Hello from Gainesville, Florida. It's Monday, May 25, and you're listening to StreetSmart. I'm Lillian Hamman. StreetSmart is a weekly podcast from Mainstreet Daily News where we cover local news that informs, engages, and inspires listeners like you. A big thanks to our sponsor, Forest Meadows, where compassion meets experience.
Check out their beautiful gardens, funeral home, and tribute center. Cremations, funerals, and memorials all in one trusted place. With exceptional care and personal attention, Forest Meadows is here to honor every life with care. Here's the top headlines we're rounding up. Alachua County entered a phase three water shortage this month as groundwater fell to the tenth percentile.
The district remains above a 20 inch deficit for rainfall. One state official called it the worst drought since The US drought monitor was introduced in 2000. US senator Rick Scott questioned US presidential search process. Former University of Alabama president doctor Stuart Bell was selected as the sole presidential finalist. Scott claimed the search lacked transparency, public input, and failed to interview three candidates per Florida law.
The last three UF presidential searches have each resulted in a single finalist without naming other contenders. Newberry Community School will get a new board member next month when Jessica Norfleet replaces Chuck Clemens. Norfleet served as US congresswoman Kat Kamik's deputy chief of staff, and her term at the school will last four years. The city of Gainesville launched its sixth annual journey to Juneteenth last week with a flag raising at city hall. A Gainesville official said it's the only city with a month long celebration that starts with Florida Emancipation Day on May 20.
Covered wagons crossed red clay streets in Micanopy last week to film scenes for an upcoming miniseries based on the Florida novel, A Land Remembered. We've got a behind the scenes look at the Micanopy filming process, including a special Easter egg you can look for when the show premieres. For more information on any of these stories, visit mainstreetdailynews.com. Thanks to our generous members, this news day is free for the whole community with no paywall. Thanks for joining us here on StreetSmart.
I'm Lillian Hamman, and with me today is Seth Johnson. Looking around the city and the county, we're seeing lots of red, white, and blue blue today with Memorial Day.
Yeah. It's been a busy weekend with volunteers at Evergreen Cemetery, planting flags at veteran gravesides, and just getting ready for the holiday and remembering those who have given their lives for our country. And I sat down with Gainesville mayor Harvey Ward on Friday, and we talked about some items that the Gainesville City Commission has been dealing with. You'll hear about that during our featured segment. And we also touched on Memorial Day weekend as well. Here's the mayor.
The real cost is the young woman or the young man who doesn't come home from war. That's the real meaning of Memorial Day. But that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the day off too. You should remember what the real cost is, but it's a day to celebrate as well. Any opportunity that we have in this nation right now to enjoy being together and to take a load off is something we should absolutely embrace.
Jumping into our feature story for the week, like Seth said, it was a packed Gainesville City Commission meeting.
Yeah. Two big items from Thursday's meeting. The first one being Rome Towing. And, Lillian, you'll be happy to hear that immobilizations are also a part of this since I know you got a boot on your car at Lot 10 earlier this year.
I did. Infamous Lot 10.
And so the motion that the city commission approved on Thursday is to move forward to end all roam towing and roam immobilization. And what that means is towing companies can't just be out and about roving trying to find people who are in violation of parking regulations. Instead, a business owner has to call their towing company that they have a contract with and say, hey, come here because there's a vehicle in violation and I want it towed or I want it immobilized. And the city commission went back and forth on whether or not to just curb room towing, but it seemed like a lot of commissioners had heard from a lot of citizens on just bad experiences that people had had with room towing and immobilizations and wanted to kind of make a definite change. The city attorney's office will come back with an ordinance that will be voted on.
That will likely come in the next month or month and a half. The city commission also set rates for towing and immobilizations, so the towing will now match Alachua County's rates, which is a $160 per tow. They also set a cap on what towing companies can charge for immobilizations. City staff recommended $65, but the commission ended up on $80 per immobilization.
I'm sure that'll be a big change for the towing companies. Did they have anything to say about it?
Commissioner said that they heard from towing companies via email, and then Kevin Whitesides, who's part of Superior Towing, was there in person and said, you know, the staff proposal for $65 for immobilizations would not even get them close to breaking even on immobilizations, and even $80 is, you know, perhaps not too much better. So he said it's gonna be a big change, and he said the city's already pulled back funds before from towing companies, and now they're expecting them to follow best practices and trying to hold them to it while also reducing revenue that allows them to follow those best practices, he said. So it'll be interesting to see kind of what happens out of this and how towing companies adapt and what that means. The other big item on the agenda was the city of Gainesville changing how it charges for storm water and garbage. So currently, those are paid through GRU bills.
But the GRU authority kind of signaled last year that it doesn't want those fees on their bills anymore. That way, the utility bill is just electric, gas, water, wastewater, and doesn't have these extraneous fees which make it seem like the utility bill is higher. So GRU started moving forward to end that contract and the city of Gainesville kind of renegotiated. And so in the fall, the GRU authority said, sure, we can renegotiate and come back with another contract. That contract went before the GRU authority earlier this month, but the GRU authority kind of gridlocked.
It was a two to two tie and so they ended up not voting. So without a vote to move forward with the new contract, that current contract is gonna end at the end of this year. Because of the situation with GRU authority, the city of Gainesville decided to start moving forward on a new system to collect those fees, and that's gonna be through the property tax. And city commissioner said it's gonna kind of increase rates and costs across the board. It's also gonna switch from being a monthly payment to a lump sum once a year.
Along with that, commissioner said apartment complexes who don't typically pay for these garbage collection or storm water because it's paid through the renter's utility bill. We're gonna have a big lump sum that they're gonna to pay this year and figure out how to shift that around to renters, could be an impact in over a year or so. It's gonna be about $1,000,000 of lost revenue to the jury authority to not collect this payment.
Definitely two really big items and there was also a pretty big quarterly update as well, wasn't there?
Yeah. The Gainesville Police Department presented its quarterly update and the big numbers that they've been tracking really for several years now have been around gun violence and shots fired. And they've seen some of those numbers going down from when I first joined Main Street five years ago. Chief of Police Nelson Moya presented for January through the end of March, and they've actually had several violent crimes that happened in that period. People, I'm sure, will remember from January, there was the shooting off of East University that ended up shutting down traffic and two GPD officers were injured in.
There was also that same day, a domestic violence issue where there was a child that was killed. On Mother's Day, there were two separate fatalities that happened. So it's been a bit of a reversal from the last quarter or last half of last year concerning some of those gun violence numbers. And one thing that came up multiple times is domestic violence. A lot of these numbers are coming from domestic violence disputes and council mayor Harvey Ward, along with the police chief, said that that's something that they would like to focus on with Peaceful Paths perhaps, a nonprofit organization that works on domestic violence and curbing that back.
When I spoke with Mayor Ward on Friday, he said residents should have a fairly short memory on gun violence. They should be shocked every time kind of a murder happens. It should be a big headline. It should be something that we kind of mourn over. But he also said they need to have that in context for where numbers are in Gainesville, where our numbers are compared to peer cities, and what our community looks like. And here's kind of how he summed it all up.
This is a safe community. It doesn't mean there are not dangers in this community. There are dangers in every community. I want people to put it all in perspective, first with the numbers, and then with the individual circumstances.
In that conversation, we also talked about the importance of local media and how media portrays some of these events and people being informed and knowing what their community is doing and not just being aware of national items. And it really brought home the way Mainstreet chooses to cover news and how we have kind of long range stories that put things in context and then also that spot news as it's happening and making sure the community is informed in the proper way and that we're free so the whole community can be informed.
And that news gathering process is always being refined. We'd love to hear from you about what kinds of stories you'd like to see and what we should be covering. So feel free to find our contact information at mainstreetalinews.com and send us your feedback. We're gonna take a quick break to hear from our sponsor, Forest Meadows Funeral Home, before we dive into the news forecast and event segment coming up.
At Forest Meadows, our commitment is simple. Exceptional care, personal attention, and respect for every family we serve. Forest Meadows offers every option in one trusted place. Visit our beautiful gardens and glass front niches, or plan ahead for cremation, funerals, and memorials at our funeral home or tribute center located on our cemetery grounds. Forest Meadows, where compassion meets experience, and every life is honored with care.
Now for this week's news forecast, County will convene tomorrow and discuss whether to designate Lakeshore Drive around Newnan's Lake, an official scenic road. Backup documents say current residents would be opposed to the designation. The High Springs City Commission will meet on Thursday to decide whether to keep the city's fire department, and Gainesville commissioners have a special meeting on Thursday. The agenda is expected to include items on the annual fire assessment in the general budget.
Now for our event segment covering upcoming family friendly events this week. Raising Canes will open a second Gainesville location on Wednesday. Customers can go to the storefront off Archer Road for merch and food giveaways starting at 9AM. The Gainesville Fine Arts Association is hosting a kickoff party for its studio tours from six to 8PM on Friday. The gallery will showcase works from all participating artists and launch a weekend of behind the scenes looks at where the artists work.
The UF School of Music will tinkle the ivories at the International Piano Festival on Saturday. The free concert will start at 7PM at the University Auditorium. Kiwanis of Santa Fe is running a mini putt putt tournament at the Pink Flamingo Diner in High Springs. This event will be on Saturday starting at 10:30AM. For $8, teams of family, friends, and coworkers can practice their swings and compete for prizes. It feels good to wrap up another episode, doesn't it, Seth?
It sure does. Although, we are getting pretty good at this after 19 episodes, and next week is gonna be big number 20 for the StreetSmart Gainesville podcast. So give it up and give it up for yourselves for joining. And if you come back next week for the big twentieth episode, you could enter for a chance to win a $55 gift certificate.
We're gonna keep you in suspense, you'll have to tune in next week to figure out where that gift certificate is due. And that's all we've got for this week's StreetSmart podcast brought to you by Mainstreet Daily News and made possible by our generous members. Another special thanks to Forest Meadows for believing in local news and sponsoring us. We'll be back next week with another episode rounding up more local news that matters to you. Remember to click on the link in the show notes to find more free local news at mainstreetdailynews.com or pick up a print copy around Alachua County. Make sure to take a moment and also share this podcast. Our theme music is Sunset Sonata by Gainesville's ska band Now Leaving Space. This episode is a production of MARC Media.