The Alachua County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) on Thursday allowed staff to piggyback on an existing contract to laser grade the fields at West End Golf Course along with other actions for the newly acquired property.  

The commissioners also required that renovation of the site not use herbicides and gave County Manager Michele Lieberman final signoff power over $645,000 in projects for West End to allow quick development as the World Masters Athletics Championship approaches.  

The fields at West End need to be level for the championships, and Parks and Open Space Director Jason Maurer said the laser-graded areas can be used as multipurpose fields when the property becomes a county park.  

BOCC Chair Mary Alford asked why Roundup was being used on the site, and Maurer said it is the hired contractors’ preferred method to get the area ready before grading, especially on the tight timeline.  

However, the BOCC pushed back and asked that no herbicides be used for the work, including it in the motion.  

At Thursday’s special meeting, the commissioners also discussed ways to improve its tree preservation efforts with developments. 

The conversations revolved around ways to incentivize developers to save more trees while also giving flexibility over design.  

A five-part motion came out of the conversation and was approved. The motion directs staff to bring back recommendations on changing policies about dripline impacts, look at what other cities and counties are doing to follow up and monitor trees from developments, recommendations on prioritizing a hierarchy of trees, a budget and timeline for a tree inventory in the urban cluster and other recommendations on saving trees.  

“To any public that may think they need to be in a big hurry to cut down a tree because they don’t care, is that we’re actually trying to make it easier, not harder,” Alford said.