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VOLUME 3 ISSUE 34
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AUGUST 26 - SEPTEMBER 1, 2022
School district considers updated study
The local “unofficial” primary election recap
By Caroline Brauchler caroline@ocalagazette.com
T
he School Board of Marion County approved a contract on Tuesday for help in determining what the next steps should be to address the impact of rapid population growth on area schools. The Long-Range Planning and Impact Fee Studies will be carried out by Benesch Consulting, formerly known as Tindale Oliver. The school board came to the agreement with the consulting firm by adopting planning contracts used and created by Hillsborough County Public Schools. “It’s been since 2006 that we have had such a study to tell us the impact of our student volume and increases, such as population increase in Marion County, and the dollar amounts coming in,” said Vice Chair Allison Campbell. Campbell said when the last study See Long-range, page A2
Left: Judge Lori Cotton, left, watches primary election results come in with husband, Steve Tweedle, right, at Molly McGuire’s in downtown Ocala on Tuesday, August 23, 2022. [Bruce Ackerman/ Ocala Gazette] 2022.
By Ocala Gazette Staff
O
nly 27.75% of the 266,967 registered voters in Marion County participated in the primary election on Aug. 23. According to Supervisor of Elections Wesley Wilcox, that was lower than the turnout in 2018 of 32% but higher than the 16.5% turnout in 2014. One hiccup occurred after the polls closed and everyone was waiting for results. Around 7:25 p.m. Tuesday, the webservers in Marion County and also for about 50 to 60 other elections offices across the state were overwhelmed due to high demand for live results and extra steps needed to comply with recent election law changes by the state.
“Although we all anticipated high demand, it just proved to be exponentially larger than anticipated,” Wilcox explained. “With the passage of SB90, we not only had to do what we all had been doing in the past, we now also had to update the state’s turnout system. The servers were brought down starting at about 7:30 and they were brought back up with five times the resources at about 8:10. And it all ran smoothly from that point on.” After voters play their part on, and leading up to, election day, the process of ensuring election integrity continues for days afterward under the stewardship of elections supervisors. “Most people don’t realize that the election results published on Tuesday aren’t even unofficial; maybe they could better be
described as preliminary. We don’t file our first set of unofficial results until after 5 p.m. Thursday. Wednesday and Thursday are very busy days preparing for our filing. We are retrieving all our equipment from our 105 polling locations. We run about six large ‘moving’ trucks, getting it all back in,” Wilcox said of the process. “Once we file the first set of unofficial results, the state determines if any multijurisdictional races will go to a recount. We don’t believe there will be any for Marion County. If no recounts, we can then file the official results. Monday, we will conduct the public audit, which is where we hand count a randomly chosen contest for a precinct to confirm vote totals,” Wilcox added. See Local election recap, page A4
BOCC postpones decision on 529 home development MCBOCC voices desire to get a better handle on SW development woes. Belea T. Keeney belea@magnoliamediaco.com
T
he Marion County Board of County Commissioners are pumping the brakes on a proposed development that would add over 500 homes to the crowded southwest portion of the county after an attorney for neighboring developments raised significant concerns about potential impacts on already overburdened schools, roads and emergency services. The detailed presentation by the planner for the attorneys challenging the project at the board’s Aug. 16 meeting also led the commissioners to decide it’s time for the county to take a broader look at the busy area’s current and future capacity for growth. Ocala SW 80th Avenue, LLC has requested a change in the county’s future land use map from low-density residential to medium-density residential, which would allow the developer to build 529 single-family homes on 132.26 acres at SW 80th Avenue and SW 63rd Street Road. The development would be just south of Calesa Township’s
5,000-home development and near the On Top of the World (OTOW) residential community. According to public records obtained by the Gazette, the attorney representing the OTOW and Calesa developers started raising concerns about the proposed development in mid-May. When those concerns were not addressed, the attorney sent two more letters to the BOCC on Aug. 12 and Aug. 15. County staff reviewed Ocala SW 80th Avenue’s plans and recommended the board approve the changes requested by the developer. However, Kenneth Metcalf, director of planning with the Tallahassee law firm of Stearns Weaver Miller, which is representing OTOW and Calesa, went beyond the staff report and detailed for the board numerous impacts the proposed development would bring to the already crowded area. “We have done an analysis,” Metcalf said, “that addresses the increased density in the study, basically between 80th Avenue and 60th Avenue, north of State Road 200.’’ The firm’s letter states: “Build out of the current Future
Land Use designations would result in 4,633 units. Without any further density increases, the build out based on current future land use designations will add nearly 3,000 trips to the roadway network and over 1,000 students, triggering the need for a new elementary school, middle school and high school. “Changing from LR to MR will significantly impact major roads by doubling peak hour trips to 5,887,’’ the letter states, “and would double student demand to over 2,000 students, triggering the need for several new schools.” The letter also requested that future Comprehensive Plan applications in that area be denied or delayed “until a study has been completed to analyze and address…existing and future needs for roads, schools and public facilities and services.” Ocala SW 80th Avenue had submitted a required traffic analysis to the board. But Metcalf told the board the analysis was flawed because the Calesa Township traffic was not included. “I don’t know how you disregard 5,000 units and don’t See Development, page A3
Chris Rison, left, and Ken Weyrauch, right, both of the Growth Services Department, display an item on the overhead projector during the Planning and Zoning and DRC Waiver Requests meeting in the Marion County Commission auditorium at the McPherson Governmental Complex in Ocala on Tuesday, August 16, 2022. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.
I’m very concerned about (moving) forward with approving this development, knowing what’s been outlined for us. We’ve done that in the past. We’ve ended up in a lawsuit. Kathy Bryant
County Commissioner
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