Gainesville Business Owners Tell City Commissioners About Concerns with SF College Development
At the Gainesville City Commission meeting on Thursday, two owners of businesses located within the vicinity of the Santa Fe College (SFC) Blount Center expressed concerns with the college’s development.
Owner of Best Jewelry and Loan, Richard Selwach, runs his business across from the Blount Center on NW 5th St.
Selwach told the commissioners, “The reason I’m here today is because of violation of Sunshine Laws: Failure to notify. You gave SFC a license agreement of the street that leads to my front door for $40. $1 a year for 40 years without notifying me or the neighbors.”
Selwach said the agreement was “not done in the sunshine.”
“You knew or should’ve known to notify us, and you didn’t,” Selwach said. “Public office is public trust, and you have violated this… The neighbors and I had no input.”
Selwach said that the day prior to the meeting, he and Commissioner Ed Book walked a few blocks from his shop to 4th Ave., where an old Mauldin’s Auto Glass shop is located, which he said the college wants to tear down to have a location for an automobile program.
Selwach added that Book asked if neighbors were aware at a previous meeting and that he didn’t vote on the item because he was in Alaska at the time.
Selwach thanked Commissioner Casey Willits for emailing him and said at a previous meeting he agreed there was an “issue with notification.”
Selwach went on to address Mayor Harvey Ward, saying, “This got you into trouble, Mr. Mayor; you are the chair and should’ve made sure this requirement was done, and you chose to ignore it.”
Selwach called it a “disingenuous argument” to close the street just because SFC needs it to test cars. The college “has enough land to test cars at their campus without closing the public street,” he said.
“That was way more kind than you told me it was gonna be,” said Ward.
“I toned it down,” said Selwach jokingly, “You do not wanna know what it was originally.”
Valerie Phillips runs the Jamaican restaurant Caribbean Queen on SW 5th Ave around the block from Selwach’s shop, located between two SFC buildings.
Phillips said SFC used to let her restaurant use parking on their property until “something went wrong and they fenced it around.”
Phillips said she and neighbors weren’t told when SFC began construction of the Blount Center. “We found out that Friday morning when they were digging ground. That is very disrespectful,” she said. “We are live tax-paying residents.”
Phillips said that closing off the street for an auto class would negatively affect her business and pleaded with commissioners to not go through with the project.
Ward responded, “Thank you both for being here. We do not have this on the agenda today, but I thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.”
Selwach told Ward he’d like to have lunch with him or take a walk, and Ward agreed.
