Alachua County, Cities Argue Whether Amendment Ballot Language Misled Voters
By Christian Ortega
December 15, 2020
Were Alachua County voters misled when they narrowly passed a charter amendment giving county officials the final say over land use planning and regulation in their jurisdiction?
Yes, attorneys for the cities of Archer, Alachua and Newberry told Judge Monica Brasington during a virtual hearing Monday in the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court in Gainesville.
Arguing that the amendment should be invalidated and not take effect on Jan. 1, they argued that the ballot language calling for creating a “growth management area” did not signal the actual impact: Municipalities would no longer exercise their own land use rules.