Alachua County Legislative Delegation Holds Meeting
On October 20, the Alachua County Legislative Delegation held a meeting at Santa Fe College to hear from local officials and constituents.
Eighth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Brian Kramer told the delegation, “After seven years of higher education, the minimum salary for an assistant state attorney is $50,000. That obviously is not sustainable; people can’t pay their loans at that amount, so over the years the minimum we now pay is $70,000, but the minimum you said is $50,000. We are asking that you raise that to $85,000, and we would handle the compression that would result from that from other funding sources you’ve already allocated.”
Kramer said he’s heard the governor’s office is talking about “sweeping” state attorney and public defender trust funds, and urged officials to not make any adjustments to the allocation.
State Attorney Brian Kramer addresses the delegates (Florida Channel)
Eighth Judicial Circuit Public Defender Stacy Scott said her circuit has “unique problems,” and that one of them is trying to get young lawyers fresh out of college to work in rural counties. She said they sometimes “pay a premium” for attorneys to make a commute.
Scott said there’s a statewide request to fund every public defender at least 55% of their corresponding state attorney.
Scott said a “local and personal” issue for her is jail overcrowding. She said there are 17 people in the Alachua County Jail who’ve been deemed mentally incompetent to proceed and cannot be transferred out because the Department of Children and Families doesn’t have enough beds in their facilities.
Public Defender Stacy Scott addresses the delegates (Florida Channel)
Alachua County Sheriff Chad Scott asked officials to help support renovations to the Alachua County Jail or the construction of a new jail.
Sheriff Scott address the delegates (Florida Channel)
Alachua County School Board Chair Sarah Rockwell asked officials to support a bill that would allow intervention if a student has ten absences at any point in the school year. The current time frame allows intervention if the student has ten absences in a 90-day period.
Gainesville Regional Utilities General Manager Ed Bielarski told the delegates, “One of the hardest things about running a utility is the uncertainty. We have two vested interests at play. GRUA is still protecting House Bill 1645, which is the rule of law. We’re looking at a referendum on November 4 for city voters, and we will have an injunction hearing on the 29th of October. We’re looking to go before the Eighth Circuit one more time, as we did last referendum, to see if we could get an injunction against that vote.”
Rep. Hayes-Hinson told Bielarski he’s “filing an injunction against the will of the people.”
“To follow the law,” Bielarski responded. “We have people’s will, and we have rule of law.”
“Thanks for the explanation,” replied Hayes-Hinson.
Bielarski addresses the delegates before a short back-and-forth with Rep. Hayes-Hinson (Florida Channel)
The entire delegation meeting was over three hours long and is available to watch on the Florida Channel.
