Local

Restaurants bank on variety to increase business

D.W. Ashton Catery (above) is just one of several eateries on Alachua’s Main Street that is aiming to serve up flavor and variety to satisfy diverse appetites and boost business in the downtown area.

ALACHUA – Monday and Tuesday afternoons for D.W. Ashton Catery now stray from the typical catering routine. Instead of prepping for orders or serving clients, D.W. Ashton invites the public in for lunch service in its reopened café.

D.W. Ashton, along with veteran and new businesses on Alachua’s Main Street, aims to revitalize the area after an economic downturn.

Hoping to bring more attention to Main Street, D.W. Ashton owner Mary Nell Combs restarted her café service. Visitors now have a lighter lunch option when visiting the eatery. Soups, salads and sandwiches are served 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“We provide quaint dining at a reasonable price, and hopefully it will bring people,” Combs said.

Originally, D.W. Ashton Catery, formerly called P’diddles, provided both catering and lunch services regularly, but as the catering business took off, juggling both became too much. Combs said the decision to close the café, located at 14816 Main Street, was a hard one, but she had a stable business catering for clients like the University of Florida football team.

However, as the economic climate changed Combs began to worry about the health of Main Street. Restaurants such as Saga, Los Avena and The Ivy House closed. The street saw less and less traffic.

Combs saw it as a sign of the times and decided to fight it.

“No one should feel like it’s competition,” Combs said. “It’s variety. I think more cafes would be great. We all feed off each other.”

Though the café has only been open a short time, Combs has already seen new faces in her restaurant and on Main Street.

“It’s nice to see old friends, but it’s great to see new faces,” She said.

Another restaurant Main Street business owners hope will bring more people to the street is The Sandbar Seafood and Steak, which will be occupying the empty space at 14841 Main Street.

The Sandbar will offer surf and turf cuisine. Co-owner Dean Waters also hopes to bring residents to Main Street by adding to the variety of dining.

“I believe we’re bringing something to Alachua that they don’t have,” Waters said.

Waters chose Alachua, Main Street in particular, for his business location because he liked the area and said everyone gave him a warm welcome.

Waters hopes to contribute to the Alachua community with The Sandbar and by hiring local residents.

The restaurant plans to open March 4.

Though it is too early to see how the café has affected Combs’ business, the opportunity for reinvention has been positive.

“When you’re in the restaurant business you have to recreate yourself,” she said.

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ALACHUA – Alachua’s police department honored two residents who stopped a Georgia fugitive from attempted kidnapping several months ago.

Chief of Police Joel DeCoursey, Jr. presented a plaque at a City Commission meeting on Feb. 11 for Bradley Winburn and Devin Carroll for their assistance in the capture of a felon who attempted to carjack a woman outside of the Alachua Branch Library on Dec. 9, 2012.

Police said the fleeing felon, Donald Mac Brown, attempted to commandeer the victim’s vehicle by pointing a revolver at her, hitting her in the face with the barrel of the gun and putting his hands around her throat. During this encounter, Winburn and Carroll heard the victim screaming and ran toward the noise. Both came to the assistance of the victim and went in pursuit of Brown.

Brown, 36, had two warrants for arrest from Georgia for child molestation, enticing a child for indecent purposes and solicitation of sodomy and sexual exploitation of a minor.

Brown had been on the run since at least Dec. 5, 2012 when bulletins seeking him and his partner, 57-year-old David Crawford, were issued in the Conyers, Ga., area. Crawford also had pending child molestation charges.

Brown was charged with attempted kidnapping, armed burglary, resisting arrest without violence and tampering with evidence.

Winburn and Carroll were not at the meeting to receive the award, and DeCoursey joked that they were probably out saving someone else that night.

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HIGH SPRINGS – Michael Eugene O’Steen, 58, of High Springs was hit and killed at 6:30 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 24, 2013, when a vehicle heading east on U.S. Highway 441 collided with him. The accident occurred in the 600 block near the Springs Diner as driver of the vehicle, Laura Rodriguez, also of High Springs, was on her way to work in Alachua.

High Springs Police Chief Steve Holley and Officer Ryan Scott, the City’s traffic homicide investigators, were on the scene and reported that O’Steen was wearing neutral colored clothing at the time of the accident. As of press time, it remains unclear whether O’Steen was attempting to cross the highway or was walking along the road.

The accident is still under investigation, but no charges have been filed in the case.

A High Springs resident for several years, O’Steen is survived by his two sisters, Elizabeth Ann Langford of High Springs and Rose Hanson of Lake City; two children, Melissa, 24, of Gainesville and Brandon, 28, of High Springs and ex-wife, Cathy O’Steen, also of High Springs. His brother, Eddie O’Steen is deceased.

Funeral arrangements are under the care of Evans-Carter Funeral Home of High Springs.

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TALLAHASSEE – Khary Khalfani, a 6^th-grader at Newberry’s Oak View Middle School, was among eight students and educators honored this week by Governor Rick Scott as part of Florida’s Black History Month celebration.

Khalfani and Angela Jones, the behavioral resource teacher at Terwilliger Elementary School, were recognized at a special ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee. Twelve-year-old Khalfani won the state’s middle school Black History Month Essay Contest while Jones was the elementary school recipient of this year’s Excellence in Education Award.

“I am so proud of Khary and Angela,” said Alachua County Superintendent Dan Boyd. “It’s a wonderful thing to have not just one, but two of the state honorees from our district.”

“In Florida, we are happy to host this contest every year that gives our students a chance to learn about the significant contributions of our country’s African American leaders,” said Governor Scott.

In keeping with the state’s Black History Month theme of ‘Diversity in the United States,’ Khalfani’s 500-word award-winning essay is entitled ‘Positively Diverse.’ It highlights the negative consequences of discrimination on society.

“I wanted to get across the point that diversity can positively affect society,” he said. “It’s negative only if people choose to let it happen. They need to get past their misconceptions about race.”

Oak View Middle principal Kevin Purvis says Khalfani, who is enrolled in the school’s Center for Advanced Academics and Technology magnet program, is not just a great student.

“He’s a great person,” said Purvis. “It’s not just the academics, it’s the smile, it’s the personality, it’s what he brings to the world.”

Jones was nominated for the Excellence in Education Award by fellow teacher Meg Amos, who highlighted Jones’ efforts to create mentoring/tutoring programs for boys and girls at the school and to provide students with opportunities to learn more about black history and culture.

As one of the state’s three essay contest winners, Khalfani has been awarded a four-year Florida College Plan scholarship provided by the Florida Prepaid College Foundation. Jones and the two other Florida teachers receiving the Excellence in Education Award received a $1,500 check.

HIGH SPRINGS – High Springs residents may eventually see a wireless communication tower erected on top of the City water tower near Railroad Avenue in the downtown area. The tower, if erected, is expected to provide increased reception to area residents.

“Right now, we are just trying to determine if there is any interest in representing the City in negotiations with a communication tower company,” explained City Manager Ed Booth. Commenting that the High Springs City Commission had authorized City personnel to advertise for a request for qualifications (RFQ) during a June 2012 commission meeting, “The City received one response at that time,” he said.

Utility Service Communications Co., Inc., Perry, Ga., was the sole responder to the RFQ. An agreement, which was submitted along with their RFQ, listed a 60-day time limit for enactment. Action was never undertaken by the City to proceed; therefore, their submission expired.

During the Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013 commission meeting, Booth explained that he was going to re-advertise the RFQ to see if there was any current interest in representing the City.

Ultimately, qualified responders will need to receive Commission approval to represent the City. Among other actions the firm will undertake will be to locate a company to site the tower, obtain permission from landowners (the City) to lease the property and negotiate on behalf of the City with the communications company to erect the tower.

“The City does not have the expertise to negotiate with these companies and most communication companies will not negotiate directly with the City,” explained Booth. If the commission chooses a company to represent the City, they will be the ones to go out and get a proposal. It would then come back to the City Commission for approval. “There are still a lot of steps to go through before a communication tower is installed,” said Booth. “This is a normal thing for a City to do.”

In response to concerns about dangerous emissions, Booth explained that the City already has a cell tower in town not very far from the water tower. “If there is any kind of radiation emitted, it is close to the antenna itself,” he said. Booth estimated the water tower height, without an antenna, to be 150 ft.

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Coerper and Wilford unopposed

ALACHUA – There will be no need for City of Alachua voters to rush to the polls on April 9 since the only two candidates running for office remain unopposed. As the weeklong qualifying period, which began Feb 14 at noon, drew to a close on Thursday, Feb. 21 at noon, only incumbents Mayor Gib Coerper and Commissioner Robert Wilford qualified for their respective seats.

The City will save some $9,000 that it would have cost to run the election.

Coerper and Wilford are scheduled to be sworn in for three-year terms April 22. Coerper ran unopposed and was elected as Mayor in 2010 after resigning from his commission seat to seek the mayoral position. Wilford was elected to Seat 2 on the commission in 2010 during a hotly contested three-way race, which resulted in a runoff election.

No Election was held in 2011 when Commissioner Ben Boukari, Jr. was elected without opposition. Also running unopposed was Commissioner Gary Hardacre, who saw no challengers to his re-election bid in 2012. This year marks the fourth year in a row in which at least one candidate ran uncontested for a commission seat.

Over the last several years, election turnout of the city’s roughly 5,700 voters has hovered in the 8-16 percent range.

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