At its regular Thursday meeting, the Gainesville City Commission honored Chief Tony Jones, remembered Dylan Roberts and approved moving forward with the sale of the old RTS transfer station by Depot Park.
The City Commission designated Thursday Chief Tony Jones day in Gainesville. After 48 years with the city, Jones retired at the start of October.
Jones worked as a public safety cadet before moving up to an officer, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain and then chief. Most recently he has served as special adviser for juvenile justice and community support programs.
The proclamation, read by Mayor Harvey Ward, encouraged “all neighbors to join me in paying special tribute to this quintessential public servant and community leader on the occasion of his retirement.”
A video showed during the meeting featured leaders from across the community, including Santa Fe College President Paul Broadie II, Alachua County Sheriff Emery Gainey, local NAACP president Evelyn Foxx, public defender for the Eighth Judicial Circuit Stacy Scott and others.
Ward also presented Jones with the first ever Mayor’s Award for Distinguished Public Service in the city of Gainesville.
The commissioners voted unanimously to request that the Florida Department of Transportation and the Florida Legislature rename a newly installed crosswalk and NE 26th Terrace in memory of Dylan Roberts.
In October 2021, 4-year-old Roberts was hit and killed while crossing University Avenue, returning home from Fred Cone Park. The city worked with FDOT in response, and a new crosswalk was installed to allow safer access to the park.
The City Commission asked that the crosswalk be named the Dylan Roberts Memorial Crosswalk and that the closest intersecting road with University Avenue, in this case NE 26th Avenue, be dual named Dylan Roberts Road.
“It’s not just about one road,” Commissioner Casey Willits said. “It’s about how we continue to go forward and how we push towards VisionZero.”
The City Commission also voted 6-1 to move forward with a proposal to sell the old RTS station just south of Depot Park. Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker was in dissent.
The motion confirms the Knot, a climbing gym off Main Street, as the top respondent and directs staff to move forward with due diligence on the site. The city estimates the property will cost $2 million to $4 million, and the Knot has proposed a new climbing gym with space for a skate park, restaurant, bike shop and community space.
The Knot estimates the full renovation of the old RTS station to cost between $16 million and $23 million, according to backup documents.
The Knot submitted a request to buy the land last year. In the spring, the City Commission decided to open the process for other groups to submit bids on how they would use the land. Only one other bid—for a Florida Music Hall of Fame—came forward.
The commission majority voted to give the acreage beside Depot Park to the gym owners for their unsolicited bid and spend more city taxpayer money to do so, on environmental cleanup, parking lot upgrade, and other costs, while proceeds go to the Federal Transit Administration, NONE of it to the city, privatizing a prime piece of land for nothing in return. Another beneficiary of commission largesse made $3.2 million last month off city property basically given away.