Christian Newman: Experienced leadership needed in local government

Gainesville has supported me and given my family opportunities since I moved here as a second grader in 1977. Gainesville invested in me, and I want to return that investment by serving as a city commissioner for District 4.

I have the right experience, perspective and temperament gained from being a teacher, business owner and a voluntary City Plan Board member in Gainesville. I know firsthand that not everyone in our community has had the opportunities that I have, and I want to change that. I will be a commissioner who will listen, and I believe in real community engagement. Gainesville will thrive by working together.

I will serve Gainesville using my education, business, science and energy background expertise and experience to make common-sense policies and evidence-based decisions to achieve our long-term community goals. We need experienced leadership in local government now more than ever.

I believe we should focus our collective efforts on three core themes:

1) Resiliency — Protect our neighborhoods, invest in public and electric grid infrastructure, and create affordable low-income and workforce housing

2) Opportunity — Increase business and job opportunities for local residents, drive investment in East Gainesville and support community youth programs

3) Inclusivity — Implement real public participation to include impacted stakeholders for major decisions and listen to citizens and experts.

I have lived throughout Gainesville as a renter and homeowner, and I intentionally moved to University Park in 2010 to raise my three children with my wife and to be part of a vibrant neighborhood and community. I value living near UF and near students.

District 4 neighborhoods are the heart and soul of Gainesville. I will ensure that as Gainesville grows, our vital neighborhoods become stronger and we seek to maintain their character and function for residents.

I left Gainesville after high school and did not imagine coming home. After college, I began teaching science through Teach for America in rural Arkansas in the Mississippi Delta. I came face to face with abject poverty, explicit segregation and the plight of public education.

After two years, I began teaching science and coaching soccer at my alma mater, Eastside High School. By coming back and teaching on the east side of town, I was able to understand that Gainesville has its own unique socioeconomic challenges. Through coaching and volunteering, I have made understanding and addressing these problems a focus.

I left teaching and earned a degree in wildlife biology from the University of Florida specializing in Florida endangered species. After graduating, I followed in my father’s entrepreneurial spirit and started an environmental science and education company here in Gainesville.

Like most small companies, it was a struggle. Over time my company became a success because of the local talented team we built where we empowered each other to collectively innovate, build, and serve each other.

We did many things including environmental training and education about prescribed fire, public participation around springs protection and local environmental permitting/planning. We eventually began monitoring wildlife for the wind industry and developed multiple wildlife monitoring technologies to lower the cost of monitoring and improve decision-making.

While I was working, I earned an MBA from UF to better lead and manage organizations. I sold my company to an employee-owned consulting firm where I became vice president and joined their board of directors. I then started a technology company at the UF Innovation Hub. I now work for an international independent nonprofit energy research organization where I lead endangered species research for the electric power energy sector, including solar and wind.

I look forward to returning the investment that Gainesville made in me.

Christian Newman is running for Gainesville City Commission, District 4. More opinion columns written by the candidates in this race and others running in the upcoming election can be found online at bit.ly/august22electioncolumns.

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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Column from Gainesville City Commission candidate Christian Newman