What does a City Commissioner Do?
August 18, 2023
Reconciliation – Remembrance Project
August 25, 2023
#1 Large Emergency Services
The only two communities in Alachua County that maintain both a police and fire department are Gainesville and High Springs. We have invested to keep emergency services with exceptional services to citizens. We have well trained and equipped staff.
We have seen the impact of having Advanced Life Support (Paramedics) added to our fire team because people who would have died have lived. Not to mention the rescues from sinkholes, extraditions from vehicles on I-75 and the amazing response we had when an accident occurred at Air Liquide.
#2 Road Repairs
We completed two phases of road improvements on local city streets. High Springs has a combination of county and state roads that we can’t manage. But we have completed a full inventory of city streets, ranked them and impacted the areas we can with the funds available.
In the coming years we will be spending not only our gas tax funds for road improvements but the ALACHUA County infrastructure tax.
Prior to my service, road funds were being used to supplement our police department. While this expense was permitted by state law, it was not what I felt was the right priority and while I’m in office it will not happen again.
#3 Advanced Wells & Plans For Expansion
Earlier this years, water Well #3 was placed in service. Our city had been relying on two wells that were old, had high maintenance issues and did not insure a quality supply of water for our city.
In fact, maintenance on our water tower was deferred for years because of the concern that should a well fail while the tower was empty we would lose water service. We are not in that position any longer.
The new well is advanced, and already proving to be critical to maintaining our water supply. Going forward our city needs to fund the development of land purchased by Suwannee Water Management District to establish an entirely new well field for our City.
#4 New Businesses
Our community is seeing investment from private sources to open new businesses.
In the last three years we have seen these major additions to our community:
- Watershed Restaurant
- Prohibition Pizza
- Chompers
- Tractor Supply
- J&J Gas Facility in the Industrial Park off Poe Springs Road
- Blue Gem Motel
- Rehab of former Bank of America Building
- Custom Drop Tops expanded local operations, purchasing the “Peanut Mill” and adding 45 employees to their workforce.
- Duke Energy Solar facility - which in fiscal year 24/25 will provide approximately $500,000 in additional general revenue funds - without causing increased traffic, need for more policing or fire service, demand for water or sewer.
#5 Waste Water Plans
We have received grant funding to support the needed expansion of our waste water treatment facility. Construction is beginning and our citizens will be served by a facility that is current and able to support our growth while minimizing our environmental impacts.
#6 Advanced Metering Plans
Old water pipes leak water. Old water meters don’t count well. Following the example of similar communities we have moved forward with a plan to implement advanced metering across the city’s water system.
Starting in September every home and business in High Springs will receive a new water meter. The meter’s will allow remote reading across the city, provide users with detail about water usage in real time and help city staff detect leaks instantaneously.
As the city grows we will not need to spend more on “meter readers”. Citizens will not be exposed to the insurance risk of a city vehicle driving around. Users will be billed accurately by state of the art meters in a timely manner.
The meters will help the city determine where city lines might be leaking and help us prioritize repairs and upgrades. Overall, the system will pay for itself and allow for new meters to be installed in ten years WITHOUT borrowing money.
#7 Investment In The Douglas Neighborhood
Investment in the Douglas Neighborhood. Using funds from the Wild Spaces Public Places County tax, we have begun renovations to the long closed building that sits in Catherine Taylor Park.
The building has served many purposes including the kitchen for the segregated high school that served the Douglas community. The new facility will have purpose as a gathering space and is the first significant investment of tax dollars by the City of High Springs in over two decades.
#8: We still have over a million dollars in American Rescue Plan dollars from the Federal Government to allocate.
This shows we are working to be thoughtful on how the funds will be spent. So far, funds have been used for new cardiac monitors for our fire department, body cameras for our police department, generators and remote monitoring equipment for our wastewater lift stations, a new elevator for City Hall, emergency repairs to our main wastewater lift station, ventilation system for fire department bays, and replace Vietnam era long guns used by police department.
We also provided a one time COVID bonus to city staff such as police, fire, public works who responded to public need during a time when there was so much uncertainty.
The key to all of these expenses is that we did not have general revenue funds and these much needed investments in supporting our community have now been met.
