The Hawthorne City Commission swore in Commissioner Randy Martin, Mayor Jacquelyn Randall and Vice Mayor Patricia Bouie-Hutchinson to new terms during a regular meeting on Tuesday.
All three officials were incumbents as Martin, who first joined the commission in 2022, clinched Seat 2 by 36 votes over opponent Mary Clawson during an election this month.
The commission unanimously voted to re-elect Randall and Bouie-Hutchinson to new terms as mayor and vice mayor, respectively, during Tuesday’s meeting, with both candidates running unopposed.
Randall has served as Hawthorne’s mayor since 2021 and Bouie-Hutchinson has been on the City Commission since 2008.
“I’m so appreciative and humbled that the citizens thought of me enough that I went unopposed this year,” said Bouie-Hutchinson. “I want to thank you all for your assistance, for your love, and for your prayers.”
Staff also presented the commission with a quarterly financial update, noting that all three fund changes are positive. The general fund currently holds a $1,500,000 balance, the enterprise fund $1,564,000 and Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) funds are at $102,000.
The commission unanimously voted to move forward with a $38,000 audit service with Powell and Jones for the 2023-24 year. Randall thanked staff for their efforts to demonstrate the city’s discipline to climb out of debt.
“For a while, we were in the red,” she said. “To get reports now on a quarterly basis and hear that the city is now moving and operating in the black says a lot about the leadership here.”
One week out from the city’s 93rd homecoming event on June 26-28, the commission moved to survey options for supplying extra lighting and discussed how to maximize event security provided by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO).
With the event featuring vendors, music, dances, a parade, and a car show and now attracting thousands of attendees across the three days, Hawthorne Homecoming Committee members expressed to the commission that more lighting was needed to help with safety, minimize traffic, and for vendors in darker locations to attract more customers.
For this year, the committee said it cut down the number of vendors attending and made vendor areas slightly larger to help space things out. The event will also close at 8 p.m. to allow law enforcement more time to usher people out.
Portable lighting estimates for Wednesday through Sunday rentals ranged from around $700 to $1,000. The committee said it would fund the lights themselves; however, the cancellation of their prayer breakfast fundraiser left them without the proper reserves.
Randall said ensuring the safety of the city made it the commission’s duty to help provide funding. The commission moved for staff to seek out cheaper and shorter light rental prices and directed City Manager Robert Thompson to decide which one to purchase.
“I think to ensure the safety of the entire Hawthorne, we’ve got to find a way to do it,” Randall said.
The homecoming committee also requested closing 65th Avenue and SE 215th Street at the corner of Galilee Baptist Church to mitigate traffic of attendees who traditionally come to the event as it closes.
After last year, Randall said ACSO warned the city that homecoming would be shut down if the issues of overcrowding and traffic blockages persisted. She said that even though the changes were made with short notice this year, the city would be better equipped to plan next year’s event.
Commissioner Tommie Howard agreed that changes needed to be made in order to help citizens enjoy the event and help law enforcement do their job.
“Last year was an absolute nightmare,” he said. “Every one of the vendors was at the end of their ropes, you couldn’t get in or out. [Law enforcement] needs to ensure that those people start moving out when the festival shuts down.”
The City Commission also moved to hold on to a $136,650 revitalization project on the historic Johnson Street by modifying the project’s scale, following a Request for Bids closure on June 5.
Randall said the project’s stakes were higher than beautification because it would establish water quality directly to downtown Hawthorne. She said the project began in 2018 but stalled after difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and after the company originally contracted to work on it abandoned it.
Because Alachua County used to have jurisdiction over the project, Randall said relinquishing the project could be a “smear” on future projects Hawthorne might want to collaborate with the county on.
Staff will reach back out to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to consider project plan modifications before the commission’s next meeting on July 1.