The upcoming Alachua County Climate Action Plan (CAP) stands to be the most comprehensive action plan of any Florida inland county. Focused on building community resilience in changing times, the CAP will take an overarching look at how Alachua County's natural and cultural heritage can continue to grow and thrive in 2030, 2070, and beyond. This strategic planning initiative will help the county and its residents understand what changes to expect, make plans for their future, and ensure a thriving recreational and business community for years to come.
The plan will be the community's plan. Over the past 2 years, the county has done extensive outreach to residents to make sure there is ample opportunity to access the Climate Vulnerability Analysis, give input on the Climate Action Plan, and access resources that can help them prepare for the extreme weather that is coming to Florida communities. These efforts led to national recognition in grist.org, showcasing Alachua County as a national thought leader in how leadership approaches the long-term protection of its residents and natural spaces. You can read more about that work here.
Until recently, outreach has been limited to in-person events and survey work, which is not always accessible to all residents. In August 2024, Alachua County, in partnership with Grace to Overcome, Inc. (a Santa Fe College CEID Business Incubator) was awarded $15,000 from the Urban Sustainability Directors Network to bring CAP outreach work out into the community. The goal was to elevate the voices of certain groups that the vulnerability analysis identified as being at high risk of experiencing future impacts, but who had not yet had the appropriate opportunity to participate in county outreach efforts. Among the groups approached for this project were non-English speakers, rural community members including local farmers, residents of high energy-burdened neighborhoods, and Alachua County youth, among others.
This project is the culmination of that work.
Grace to Overcome, Inc. worked with The Well Creative videography to talk with, interview, and record local voices to understand their perspectives on topics ranging from extreme weather, climate migration, transportation, and more. These are their stories.
In July 2024, Alachua County released the most comprehensive Climate Vulnerability Assessment of any inland county in Florida. The report looks not only at flooding and the effect of extreme storms, but contains chapters on the impacts on local agriculture, wildfire risk, climate migration, public health, and more.
Ava Vellines
In Ava's interview with Pamela Hawkins, she discusses immigration/displacement, building urban infrastructure with population density in mind, as well as local emergency weather response and shelter access. Later, she spoke on energy accessibility and renewables, transit, bikeability, access to local food, climate anxiety, and what she wants to see changed in our community.
Aaron Dozier
In Mr. Aaron's interview with Pamela Hawkins, he discusses the county’s inclement weather emergency response and whether disenfranchised voices are being heard by those in power. Aaron also spoke on the county’s waste management system, access or lack thereof to clean water, and access to locally grown produce.
Adriana Menendez
Adriana is worried that Alachua County experiencing a population boom could impact the ability of already-struggling Hispanic non-English speakers to get the services they need from the county. She discusses the need to provide all services equally across the county, especially by providing information in multiple languages and transportation services to communities outside of Gainesville.
Later in the interview, Adriana talks about her anxiety related to extreme weather patterns and hurricanes worsening in our county. She brings to light the lack of safety standards for farm workers’ health including a lack of water access, shade, and air-conditioned shelters during the work day, which have caused sunstroke or fainting from the extreme heat. She suggests the county work together with farm owners to establish better safety standards for the workers responsible for our locally-grown food.
Francine Vincent
Francine Vincent is an emergency manager at Alachua County. She offers her perspective on homes in chronic flood zones, climate-related migration and affordable housing, and the need to maintain our County’s natural beauty. She discusses energy efficiency, a renewable energy transition, and the importance of protecting our springs.
Francine gives the audience a link and phone number to text (Text Alachua to 888-777) to get emergency service messages to your phone to get easy access to important information. Francine talks about recycling, living on well water, improving walkability in the County. She talks about eating locally. planting native species, and general neighborhood improvements like community centers, job training resources, and parks for kids
Bryce Jefferson
Bryce discusses Alachua County’s inclement weather emergency response and how well the County was able to push emergency information to the public, access to clean drinking water, farmers markets and fresh locally grown food. Bryce also spoke about walkability, seasonal allergies, climate anxiety, and how he would improve the county, including increasing funding to public parks.
Amy Zackowski
Amy is a local pecan farmer and speaks on the challenges that she faces in getting government assistance to transition to a more sustainable farm operation. She also discusses her discomfort with climate-related migration and its impact on local farming communities. Amy talks about planting native plants, reducing rainwater runoff and erosion, Inclement weather response and access to emergency shelters. She later speaks on climate anxiety, well water, irrigation, access to fresh locally grown food/ farmers markets, energy efficiency improvements to her home and community access to energy.
Vivian Filer
Queen Mother Mangye Naa Amiami Osuowaa Okropong I
Ms. Vivian Filer introduces herself and the history of the Cotton Club which later became the Cotton Club Museum as we know it today. Ms. Filer speaks on the issue of climate-related migration, access to farmers markets and fresh locally grown food, and whether her community’s voice is getting heard by those in power.
Ms. Filer then discusses the County’s inclement weather emergency response, local access to emergency shelters, clean fresh drinking water, climate anxiety, and access to renewable energy infrastructure. Filer speaks about spreading the word on the impact of climate in order to work on this issue collectively as a community.
Terri Bailey
Terri discusses how the government should work harder to reach out to disenfranchised groups. She speaks about mass migration, energy accessibility, information access, climate anxiety, and emergency shelter knowledge and access for residents with special needs. Terri discusses the need for a larger public education effort around to using native plants to prevent or reduce the impact of flooding, and the importance of community access to fresh food.
Roy Brown
Roy discusses his family history of local farming, and his experience with climate anxiety, and concerns around migration/overpopulation due to the additional pollution and clear-cutting of forests that come with serving a larger community. He and Pamela discuss his general distrust of the government and how he doesn’t believe that Alachua can make a renewable energy transition while still maintaining the energy reliability and resilience of the fossil fuel grid. Roy believes that to conserve Alachua’s natural resources, we must be mindful of pollution, runoff, and overpopulation.
Lilian Lem
Lilian speaks about moving and acclimating to Gainesville by joining a local community garden at UF, but struggling to find locally grown food outside of her own. She discusses how inclement weather affected her community through flooding, and while she does have access to a local emergency shelter, she is unsatisfied with the lack of information available. Lilian is willing to plant native species which helps prevent/reduce local flooding but again wishes more information was available on this topic because she believes her friends/neighbors might join in the effort. Lilian speaks on climate-related migration, recycling as well as composting.
Thomasa Ramirez
Thomasa discusses the challenges faced due to Hurricane Helene, including a tree branch falling on her family's house, causing damage and power disconnection. Thomasa and her children had to move temporarily to Newberry, 20 minutes away, to stay with a friend. Thomasa expressed concerns about the lack of public transportation and the stress on her children due to their schooling situation, as well as struggles with rental costs in Alachua and limited housing options.
Mr. Tom & Shiela Fayson
Shiela and Tom Fayson has been living in Alachua for 14 years and 60 years, respectively. Tom discusses the need for better community gardens planning, the different types of solar on his property, and their access to freshwater via a well system. Tom says that he is happy to plant native species on his property to avoid or reduce the effects of flooding.
Tom and Sheila discuss their views on how to approach climate migration, including affordable housing options and the risks to Alachua County's natural beauty if it invests too much into housing development. Tom talks about the changing weather patterns and therefore the growing season has shortened in length meaning, the amount of income he can make off of his farm is reduced as well.
Credits:
Urban Sustainability Director's Network Emergent Learning Fund Alachua County Board of County Commissioners Grace to Overcome Inc The Well Creative Productions