Gainesville Florida Divers please read

[Cindy]

Tuesday Feb 28th there will be a meeting of the Alachua County Planning Commission on Big Box development in Alachua County. Look for the City of Gainesville planning board meeing. The meeting will be for both the City and the County plans to follow the lead of the City. The meeting will be at the Gainesville City Hall at 200 East University Ave. 6 pm. They are working on laws that will require large Stores etc. like WalMart to do more in depth environmental studies and pay for any traffic or road improvement. Wal Mart is slated to go in on land over the Alachua/Mill Creek cave system. This ruling will better protect the cave if it passes. I know it's short notice. I just found out myself but if you can show up and just sit in for a few minutes it will show there is community support for this type of legislation in Alachua County. Thanks, Cindy Butler

[Limestone Cowboy]

Thanks for getting this out Cindy...

Drew

[Kelly Jessop]

Merci beaucoup Cindy

[jdsffa]

Cindy,
For those of us who could not make it could you please give us a report on how the meeting went?
Thanks JS

[Cindy]

I wish I knew. Unfortunately I was not able to go. I have a request out to find out what happend.
Cindy

[brianstclair]

I left after forty minutes or so, narrowly avoiding slipping into a coma that I might never have come out of. The discussion was about "big box" stores in Gainesville - no mention of Alachua - and possible adjustments to the current rules governing such things as facings, parking, size caps, etc. Not specific to Walmart; discussion was generic with the stated assumption that all big box stores would fall under the same category - Public, Walmart, Home Depot, etc.

They specifically talked about requiring economic impact studies (and two other business related studies - sorry, can't remember), but no mention was made while I was there of environmental issues of any kind. Talked about different kinds of roofs, size caps, what to do about the existing Walmart and Sams Clubs on 13th, etc.

The meeting began with a presentation from a guy who I'm assuming was tasked at a previous meeting with studying the issues related to big box stores and how they are addressed around the country. Given the direction everything was going when I left, I'm assuming he will again be tasked with getting more specific information on certain points, but again, no mention was made at all while I was there of any environmental issues whatsoever.

Brian

[Cindy]

I am sorry about that. I got the meeting notice from the Springs working group. They made it sound like a big deal for us to go. I owe you a beer at the very least. Cindy

[brianstclair]

No apology necessary, and I thank you for narrowing down the list of things that I might want to be when I grow up by eliminating "Local Politician". I'll take you up on that beer, however, as the opportunity presents itself

Brian

[Cindy]

Add Environmental Activist. Tom Morris called me and asked me how it felt to be one now and to join the club. Pointing out to people they are about to screw up the environment with their plans to get rich is not the way to win pals. I sat in Sunny's the other day and heard all about the "Damn environmentalists, that got WalMart stopped just because of a sink hole" Boy did that story get convoluted. We are not near stopping WalMart as they are moving along with their plans. It looks to me like they will break ground before anyone at Alachua County can even work up a good defense. The only thing I can do at this point is document, video, photograph and hope to have enough amunition so when this happens again at another cave we can put up a better fight. Cindy

[curtschu]

Get with TJ ASAP to accelerate TriMix training so I can dive Alachua before bad things happen. I really hope we are wrong that the cave will be affected but you know how that goes. The fact that folks that have no knowledge of what is going on are gripping that the project is dead is a good sign!!! It's like the old salesmen trick of shaking your head yes when you ask a question. If folks are already agreeing the project is dead it might just die!

Curt