The Alachua County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) voted Tuesday to halt investment in businesses and continue with a charter amendment referendum that will go before voters in November.
In commissioner’s comments after the meeting, Commissioner Ken Cornell introduced a motion directing staff to remove business investment from Alachua County’s investment policy.
The motion was filed after public commentators objected to BOCC’s holdings in Lockheed Martin stock. Commenters opposed the company and called on the BOCC to issue a cease-fire resolution for the war in Gaza.
Florida law prohibits counties from eliminating individual business investments for reasons other than financial factors. However, Cornell University’s motion would eliminate all corporate investments.
He said the motion targets not only investments in the military-industrial complex, but also any companies that do not align with BOCC’s values.
The motion received unanimous support, with Commissioner Chuck Chesnutt absent.
Chairwoman Mary Alford said the county has only started investing in businesses in the last four or five years.
BOCC also continued its policy of placing a single-member district question on the November ballot. BOCC wants to reverse a decision made in the 2022 election that changed Alachua County to a single-member district system after a ballot proposal sponsored by state legislators passed.
The question on the ballot will be: “Are her five members of the County Commission in Alachua County, Florida elected by all electors countywide?”
If you vote “yes,” the single-seat district system will be reversed to a large-scale system. If there is a “no” vote, the single-seat district system will be approved in 2022 as well.
In a larger system, every voter in Alachua County would vote for each member of the BOCC. Under the single-member district system, residents only vote for the BOCC member who represents their district.
Tuesday’s vote will allow staff to advertise future voting plans.
County Attorney Sylvia Torres said officials recommend using newspaper legal notices in addition to advertising on websites that currently allow legal notices.
“In theory, a legal notice on a web page should be enough, but since it is new, what we are proposing is that if this is important to you, you should also see it in the newspaper. ” said Torres.
He recommended that BOCC advertise the three different deadlines established by state law and county charters through both sources.
Commissioners said the 2022 voting plan confused voters. Several commissioners said the voters they’ve spoken to so far don’t understand that they can’t vote for everyone on the BOCC.
Regarding the upcoming election, Cornell said that due to the single-member district system, voters in his district will not have a say because his seat will not be up for re-election.
State lawmakers launched the 2022 ballot initiative, saying voters in Alachua County felt underrepresented and wanted a change to single-member districts. The initiative passed with 51.5% of the vote.
However, the BOCC insisted against the changes in 2022. Commissioners claim that pre-election misinformation confused voters who did not want single-member districts.
