Candidates seeking local office air concerns at League of Women Voters forum

Sixteen candidates vying for local offices on Tuesday night expressed their views on topics ranging from school discipline to the elimination of single-family zoning.

The candidates fielded questions from a crowd of about 70 residents at the forum on held in the Oak Hammock retirement community. The event was sponsored by the local League of Women Voters.

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Mayor's race

Only five of Gainesville's nine mayoral candidates showed up, including Ed Bielarski, Harvey Ward, David Arreola, July Thomas and Donald Shepherd.

Those who did not attend were: Gary Gordon, Ansaun Fisher, Sr., Gabriel Hillel Kaimowitz and Adam Rosenthal.

Gainesville City Commissioner David Arreola was the only candidate to express support for a city proposal to eliminate exclusionary single-family zoning, which make up 63% of homes citywide, allowing up to four multi-family units depending on the lot size.

Arreola said it is clear that this zoning was implemented to segregate the community.

“We are at a point in our history where I believe we can rise above this and have a detailed conversation about what is going to occur,” he said. “We’re talking about small-scale, multi-family petitions to neighborhood residential areas. We’re not talking about three stories, four stories, none of that.”

Commissioner Harvey Ward told the crow he plans to vote against the proposal.

“I don’t think the community is prepared for it, quite frankly,” he said. “There should be an opportunity in a community like ours to have an in-depth, nuanced discussion about how we solve the housing crisis.”

Ed Bielarski, the former general manager of Gainesville Regional Utilities, who also opposes the zoning change, said the vast majority of residents he has met on the campaign trail are concerned the change would negatively impact property values.

"They have a 30-year investment in an asset that is being changed mid-stream," Bielarski said. "The idea that we are going to end racial inequity by opening up single-family parcels of land to multiplexes is kind of incredulous to me. It needs a very broad discussion.”

In Minneapolis, a much larger city than Gainesville where they eliminated the exclusionary single-family zoning in 2018, only a handful of properties have ended up becoming multi-family so far, experts say.

“We’re talking in a few years we might get a few duplexes on the northwest side (of Gainesville),” candidate July Thomas added. “There is no reason the commission needs to rush this.”

School board races

School board candidates debated over employee pay, as well as finding the next superintendent.

A majority of the candidates said teachers and bus drivers are leaving the school district due to poor pay and that student discipline issues have gotten worse and uncontrollable.

Kay Abbitt, an educator in Alachua County for 10 years who is running for the District 5 seat, said it has been difficult to retain teachers due to those reasons.

“Behavior is out of control in the district, and it’s very difficult to learn in a classroom where there is this misbehavior," she said. "A lot of the teachers that I have spoken to have talked about how they are not supported by the administration.”

Her opponent, Prescott Cowles, who currently serves as the special projects manager for the district's office of accountability, said when he served on the instructional bargaining team, teachers in Alachua County received the largest salary increase in the history of the district.

He said educators have been “under attack from legislators in Tallahassee," and need a “champion who can bring forth meaningful change to restore the dignity of the profession.”

A majority of the school board candidates also expressed interest in conducting a national search for the new permanent superintendent, but only after the board outlines its priorities and engages the community.

In March, the Alachua County School Board named Shane Andrew the district's interim superintendent two weeks after firing Carlee Simon from the role.

The primary election is scheduled for August 23, with early voting set to begin on August 13. For races with more than two candidates in which no one earns more than 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff in November pitting the top two finishers against each other.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Gainesville City Commission, school board candidates debate at League of Women Voters forum