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2 days ago | 
ocala.com | Alan Festo
Owner of former Paramount Hotel in Gainesville wants to turn it into affordable housingThe owner of the former Paramount Plaza Hotel & Conference Center in southwest Gainesville is hoping to develop the property into an affordable housing complex. He is also looking for some assurances from local officials and nonprofits, however, that if built the rooms won't sit vacant.
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1 week ago | 
yahoo.com | Alan Festo
The University of Florida's Presidential Search Committee announced that Dr. Santa J. Ono, the current president at the University of Michigan, is the sole finalist to become the university's 14th president. Rahul Patel, chair of the search committee and a member of UF's board of trustees, made the announcement in an email to the university community on Sunday, May 4.
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2 weeks ago | 
yahoo.com | Alan Festo
(Editor's note: This is a breaking news story and will be updated.)The Alachua County School Board in a special meeting on April 24 voted 4-0 to approve a 1.3% pay raise for teachers after teachers a day earlier overwhelmingly ratified the agreed upon increase.
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4 weeks ago | 
yahoo.com | Alan Festo
The Alachua County School Board in a surprise move Tuesday voted 3-2 to end Rawlings Elementary School's participation in a year-round school state pilot program. Following a presentation to the board by Jim Kuhn, principal for K-12 school improvement, on attendance and academics at Rawlings, as well as the results of parent and staff surveys, board member Tina Certain made the motion to end the year-round school program. Board member Thomas Vu seconded the motion.
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4 weeks ago | 
golfweek.usatoday.com | Alan Festo
A proposed private golf course, Tomoka Hills, is planned for Alachua near the new Tower Hill Insurance headquarters. The course, intended for Tower Hill employees and guests, will span nearly 200 acres west of I-75. City staff recommends approval with conditions, including groundwater monitoring and a review process if public access is ever granted.
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1 month ago | 
yahoo.com | Alan Festo
Gainesville residents were battered early Friday evening with a mix of rain, hail and wind. "It's a lot of cold air aloft with pretty warm air at the surface and some drier air initially at the beginning and then moistening up at the surface really quickly, and that kind of sets the state for this type of situation," a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jacksonville said. A second line of storms with hail is expected around 8:30 p.m. Friday.
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1 month ago | 
usatoday.com | Alan Festo
• Plavac's listed address raises residency questions, as it falls within District 1, not District 5. Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday appointed Janine Plavac, director of the Health Sciences Institute at St. Francis Catholic Academy in Gainesville, to fill the Alachua County School Board District 5 seat vacated in mid-December by Kay Abbitt. Abbitt, who was elected to the District 5 seat in 2022, resigned from the board on Dec.
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1 month ago | 
yahoo.com | Alan Festo
At least four people have applied to fill the Alachua County School Board District 5 seat vacated in mid-December by Kay Abbitt, including her husband, a former associate instructional professor at the University of Florida. Kay Abbitt, who was elected to the District 5 seat in 2022, resigned from the board on Dec. 17 to serve as interim director of Boulware Springs Charter School, the school she founded with her daughter, Megan Lane, in 2013.
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1 month ago | 
yahoo.com | Alan Festo
Two restaurants in Alachua County, one of which held its grand opening less than three months ago, have permanently closed. Wild Pie, a 100% plant-based pizzeria on the ground floor of The Hub on Campus Gainesville 3rd Ave, wrote in an April 3 Facebook post that the "difficult decision" to close had been made. "After exhausting all efforts, we've made the difficult decision to close our Gainesville location and bring Wild Pie to an official close.
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1 month ago | 
yahoo.com | Alan Festo
Gainesville residents whose daily commute takes them past National Vacuum on Northwest Sixth Street are accustomed to seeing the funny, quirky and sometimes political messages that have graced the business's marquee for decades. Those who have driven by this week have observed a somber but fitting tribute to the man behind those messages. "Rest in Peace Bob deRochemont / The Man Behind the Sign," reads the sign flanked by National Vacuum's two signature 1959 Cadillacs.
