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Clovis Watson, Jr. (right) receives a congratulatory hug from a supporter Tuesday evening following results from the race for sheriff in which Watson handily won over incumbent Sheriff Sadie Darnell.

ALACHUA COUNTY ‒ Clovis Watson, Jr. handily defeated incumbent Sadie Darnell to be Alachua County’s top law enforcement official. After first being elected Nov. 14, 2006, the longstanding Sheriff Darnell will lose her seat in the coming months as Watson formally takes over the role of Alachua County Sheriff at the beginning of 2020.

Watson picked up 23,110 votes, or 59.3 percent compared to Darnell’s 15,851 votes, or 40.7 percent of the votes according to the unofficial tally by the Alachua County Supervisor of Election.

Watson and Darnell were in a closed primary race, meaning only Democrats could cast ballots because Rob Brinkman jumped in the race as a write-in general election candidate. That means Watson will face off against Brinkman as a write-in candidate in the general election, although Watson’s election is nearly a foregone conclusion since Brinkman is not campaigning.

While only registered Democrats could cast ballots in Tuesday’s primary, according to campaign finance reports, Watson garnered a wide cross-section of support.

Watson currently serves in the Florida House of Representatives in House District 20. For several years, he led his hometown, the City of Alachua, as its city manager, and has an extensive background in law enforcement, having served for many years as the Deputy Police Chief in the City of Alachua.

Darnell was not the only incumbent to lose in the Aug. 18 primary. Longtime Alachua County District 1 Commissioner Mike Byerly with 34.2 percent lost to fellow-Democrat Mary Alford who picked up 65.8 percent of the vote tally.

Alachua County Commissioner for District 3, Robert “Hutch” Hutchinson, who chose not to seek re-election, will be replaced by Anna Prizzia (49.1 percent), who beat Kevin Thorpe (36.9 percent) and Jason Stanford (14 percent).

Alachua County Commissioner for District 5, Charles “Chuck” Chestnut, IV, faced no challenger in the Aug. 18 election and will retain his seat. As a result of Tuesday’s election, and for the first time, women will make a majority of the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners.

In an historic shakeup on the Alachua County School Board, Diyonne L. McGraw (52.4 percent) won the District 2 seat over Khanh-Lien R. Banko (47.6 percent). McGraw replaces Eileen F. Roy on the school board. Meanwhile, Leanetta McNealy (61percent) will retain her District 4 school board seat after defeating Sande Calkins (39 percent). With McGraw, McNealy, and Tina Certain (District 1), the School Board of Alachua County will consist of three African-American women for the first time in school board history.

In Newberry, incumbent Commissioner Monty Farnsworth was re-elected with 55.3 percent as compared to challenger Walt Boyer’s 44.7 percent of the votes cast in Tuesday’s election. Newberry voters did adopt some revisions to the City’s charter, but declined to increase the terms of service from two years to three years for the mayor and commissioners.

Hawthorne voters elected Patricia Bouie (72.1 percent) to Seat 4 over Wallace F. Russell (27.9 percent). In Archer, voters elected Joan White (61.8 percent) to Seat 1 over Bill Lewandowski (38.1 percent) and Fletcher Hope (62.3 percent) to Seat 3 over Mary Bennett (37.7 percent).

With Alachua County Property Appraiser Ed Crapo declining to seek re-election, Ayesha Solomon (48.8 percent) will take on the role after facing off against Matt Geiger (27 percent), Wendy Sapp (13 percent), Susan M. McQuillan (6.2 percent) and Kelly F. Suggs (5 percent).

Replacing Clovis Watson, Jr. as the Florida House District 20 representative will be Yvonne Hayes Hinson. Hinson, with 61.8 percent of the votes beat out Rodney Long, who had 38.2 percent of the votes cast. Long had served as an Alachua County Commissioner for a number of years in the 2000s, and as a Gainesville city commissioner beginning in 1988, but has been out of elected public office for years since leaving the county commission.

In the hotly-contested U.S. House of Representatives District 3 Republican primary race, Kat Cammack won with 25.2 percent of the ballots cast over Judson Sapp (20 percent), Gavin Rollins (15.3 percent), James St. George (14.1 percent), Todd Chase (9.5 percent), and five other candidates garnering a combined 15.9 percent of the votes. Cammack will face off in the Nov. 3 general election against Adam Christensen who won 34.5 percent of the votes cast in the U.S. House of Representatives District 3 Democrat primary race. Christensen beat out Philip Dodds (32.3 percent) and Tom Wells (33.2 percent). Given the voter makeup of House District District 3, and the history of Republican victories over the district, it is likely that Cammack will prevail in the Nov. 3 general election.

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LIVE OAK ‒ The Suwannee River Water Management District’s Governing Board has voted to table an anticipated staff recommendation to approve the Seven Springs Water Company Water Use Permit renewal application. The vote was taken at the Board’s Aug. 11 meeting. The Board’s determination to table the permit was made based on its view that the company actually bottling the water should be listed as an applicant on the permit application.

Seven Springs has held a permit issued by the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) to withdraw water from Ginnie Springs for 20 years. The permit allows withdrawals up to 1.152 million gallons a day from the spring, but as a smaller local plant, their average withdrawal has been a quarter of the amount, peaking at under 270,000 gallons per day for the past four years.

In January 2019, Nestle Waters North America Corporation (NWNA) purchased the bottling plant from Seven Springs in anticipation of receiving the permit after Seven Springs renewed it. Within the next five years, NWNA anticipates operating four product lines at this facility, one renovated line capable of producing 1,350 half-liter bottles per minute (BPM), and three new lines capable of producing 1,500 BPM and adding two new high-speed bottling lines to the two existing ones. NWNA will also pay an undisclosed amount to Seven Springs.

There is opposition to the Nestle plant by some who say that allowing up to 1.152 million gallons a day to be pumped by Nestle Waters bottling plant would harm the Santa Fe River system, reduce water for public use and is not in the public interest as required by state law for approval of permits.

Nestle maintains they are good stewards of the environment and the bottling plant brings jobs and tax revenue to Florida's economy.

As part of the permitting process, the SRWMD previously requested information from Seven Springs confirming that the withdrawals would not damage the recovering river and were in the best interest of the public. Despite requests for three separate reports, the documents were not provided and SRWMD staff initially recommended denying the permit due to incomplete information from Seven Springs.

The denial recommendation was to be reviewed by the SRWMD Board of Governors at a meeting on March 10, 2020. On March 9,2020, Seven Springs and Nestle filed a petition for administrative hearing on the matter. The petition was forwarded to the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) for consideration by an Administrative Law Judge as required by law, effectively taking the matter out of SRWMD’s authority.

Prior to the hearing, Seven Springs provided the information requested earlier by SRWMD and the hearing was canceled, placing the decision back in the hands of the water management district.

Based on the new information, it was anticipated that SWRMD staff would recommend approving the permit at the Aug. 11 Board of Governors meeting. Now that the Board has tabled the permit renewal, that recommendation is in limbo.

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ALACHUA COUNTY — An Alachua County election worker who worked at the High Springs Civic Center (Precinct 20) during the 2020 Primary Election tested positive for COVID-19.

The Alachua County Supervisor of Elections was notified today at about 3:30 p.m. by a Florida Department of Health contact tracer.

Officials from the Department of Health stated that voters who visited the polling place are at minimal risk of contracting the virus because of physical distancing, sanitation procedures, and the brief contact.

Election workers who worked with the individual have been contacted and told by the Supervisor of Elections to get tested for COVID-19. Those who worked closely with the individual — defined as those who were in close proximity of the individual for more than 15 minutes throughout the day — have been advised to self quarantine for 14 days, following guidance from the Florida Department of Health.

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NEWBERRY – The Newberry City Commission is weighing whether to accept the county’s Municipal Service Business Unit (MSBU) solid waste management assessment or defer to an alternate plan such as a transfer station surcharge per ton. 

Alachua County Waste Collection Manager Patrick Irby and Alachua County Environmental Program Manager Gus Olmos were on hand at the city commission meeting to discuss the solid waste and resource recovery aspect of the MSBU.

Irby explained that MSBU is a funding mechanism for solid waste management activities that cover the entire county. 

The four services that are funded by the Solid Waste Management Assessment are the five rural collection centers, which Irby says are open to everybody, engineering and compliance monitoring at landfills, the Office of Waste Alternatives, which is the education branch, and household hazardous waste, which is currently part of Environmental Protection.

The program funds the five rural collection centers, which provide drop-off sites for garbage, recycling, yard debris and household hazardous waste.  They also provide re-use areas for gently used items.  “The solid waste management assessment covers 36 percent of the rural collection center operations,” said Irby.

Although the main facility for collection and disposal of hazardous waste is located adjacent to the Leveda Brown Environmental Park, there are collection areas located at all five rural collection centers as well. 

Two special collection events are held in Newberry each year, but this has been temporarily suspended this year due to COVID-19.

Engineering and compliance monitoring is another mandatory function funded under the MSBU.  Four closed landfills throughout the county are monitored for leachate, methane, water contamination and other factors that might impact the environment. 

The Office of Waste Alternatives provides public education and community outreach in the areas of recycling, composting and litter reduction.  The “Tools for Schools” program also falls under this office.  “We provide tools for teachers and students who need items to be able to function in school,” he said.  “It’s amazing how many students arrive to school with nothing…no paper, pencils or anything else,” Irby said.  “This has become a larger program than we initially thought it would be.”  This office also initiates special event recycling and waste audits.

“A lot of our funding comes from tipping and processing fees at the transfer station,” said Irby.  “That funding primarily will go to processing of recycled materials; sorting, bailing; all of that costs a surprising amount of money.”  Irby said that when markets are bad like they are currently the cost is more.  “It pays for the transportation of waste to the landfill in Union County, the disposal of the waste up at the landfill and always the administration expenses as well as the assessments,” said Irby.

While there are three assessments that are overseen, only one of them is applied inside municipalities.  The rural collection assessment collects 64 percent of the total expenses for the rural collection centers and that is the portion attributed to residents in unincorporated Alachua County who are outside of the curbside program.  “The remainder of the rural collection center assessment is inside the solid waste management, and that’s the part of folks who are inside municipalities or are in the curbside program.  The solid waste management assessment is the only one we apply inside city limits,” said Irby.

Explaining how the assessment is calculated, Irby said, “It is divided between commercial parcels and residential units based on percentages of overall waste stream and benefits received.”  The primary groups are Single-Family Residential, Multi-Family Residential (apartment complexes), Residential Customers who do not receive curbside collection services (mostly unincorporated county) and Commercial. 

“The goal in the calculation is to pretty much just break even,” Irby said. 

As an alternative to the Solid Waste Management Assessment, Irby said there would be a transfer station surcharge per ton.  He believes the surcharge would be equal to the annual assessment for single-family residential units.  This method would also require the waste hauler to segregate waste from non-assessed municipalities from all other waste collected for the purpose of accurately weighing waste from that particular city.  The cost to the municipality in that case would be based on the actual tonnage.

Commissioners were not required to vote on whether they wanted to go with the Solid Waste Management Assessment or the alternative during the meeting.  The presentation was mostly for information-gathering purposes.  However, at some point the City will have to decide which way they want to go

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GAINESVILLE - Motorists traveling westbound Newberry Road (State Road 26) near the Interstate 75 interchange this week may experience delays for construction activities.

The outside westbound lane of Newberry Road, from Northwest 69^th Terrace to Northwest 75^th Street/Tower Road, is scheduled to close Tuesday night. Traffic will be reduced to two lanes in this area both day and 

This lane closure will not impact motorists entering Interstate 75.

This is part of a $2.4 million project on Newberry Road.

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NEWBERRY – A new sidewalk along Newberry’s Southwest 4^th Avenue between Oak View Middle School and Newberry Place subdivision will soon be reality. The City of Newberry and Maronda Homes, LLC of Florida have agreed to split the cost of providing construction of the sidewalk

According to City Manager Mike New, citizens have requested a sidewalk for safety sake at that location for some time. Construction of a sidewalk was a condition of the 2003 development agreement between Newberry and the Newberry Place developer, which was affiliated with Maronda Homes. According to New, Maronda Homes’ development division dissolved several years ago leaving the City with no legal entity with which to enforce the requirements of the developer’s agreement.

Maronda Homes was contacted by the City Attorney and requested to fulfill the obligation for the now dissolved development arm of the company. Following negotiations, an agreement was reached with Moranda Homes agreeing to pay half toward construction of the sidewalk. The estimated cost of construction is $65,000.

Maronda has 12 months to pay their $32,500 share in $1,000 increments. The City will pay the balance within 36 months or return the funds to Maronda.

New said the funds are already incorporated in the City’s FY 2020-21 budget but could be deferred to 2022 or 2023. He also said that the City’s share of funding could be paid by Local Option Fuel Tax (LOFT) revenues, or other general fund revenues.

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