- The Alachua City Commission approved a $67.4 million budget for 2026-27.
- The commission imposed a unanimous 12-month moratorium on AI data center applications to study regulations, with debate over potential extensions and advisory boards.
- Monty Williams was appointed to the Planning and Zoning Board amid concerns over his alleged disrespectful and hateful behavior toward residents and commissioners.
The Alachua City Commission’s regular meeting on Monday extended over five hours, with approved items including a moratorium on data centers, the 2026-27 budget and debate over a Planning and Zoning Board appointment.
The meeting was rescheduled from Sept. 28 because there wasn’t a quorum of commissioners available. The delay meant that the city’s 2026-27 budget couldn’t be completed by the state’s end-of-September deadline.
City Attorney Scott Walker said state statute provided for emergencies, which he said this constituted. Mayor Walter Welch said he missed it because he was hospitalized; Commissioner Shirley Green Brown said she was on vacation and Vice Mayor Jennifer Ringersen was also absent for the Sept. 28 meeting.
2026-27 budget approval
The City Commission voted 4-1 to maintain the millage rate at 6.25 mills and 3-2 to approve the city’s $67,440,114 total budget. Because the rate is 5.42% above the rollback rate of 5.9286 mills, it counts as a tax increase. The 6.25-mill rate is unchanged from last year, when commissioners raised it from the 2024-25 rate of 5.95 mills.
The total budget is $1,998,784 higher than the previously adopted budget, which staff attributed to ongoing projects and open purchase orders that will carry from this year into next.
Commissioner Jackson Youmas dissented from both measures, and Commissioner Jacob Fletcher joined in dissent on the budget.
After Fletcher questioned how $17 million had been allocated for projects in 2025-26, he said documentation on the spending should be readily available. He said he did not have enough information about how the money was being spent to vote in favor of the budget.
“Seeing how we haven’t had time to actually discuss this, and there’s plenty of material that I can’t get clear answers on, I’m going to have to vote no,” he said.
AI data center moratorium
The City Commission unanimously approved a 12-month moratorium halting the acceptance, processing and review of AI data center applications looking to develop in Alachua. Ringersen spearheaded the original push for a moratorium at the Sept. 14 meeting.
Staff said more time was needed to study data centers and develop rules and regulations governing them. Although commissioners unanimously approved the moratorium, some commissioners and community members raised questions about the language in Monday’s ordinance.
They questioned section seven, which allows for a six-month extension but gives the City Commission the ability to terminate the moratorium at any time. They also debated enacting a citizen advisory board specifically for the data centers.
Planning Director Bryan Thomas said over 20 counties have done temporary moratoriums similar to Alachua’s, and only three imposed bans against the data centers altogether. Thomas said the temporary measure would give the city time to watch how the bans play out in court and confirmed that Alachua still had no data center applications.
Walker said the language in Alachua’s moratorium was modeled after similar ones with state definitions of the centers incorporated. Fletcher still made a motion to amend pieces of the language, like the ability to terminate it early, but the motion failed.
Numerous citizens, including Planning and Zoning Board Member Danielle Judd and the Board Chair Bill Smith, urged the City Commission to model other counties across the state and country by creating a citizen advisory board for the centers.
Thomas said the Planning and Zoning Board would provide sufficient oversight, but Judd said it can’t provide the in-depth research required because meeting agendas are packed with other issues.
“I would just say, I think that’s a bad idea,” Judd said.
Planning and Zoning appointment, harassment
The City Commission also filled the Planning and Zoning Board’s vacant seat on Monday, with Monty Williams winning the nomination over three other candidates. Williams is the husband of former Commissioner Dayna Williams.
Multiple community members and residents questioned whether Williams would treat the public respectfully, pointing to multiple instances of hateful comments online and in person.
Tamara Robbins said Williams once cursed at her after indirectly criticizing her during public comment at a commission meeting.
“He gestured for me to go out into the lobby, right? That’s courteous,” Robbins said. “So I got there, and I said, listen. I just want you to know I’m a resident; I’ve lived here for 30 years, I vote. And he looks at me and goes, ‘Yeah, and you’re also a b—h.’”
Fletcher and Youmas, who did not vote for Williams, also shared stories they found concerning about Williams, who was not at Monday’s meeting.
Youmas said that after he mentioned at a commission meeting last month that he received tickets from Flock cameras on the way to his mom’s funeral, Williams called him a liar.
Fletcher said he’d discovered that Williams referred to Alachua residents with a slur at a High Springs City Commission meeting and detailed Facebook posts from Williams that Fletcher said promoted physical violence.
“There’s a lot of issues in the city because when we can vote someone to a position that uses slurs, I take huge offense to that,” Youmas said. “I have a big problem with that, and for people to defend that, to me, that’s an even bigger problem here in the city of Alachua and here on this dais.”
Ringersen said it was unfair to single out Williams when similar incidents involved other citizens and city board applicants. She said some commissioners were fueling the situation by interacting with the alleged perpetrators, often in the City Hall parking lot after meetings.
Ringersen said she’d been followed to her car, spat on and cursed at, and that it needed to stop. Youmas also said his car had been vandalized at a City Commission meeting, and that he’d been followed to work.
“I do know in the last six months, maybe even a year, things have changed, where people are being followed home, including myself, knocking on my door; cut marks on my face,” Ringersen said. “I am trying my hardest not to throw mud at pigs because it just gets muddier. But it’s got to stop because we’re not being honest and truthful.”