Gainesville Town Hall

Article By Tony Domenech
Originally Written Circa 2003

Thinking back, I suppose my wife and I began to notice the decline of East Gainesville 25 or so years ago.  At the time we lived in a beautiful home (circa 1938) on the corner of NE 7^th Street and 9th Avenue.  Many of our friends lived nearby; Lynn and I were teaching at Howard Bishop Middle School, and we were raising our first child, Joseph.  While there continues to be “fits and starts” and isolated improvements as time relentlessly advances, the relatively straight-line decline of east Gainesville continues, for the most part, unabated.

Some examples:

• Lowes – Closed
• Winn Dixie - Closed
• Manaro’s - Closed
• Barnett Bank – Closed
• Southeastern Bank - Closed
• Central Builders – Moved West
• Cedar Grove II: Barely passing; heavily subsidized
• Tackle Box – Moved
• Decreasing school enrollment
• Decreasing residency

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Formerly Unpublished Article By Tony Domenech from before the 2007 Mayoral Election

In Saturday’s Virtual Town Hall Meeting published by the Gainesville Sun, writers Kay the Losen and Terry Martin-Back mentioned a couple of issues which got me to thinking. Mr. Martin-Back wrote “mob rule” was worse than a representative republic and called for the voters to “establish a platform and run against the incumbents” if we weren’t pleased. Ms. the Losen suggested it was “time to resort to common sense.”

While I strongly agree with them, unfortunately neither will happen in our community and I’ll tell you why. There are 68,800 registered voters in the City of Gainesville, of those only about 15%, at best, will turn out for the city election Tuesday, March 6th (I’m betting the percentage will be closer to 12%). continue reading »