Meet the Candidates 2026: Willits seeks second term with familiar ballot challenger

The Gainesville City Commission had four of its seven seats open for the 2026 election cycle, potentially allowing a reshuffling of seats like the one that happened four years ago.

Commissioner Bryan Eastman ran unopposed and will continue to serve without heading to the ballot. Commissioner Ed Book announced he would step down after a single term, so one of three District 2 challengers will join the dais.

Unlike the elbow-bumping, nine-challenger showdown of 2022, the mayoral race comes down to just the incumbent, Mayor Harvey Ward, seeking what would be his final term on the commission, and challenger Evan Moon with his first foray into politics.

For District 3, Commissioner Casey Willits faces a familiar challenger in DeJeon Cain as well as an unfamiliar one in James Gardner.

Mainstreet Daily News provided each of the candidates for office with the same questions. We’ve run the answers for District 3 below.

The District 2 and mayoral candidates will have their answers in separate articles.

We will begin with a short biography of each candidate followed by the questions and answers. Gardner did not respond to the questionnaire.

District 3

Casey Willits

• Occupation: I’m a fiscal assistant in the College of Medicine at UF.
• Previous experience in elected office: I’ve served as Gainesville City Commissioner for District 3 since 2022.
• Public service other than elected office: I’ve been active in LGBTQ+ groups locally and prior to moving to Gainesville. I’ve also volunteered for numerous Democratic candidates over the years. My favorite part of these experiences has been knocking on doors and getting to know the concerns and needs of neighbors. I was also a Steering Committee member for my union, the United Campus Workers of UF.

DeJeon Cain

• Occupation: Owner and operator of Fortitude Security, a Gainesville-based security company I founded and still run.
• Previous experience in elected office: None. I ran for this District 3 seat in 2022 and came up roughly 200 votes short.
• Public service other than elected office: Chairman, Alachua County Affordable Housing Board (current). Chair, City of Gainesville Equal Opportunity Office (current). City of Gainesville Planning Board, three years. City of Gainesville Affordable Housing, three years. Black on Black Crime Task Force, five years. Gainesville Police Explorer, five years. Teen Outlet, City of Gainesville.

What do you hope to accomplish as part of the City Commission?

Willits: I want to turbocharge our work to build or preserve affordable housing units. We’ve recently funded or supported the funding of over 800 units. This is a great start. But we can do better.

I also want to find ways to restore more RTS service and make improvements to existing routes.

Lastly, I want to finish my work bringing a park to Southwest Gainesville. We’ve recently identified land for the park, but getting this project past the finish line is near and dear to my heart.

Cain: Three things. First, deliver the one-stop permitting shop the city promised in 2016 and never built, so starting a business here stops being an obstacle course. Second, grow without erasing the neighborhoods people have invested their lives in. Density belongs on transit corridors, in commercial centers, and on infill sites, not dropped on every street by right. Third, get the city’s fiscal house in order before Tallahassee does it for us. And I want to change the tone. I have chaired boards where people disagreed and still got the work done. That is what I will bring.

What recent votes from the current City Commission have you disagreed with, if any, and why?

Cain: Two. In September, the commission raised the millage rate to 6.7297 mills, roughly 12 percent above the rolled-back rate, pulling in about $9.4 million more in property taxes. I understand the pressure the GRU Authority put on the budget. But Gainesville’s rate has gone from 4.7474 mills in 2018 to 6.7297 today, and residents were asked to absorb it again.

Then in June, the commission voted unanimously to move garbage and stormwater fees off the utility bill and onto the annual property tax bill, with rates rising roughly 8.7 percent per unit and liens now possible for nonpayment. The stalemate with the GRU Authority is real. But the answer cannot be that a family’s bill goes up and their leverage goes down every time two boards cannot agree. Somebody has to sit down with the Authority instead of trading letters through the newspaper.

Willits: I disagree with only requiring affordable units be set aside in new housing developments if they have more than 50 units. The original proposal was to require units affordable to working-class people to be set aside in new developments with 10 or more units. With Gainesville largely built up, our best chance to make developers give something back to the community is through infill projects. I plan to continue fighting for this.

How should Gainesville prepare for the November homestead tax exemption vote?

Willits: The City of Gainesville needs to start looking for new revenue sources, ideally state and federal grants, so we can be ahead of the 8 ball if it passes. We also need to be honest with ourselves about the consequences. If it passes, there will be painful decisions needing to be made. We need to start seriously thinking and planning ahead for those decisions, with the two priorities being public safety and saving jobs.

Cain: By assuming it passes and planning like adults.

The property tax amendment goes to voters on November 3. If 60 percent say yes, the homestead exemption on non-school property taxes rises to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. That is real relief for homeowners and a real hole in the city budget, and we already have a gap.

So the work starts now, not in December. I would ask the manager for a written scenario at both outcomes, pass and fail, with the numbers made public. I would protect public safety first, because the amendment itself puts it first. I would look hard at everything we do that someone else does better or cheaper. And I would stop treating one-time reserves as a plan.

What I will not do is wait for the vote, then panic, then hand residents a bill.

How will you approach the relationship between the City Commission and the Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority?

Cain: Carefully, and without pretending the law says something it doesn’t.

Here is where we are. Voters said return GRU to the city twice, by 73 percent in 2024 and 75 percent in 2025. I respect that, completely. But the Legislature preempted the subject to the state this year; the cases are still at the First District Court of Appeal, and in the meantime the city charter bars commissioners from touching utility operations. Wishing otherwise does not lower a single bill.

So I would keep defending the voters’ decision in court and in Tallahassee, and at the same time work with the Authority like a business partner, because we still own the utility and our residents still pay the bills. The insurrection talk from attorneys, the unanswered letters, the fights in the press: none of that gets a streetlight fixed. Adults can disagree and still pick up the phone.

Willits: I will continue advocating that the will of Gainesville voters be respected. This includes lobbying the state to reverse HB 1451, calling out the Authority when it blatantly acts against our community’s values, and pursuing any legal options that may be offered by the City Attorney as litigation proceeds.

Why are you the right person for this seat?

Willits: Nearly four years ago, I was elected as District 3 Gainesville Commissioner on the promise to begin making the good life available to all neighbors. I got right to work on this on my first day in office. Since then, I’ve made good on that promise along with my fellow Commissioners. We’ve supported building or preserving over 800 affordable housing units, reversed many of UF’s cuts to RTS, and conserved green space in Southwest Gainesville. But there’s more to be done and I plan to continue fighting to make the best of Gainesville available to everyone!

Cain: Because I have already been doing this work, just without the title. Chairman of the county’s Affordable Housing Board. Chair of the city’s Equal Opportunity Office. Three years on the Planning Board. I have read the packets and sat through the meetings.

And I own a business here, so I have felt what our permitting process does to people trying to build something.

I am not running to make a point. I am running to serve the people who raised me. Hear the need. Spark the change. Serve the people.