Local

Each Crystal Performance Award recipient ranked among the top two or three percent of all credit unions analyzed by RFG for two consecutive reporting periods. SunState Federal Credit Union was one of only 20 credit unions nationally to receive the award.

“We are very pleased to recognize those credit unions that have shown outstanding results this past year,” said Bill Handel, Vice President of Research and Product Development with RFG. “These organizations have consistently performed at a high-level and exhibit operational excellence in managing efficiency. Credit unions that receive this accolade tend to perform well despite the interest rate environment and challenges in their local economies.”

“It is an honor to be recognized by Raddon Financial Group for our continued devotion to maintaining high-performance standards,” said Jim Woodward, President/CEO of SunState Federal Credit Union. “Our commitment to exceptional member service and quality products set us apart in the market and helps better serve the needs of our diverse marketplace of consumers and small businesses. This award serves as positive reinforcement that our strategies are indeed industry best practices.”

City commissioners Robert Fillyaw and Alena Lawson opposed the budget reduction of the senior citizen program, Meals on Wheels, once residents in the meeting voiced their opposition.

Labeled as the Community Action Agency, Meals on Wheels shares a $22,000 budget with two other programs. The weatherization and temporary assistance program, which assists low-income families, would have been untouched, but Newberry’s Meals on Wheels would have been discontinued since it is funded primarily with this money.

Commissioners agreed that all funds for projects such as city fire works, listed to be around $2,000, and travel expenses for the city commission, around $6,530, would be redirected to the program instead.

Newberry residents also agreed with Newberry Fire Department Chief David Rodriguez about pay raises for city employees. He spoke out about not having a pay raise for several years.

“I’m working towards my retirement for the future, and I haven’t had a raise in four years,” he said.

Instead of having a one-time payout, which will only give city employees money for that particular year and does not contribute to retirement funds, Rodriguez said he would rather have a raise that would benefit him in the long run. The commission set aside $39,000 for the bonuses, but since the salary increase proposal ruled out the initial plan, the commission estimated that the budget would require an extra $6,000.

City commissioner Lois Forte agreed with Rodriguez about the raise, saying city employees are the backbone of Newberry.

“I think we have one of the best fire departments in the county,” she said. “If we can find money for other things, we can find money to give our employees a little raise.”

Initially the city budget had $6,280 in surplus funds, but it was all allocated to the pay raise.

Also on the agenda was the annexation of three properties, totaling nearly 39 acres.  City Commissioner Joe Hoffman did not vote as he owns two of the properties.

Projects such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and Triangle Park are still in the works, and the commission is requesting community input before final approval. A town hall meeting to discuss the projects is planned for Monday.

The possible acquisition of the Canterbury Equestrian Center will be discussed Monday at 6 p.m., where Newberry Parks and Recreation Director Richard Blalock hopes to lay rumors to rest.

Blalock said there are rumors about the city buying the center to make it into another sporting facility, and removing the equestrian component from the property.  That is not the case with Canterbury, he said, since the main purpose of the purchase is to maintain the aesthetics of the building and keep it as the place to have equestrian events.

If Newberry were able purchase the property, Blalock said the purpose of the center would be expanded to host festivals and trade shows. Before the city commission considers purchasing the center, Blalock said the city wants its residents to be involved with the project.

“We are making sure everyone is on the same page,” he said.

Officials say a price and restoration budget has not been set for the equestrian center, since the Sept. 19 meeting will be the first step in determining Canterbury’s future if the City does indeed purchase it. Blalock said the money would probably come from a mix of private funding and the hotel bed tax.  County officials have already designated a portion of bed tax funds to Newberry’s $7 million Nations Baseball Park.

After one citizen raised concerns Monday evening about the status of the City’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center and the Triangle Park, City officials vowed to take community input on those recreation facilities during the town hall meeting slated for Sept. 19.

The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at the Oak View Middle School cafeteria, 1203 NW 250th Street in Newberry.

My Brother’s Keeper Barbershop

After years away from Alachua, Romey Ford has come home to his roots.  Shown holding an old photograph of himself and his deceased brother, Ford operates My Brother’s Keeper Barbershop, embracing his reclaimed community and keeping the memory of his brother alive.

“He jumped on me, beat me up real good,” Romey said, “made me do it again.”

Seven weeks ago, Romey opened My Brother’s Keeper Barbershop at 15093 NW Highway 441 in Alachua.

He traces the beginning of his shop back to a visit by the Gainesville Sun when he was 14.

The newspaper was going around, finding out what local high school kids were doing for the summer. They had heard he was making a lot of money, cutting hair behind his mother’s house.

When they came to take his picture, he was cutting his younger brother Sharkei’s hair.

Five years ago, Sharkei was killed in a car crash on State Road 441.

The brothers had been driving in separate cars to a big family meal their mother was cooking for Romey’s temporary homecoming. Romey had just come home from serving in the military as a medic.

“I trained for eight years,” he said. “When this happened to my brother, I froze. It’s real then.”

He was the first responder, there to watch his brother die.

A year later, he received a medical discharge from the military due to back problems. Ford returned to Orlando, where he had been living with his wife and six children, cutting hair in an addition built on the side of his house.

He said he could not shake the feeling that his brother was with him.

“Whenever I would catch the time, it would be 4:41 or 1:44, reminders of 441, where he died,” Ford recalled. “I was still leaving Orlando to sit at Sharkei’s grave for six or seven hours once a month a year later.”

Then, someone brought him the picture from the Sun taken so many years earlier; he had not seen it since 1992.

That was when he knew it was time to return to Alachua and start a barbershop.

He spent three years looking for a location, trying to talk himself out of it when he got discouraged. However, he had his faith to give him strength.

“I am a religious man,” Ford said. “I didn’t borrow money or save any money to start. I was looking for favor.”

Finally, he found the perfect location. The intersection of 441 and NW County Road 235, where My Brother’s Keeper Barbershop is located, sees 21,000 cars pass through daily, according to Ford.

More importantly, it is right near where Sharkei was killed.

Ford started the business with only a $500 Lowe’s card and a vision.

“Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it,” he quotes from Habakkuk, a book in the Old Testament.  “For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.”

With this in mind, the first thing Ford did was paint the walls red. “My Brother’s Keeper” is also written in red on the front window.

To him the color is sacrificial, representing the loss of his brother.

“I am my brother’s keeper, and I’ve always been,” he said. He has no interest in further explaining the name of the shop.

“I want people to take the name and run with it,” he said. “I like that you can ask five different people and you’ll get five different things.”

Embracing and investing in his community is his guiding purpose.

Growing up poor in a huge family, he left Alachua at 18 to pursue an academic scholarship at the University of Florida, never intending to return. He said he felt like he was too good for his home, better than everyone there.

His first year in school, he had a child. Within a year and a half, he was gone, off to join the military.

Now that he has made a place in Alachua again, it is important to him to help the people that make up his community.

“I serve God by serving others,” he said. “If I can spark one person, then My Brother’s Keeper has done its job.”

He started off by planning to have two barbers. Since opening, he has allowed the break room to turn into a store and his storage room to be used by a cosmetologist.

Before he could even move into his office space, it was painted purple and taken over by two braiders, both single mothers. His office is now a single black filing cabinet in the main room.

“One year ago I was unemployed,” Ford said. “Now I employ nine people.”

He attributes this accomplishment to his faith, determination and will to not give up on his vision.

“After all, you can’t just make up another vision,” he said. “I left Alachua for 15 years, because I had to figure it out.”

Changes were seen in many departments to make up the $77,466 loss expected to occur due to a projected reduction in ad valorem tax revenues. The reduction comes as a result of maintaining the 6.15 millage rate while overall property values declined.

Commissioner Dean Davis cautioned the board against excess expenditures.

“We’ve made a lot of changes in the budget, and we don’t know how it’s going to shake it,” he said. “The way things are financially, this is not the time to spend more money.”

Conflict arose over the appropriate action in the midst of resignation of Fire Chief Verne Riggall. The fire department is now run by Captain. Bruce Gillingham.

The city’s position of fire chief has been abolished. And Commissioner Sue Weller voiced her opposition at the meeting.

“It gives the impression that we’re getting rid of the fire department,” Weller said. “I think we’re going down the wrong road.”

The commission discussed reinstating the fire chief position to replace the captain position. However, that would require opening the job to general application and increasing the position’s salary.

The commission agreed that they would like to keep on Captain Gillingham.

Mayor Larry Travis said that he had spoken to citizens who wanted to keep the position, but he felt the City needed to consider Captain Gillingham in the final decision.

“He’s a valuable member of our community,” he said. “He’s a valuable member of our fire department.”

City Commissioner Eric May said that he did not think switching Captain. Gillingham’s job title was a logical step for the city.

“I’d like to keep as much continuity as possible,” he said. “It sounds like we’re going to go through some significant dollars and some things, you know, to shuffle things around; go through a hiring process and so forth, put some employees in uncomfortable positions just so we can call him five letters instead of seven letters.”

After considerable discussion, commissioners opted not to reinstate the position of Fire Chief at this time.

Weller voted against the budget, citing concerns over the Fire Department issues.

The budget and ad valorem tax will be put to a final vote at the Sept. 19 meeting, held at 6:30 p.m. at the High Springs City Hall.

High Springs Police Department (HSPD) Chief James Troiano, who resigned Sept. 2 amid budget woes, said in an interview last week that the surveys reflect a positive direction for the department.

“We’ve made great strides in bringing the department together,” he said.

In comparing the survey he conducted to that of the PBA more than two years earlier, Troiano said, “I believe that the commissioners and the members of this community clearly see that they were duped.”

With more than a week to answer the anonymous survey, just six respondents turned them in according to Troiano’s records.  That’s three fewer respondents than the PBA survey.  Unlike the previous survey, which was open only to members of the PBA, Troiano supplied the survey to the entire HSPD staff, which at the time included about 13 potential respondents.  Troiano said he and Lieutenant William Benck were excluded from the latest survey, although a member of the command staff was permitted to participate in the PBA survey.

One of the survey respondents wrote, “I believe the morale is low because of staffing issues that have been going on for several years.  A lot has to do with unforeseen problems… illness, injuries and terminations.”

Another wrote, “…overtime creates stress as well as single officers shifts.”

Again, pointing to the staffing shortages, a respondent wrote, “Morale is low but I feel this is due to a low staffing issue within our department; however, the morale is much better than it has been in the past… there is a lot less division within our department.”

Last week, Troiano said continued pressure to reduce the City budget has forced his department to cut back in areas where it shouldn’t have to.  “We already lost one police officer from the budget last year, now we’re losing another in me,” he said.

Troiano echoed the sentiments of one of the survey respondents who wrote, “It is ironic that with some staffing issues we’ve had that more will be paid in overtime to tired and overworked officers covering shifts than would be paid to regular full time employees if we had full staffing.”

As for how the chief ranks among the staff, there is a marked improvement based on survey results.

In the 2009 survey, seven officers directly stated that Troiano should be replaced, one other officer wrote “I have no confidence in [Troiano] as the Chief,” while another wrote, “I would like to have a leader that I can feel is looking out for me and not their own personal gain.”

In the August 2011 survey, however, when asked about the statement that “The Chief looks out for the best interests of the employees,” five agreed or strongly agreed while one respondent disagreed.

Again, five respondents agreed that disciplinary actions taken by the department were fair and commensurate with the complaint/violation, according to the survey tabulation.  Again, one respondent disagreed.

When asked what has changed at HSPD since the 2009 survey, one respondent simply wrote, “Absolutely nothing!!!”  Others meanwhile said that there were too many changes to list, but that they were for the better.

“I believe some officers took ‘sides’ when the new administration came in, and ‘balked’ at new ideas that were presented, which caused friction within the department,” another respondent wrote.

Other complaints by officers ranged from those relating to insurance benefits to a lack of advancement opportunities.

Summarizing the survey results in a memo to High Springs Interim City Manager Jenny Parham, Troiano said, “It is clear from the majority of the responders that a positive change has occurred at the HSPD.  Specifically, the departure of unnamed employees, more compliance or cooperation between the management and employees, better morale, people working together as a team, and less division.

“For the one who said ‘absolutely nothing,’ they just solidify my assumption that they are still part of the problem that I inherited in March 2008 when I became Chief of Police.”

Troiano said the surveys demonstrate that HSPD is better now than it was in 2009.

“I’m very proud of the survey results,” said Troiano. “I think it shows how much improvement we’ve made at the department.”