 2020, the same day that lockdowns were instituted for COVID. She was in office during the vitriolic lockdown period, where multiple meetings were shut down due to threats against commissioners. There was severe infighting between charter officers, resulting in multiple Charters resigning along with a very public firing of the GRU General Manager, who didn’t take his firing well. Right after that, the state came in and took the city’s utilities and gave it to the governor, followed by the largest budget cuts in city history. In spite of all of that she helped pass an inclusionary zoning ordinance, a language access initiative, a renters rights ordinance, and a zero waste ordinance.

So it’s been a hard few years, and while I’m sure she’s ready to move on we were lucky to have her there to help steady the ship and steer the city in a better direction.

The Design of the Streatery

In November the Gainesville City Commission voted to make SW 1st Ave a permanent pedestrian-only street, currently called the “Streatery”. By 2026 this will be a “curbless” street similar to the pedestrian walkway of the Sun Center, along with better lighting, more trees, and better drainage. We are scheduled to make some final design decisions in February, so staff and advisory boards are collecting feedback on the direction from the community.

This could be a very cool addition to downtown if it’s done right. All we have right now is this basic concept, so we have to decide what we want this space to be and how we make it into something the community can use for decades to come.

On December 11th, 4 pm-7pm, City staff will be holding a community meeting at the Hippodrome to discuss the Streatery and it’s future.

There are a few options that we’re looking for community feedback on. The first is design: would we like for the road to be brick, or a concrete finish? Brick is the overall look of downtown roads, but a concrete finish would make the road stand out a bit better.

Another is branding. Do we like the “Streatery” name? That word came from the pandemic to describe restaurants being outside on the street to limit the spread of COVID. Would we like a different name for that street?

Historically, that road was called “Union Street”, which I think is a cooler, classier name for the area than “the Streatery”. It would be neat to have as a little sign above the street to make it more of a destination, similar to Wall Street in Orlando. But people might like the “Streatery” name or opt for something different.

Whatever that is, now is the time to give feedback and let the City know what you want in this location at the heart of downtown.

Public Sleeping/Camping

Last year the state made it a criminal offense to sleep in a public place - with penalties against cities that don’t enforce this vigorously enough. This was designed to push out homeless people living on the street to other areas.

It was a very controversial bill - opposed by homeless advocates and housing experts across the country for not addressing the cause of homelessness issues - high housing costs - but instead just punishing people for being poor.

Regardless of whether the City liked it or not - we don’t - it’s the law and we have to enforce it, and that’s what we’re doing by the January 1st deadline.

Previously, there were laws on the books that allowed us to move people along: a restriction on being in parks overnight, and a restriction against blocking sidewalks/right-of-way. But there was some room for discretion and there was nothing against overnight sleeping in public places specifically, although it could be addressed through other ordinances.

So there will now be a penalty in place for overnight sleeping, but the Commission lowered that to just $25, instead of the $125 it was originally proposed as. The idea was that public sleeping might be illegal now, but we shouldn’t burden poor people more than we have to with excess fines.

The impact of this remains to be seen, but it will mean the city will more aggressively move homeless people out of public areas while they’re sleeping overnight. But it doesn’t mean we have to do it in a haphazard, cruel way. Clearing tent encampments can be done in a way that is really destabilizing for people, or it can be done in a way that is empathetic.

City staff is assessing all of their processes now to find ways to connect our homeless to the resources they need while following the law. The biggest issue is there aren’t enough resources.

According to the 2024 homeless counts, there were an estimated 639 people who don’t have a home on any given night in Alachua County. Of those, 346 are living “unsheltered”, meaning on the street, in the woods or in a car, with 298 in a shelter like GRACE Marketplace. Of those 639, 74.1% have been homeless for less than 12 months, meaning they aren’t “chronically homeless”, they’re just temporarily experiencing homelessness.

For all of these people, both the frequently homeless or those that have just been forced out of a home temporarily, they’re sleeping in a tent or on the street because there’s nowhere else for them to go. 40%-60% have some kind of income, but in Alachua County neither minimum wage nor social security can afford the average one-bedroom apartment.

So the end result of this is that people will simply be sleeping somewhere other than a sidewalk. There will still be homeless people around, there will still be panhandling, and there will still be tent encampments. Now, the tent encampments will probably be larger and and on private property along creeks or in the woods, which isn’t much better or different than the status quo.

Waste Management Decisions

On December 12th the City Commission will be making some trashy decisions1. We have to decide cart rates for trash pickup and what to do about our single-hauler agreement.

The first is cart rates. Since 2019 the cost to provide curbside residential garbage collection has increased by $2,973,352, roughly a 25% increase. Meanwhile, the price charged to customers hasn’t increased at all. This was putting our waste management fund balance on course to lose $2.6 million in 2025 if we did’t take action.

We did, we raised franchise fees for commercial haulers an extra 5% in August, but asked staff to come back to us with options about the residential fees. For background, today you pay on your GRU bill for monthly waste service depending on the size of your cart. This is called “Pay As You Throw”, so people that use less waste pay less, and those that use more pay more.

As I said, the costs of this will be going up by some amount, but we’ll have to discuss that amount and what is necessary. These are all contracted amounts so there’s not a lot of “savings” we can build into this. In the last discussion the increases ranged from $5 at the smallest can level to $10 at the largest per month. Whether that is where that ends up is what we’ll be discussing in December.

Single Hauler Contract

On a similar note, the city has been working to bring all of the waste management - commercial, multi-family, and single family - together into one contract for a few years now.

This “single hauler” contract is designed to help lower costs, reduce operational issues, and help the city reach our environmental goals. There are currently five companies that do waste pickup for commercial and multi-family apartments, all of which have multiple trucks and different standards for recycling and trash pickup. There’s basically no regulation for these companies to adequately do recycling, composting, or trash removal, and some do it better than others.

It’s an in-the-weeds operational issue, but one with big impacts. 50% of the housing units in Gainesville are multifamily, and commercial accounts for a huge percentage of total waste. If we can streamline this system it would have a huge impact on our waste streams and carbon emissions, as well as lower costs for both small businesses and residential properties.

But the process has hit a bit of a snag, and waste haulers successfully lobbied the legislature to make it much harder for cities to move to a single hauler. So we’ll have to decide on December 12th how and if we move forward with trying to consolidate all of our waste management into one single hauler.

Local Business of the Month

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent in our area as Christmas and the Holidays approach. From decorations to electronics to toys, this season is a huge boon for retailers in our area.

Get the gifts your family needs and wants, but please try to find a way to shop local where you can. According to the American Independent Business Alliance, for every $1 you spend with a local independent business, $1.48 gets circulated through the local economy. Buying local has a ripple effect that helps improve wages for workers, supports small businesses to grow, and keeps Gainesville local.

And while you’re thinking through what you could buy locally - instead of through a big box store or Amazon - think through what you can buy from small, local crafters.

There’s a ton of holiday markets coming up where local Gainesvillians, generally home hobbyists who create things as a side gig, sell their wares. These are fun, great events that provide a lot of opportunity for local entrepreneurs just starting out their businesses. Here’s a list I was able to find:

Shoppes at Thornebrook Tree Lighting and Holiday Market: 12/6 5 pm- 8 pm

Blackadder Brewing Christkindlmarkt: 12/6 4- 8 pm and 12/7, 12-8 pm

Welcome to Winter, A Shop Local Expo: Saturday 12/7, Countryside Baptist Church, 9 am - 1 pm

Alachua County Farmers' Market Candy Cane Lane Winter Festival: Saturday 12/7 8:30 am-12 pm

AUK Holiday Pop-Up Markets: Saturday 12/14 & 12/21, 12 pm - 5 pm

Swamp Head Brewery Holiday Marketplace: Saturday 12/14, 12 pm -5 pm

The best economic development we can do in our city is supporting these very small entrepreneurs as they build their businesses to that next level - either opening up their own storefront or getting their stuff into larger shops. These markets really help that, and this time of year is really important for them to remain sustainable. So go check these markets out!

Local Music of the Month

December closes out 2024 and brings in the new year. The City of Gainesville has two great celebrations to ring it in, with Sparks in the Park at Depot Park at 5 pm (fireworks at 6:30) followed by the downtown countdown at 8 pm at Bo Diddley.

The lineup for the Countdown is killer, featuring some of my favorite local bands Prizilla and Sooza Brass Band. The headliner is Madwoman, a five piece psychedelic alternative-indie band from Gainesville that puts on a killer show.

The lead singer, Leni Daigle, has a soaring, soulful voice that plays great into the high energy funk they rock so tightly. It’s a band that’s meant to be seen live, just like Sooza and Prizilla are, and will make a great way to ring in the new year.