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“…Speed decided to elevate her usual celebration of Black History Month on Facebook. Almost each day in February this year, Speed spotlighted one Black leader in the local area. ‘It’s a bunch of people that don’t know the value that we have right here in Gainesville,’ Speed said. ‘I feel there’s a lot of people that don’t know the history of how much we have accomplished. ”
“Alyssa Brown, vice president of public policy for the Greater Gainesville Chamber of Commerce, said in the first rounds of PPP loans, 3,700 businesses in Alachua County received them, totaling about $267 million in funding and helping to save thousands of jobs. ‘We’re not out of the woods, but I think the first two rounds have definitely been helpful to businesses,’ she said.”
The Gainesville Sun Editorial Board
East Gainesville has long experienced a lack of access to health care and economic opportunities as compared to the west side of our community. Then the COVID-19 pandemic came along.
The pandemic has shown how long-standing racial and socioeconomic disparities affect the lives as well as livelihoods of too many Gainesville residents. Black residents in particular face higher rates of hospitalization and death from COVID-19, a problem worsened in east Gainesville by barriers to getting health care.
City Commissioner Gigi Simmons is serving her first term representing District 1, which includes east Gainesville, downtown and the Porters neighborhood where she grew up. Even before she was elected to the job, she was a community advocate who worked on such efforts as bringing GED classes, voter registration drives and an expanded crime watch program to the neighborhood.
Almost exactly one month ago The Sun published a column from me about traffic safety and the work we must do as a community to make our roads safer for everyone. I wrote, “Death on our roadways can be a thing of the past.”
Less than a week later two cars crashed into each other on University Avenue in front of the University of Florida. One of the cars skidded into a group of students waiting to cross the street. Six people were taken to a hospital and one, 18-year-old Sophia Lambert, died from injuries sustained in the accident.
To say that my words from earlier that week ring hollow to me now is the height of understatement.
Steps to cut traffic deaths are overdue keysnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from keysnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.