Gordon for Mayor (Gainesville, FL)

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This is the official GoFundMe effort for Gordon For Mayor campaign. My name is Gary Gordon and I served on the Gainesville City Commission 1983-86; in '85-'86 I was Mayor-Commissioner. Now the Mayor is directly elected.

When I served Developers we didn't rubber-stamp approvals or let them dominate City Hall; when I served, the utilities, owned by the city, were well-run.

Prior to my election, I was an environmental activist. I broadened my activities to include attention to neighborhoods, city planning and especially the city and utility budgets.

In addition to that public service, I spent 19 years as the Executive Director of a business association, mostly small businesses, working with neighborhoods, interacting every week with the elected officials and city staff on behalf of the merchants.

Municipal politics and local government are my wheelhouse.

I am running because I can't enthusiastically or even reluctantly vote for any of the top three current candidates.

The city's financial affairs are a mess. Most of the Commission behaves toward citizen participation as if it's a nuisance; they behave imperially. Land use and zoning decisions have essentially been turned over to developers.

The city talks about affordable housing but what they work to approve isn't affordable, and their current move to eliminate single-family zoning and replace it with developer and investor-instigated multi-unit rental dwellings is pernicious and cynical.

They have allowed the utility system to incur massive debt and that alone is a reason not to vote for any of the current Commissioners running for Mayor.

One person can't clean up a mess. But I didn't make the mess and I can contribute to the clean-up.

The solutions won't be easy and will take time. Slogans like "New American City" and "Urban Design" and "We need affordable housing," are empty.

Statements like "people are moving here, we must build housing for them," while at the same time pursuing gentrification (the destruction of existing neighborhoods) don't respond to the needs of the people who are already here.

As I've talked with people over the last four and a half years one common question is asked: "How did that happen?" And answer is a majority of the Commission voted for it, failed to reject it, failed to stop it.

Then I hear "But [name] is such a nice person," or "I didn't know [name] voted for that! That's not why we elected [name].

With the decline of the local newspaper and the increasing number of city meetings, it is hard for people to keep track which is why sometimes when a person does show up they're shocked-- and they say so-- at the position someone they voted for is taking.

My promise to the people of Gainesville is to work to solve the problems and address the needs, and especially to involve the people in those decisions.

I ask for your support.

Gary Gordon