Seth Johnson
The city of Gainesville forced Keep Alachua County Beautiful staff to leave a city-owned building on Tuesday and defended its stance following a social media post by the nonprofit.
The Facebook post by Keep Alachua County Beautiful, later deleted, said the city plans to demolish the building.
“Please we need help!! Cynthia Curry only gave us one day to move everything when we have nothing,” the post said, referring to the Gainesville city manager.
The city responded to the post and noted its past support of the nonprofit, giving it $66,000 in funding during 2023.
“We never imagined we would need to be concerned with a local nonprofit taking up illegal residence in a house owned by the City,” the city said on social media and sent to local media.
The city refuted the idea that the house, located at 738 NW 7th Street, would be demolished. The city said plans are to rehabilitate it with American Rescue Act Funds and use it for neighbors in need.
Keep Alachua County Beautiful has helped with those plans, hosting a cleanup at the location in October 2023.
According to a Jan. 10 post by the nonprofit, their former office—not owned by the city—had mold problems and sewage backup, leading to unsafe work conditions. The post announced that the staff would move to the new address listed above.
The nonprofit’s Facebook page lists the city address as its residence, and Google maps also showed the nonprofit staying at the address.
In a city of Gainesville timeline of the events, City Manager Cynthia Curry learned that the nonprofit was using the city property on Tuesday. She called the acting director to inform Keep Alachua County Beautiful that the nonprofit had no contractual authority to use the space and would need to vacate.
“Our support does not extend to allowing unlawful occupation of a City property,” the city response said. “Not only because moving in without an agreement is unauthorized and unsafe, but because it is unfair. The City receives many requests for use of City buildings and facilities. Each is carefully considered before moving forward with a formal agreement.”
“ALACHUA COUNTY BEAUTIFUL” and Cynthia Curry need to have had a sit down “Come-to-Jesus” meeting like YESTERDAY! That organization comes across as some fringe outfit unworthy of public funding ($66,000 for what!?). Curry – you have “plans” for this dilapitated structure and plan to use our government moniees to fix it and give it to someone? Really? Who decides who is getting it? You? Both sides come across as unprofessional and in need of being under the fiscal microscope but that’s just me being a taxpayer saying it. After all – who am i?
Were they living there, or using it as a work hours base? I’m confused about why they need a whole house for that service.
This situation sounds like a case of muscle mmunication that was possibly handled very badly by the City. Ms Curry calls the use of the city owned house “illegal” casting the non profit as if they are stealing something. Obviously, they didn’t break in to that house. Somebody before Ms Curry’s time had to have let them use the place. I’m sure they had no idea that the city would suddenly reverse course. The city’s version just doesn’t ring true unless there’s a lot more to this story.
Looking at emails he sent (just before the KACB board announced he was fired) the now-former executive director outright admitted to occupying the building without asking permission. KACB did a cleanup back in October, and this Tyler guy just decided that gave him free reign to use the building for whatever he wanted. The city didn’t “reverse course.” The director openly admitted that he wasn’t allowed to be there.
And hell, he even got on camera in a TV20 interview and admitted that he never sought permission to occupy the building.
Auto correct mad miscommunication into muscle. Sorry.
66000 buys a lot of paint…yet there is plenty of graffiti around Alachua County that needs remediation. There is something odd about this interaction between these two orgs. BTW hazardous household waste north of the airport has free paint perfect for covering unwanted vandalism.
Circle gets the square, Brian – Also, the entire “Board of Directors” needs to be looked at by FDLE as I smell a lot more fiscal malfeasance here.