This year is going to be a year of change for the City of Gainesville, in more ways than one. The voters will be electing four new commissioners in August. That is a majority of the seats, including Mayor and Districts 2, 3, and 4, so this election will really decide the future of our city.

It will also be the very first time voters will vote in August, which was moved from March after Gainesville voters approved a charter change in 2018 by 71%. Those aren't the only changes though: voters will also be voting in entirely new districts after the City Commission went through our once-a-decade redistricting process.

Let’s talk about what those new districts look like, what that means for the electorate for those districts, who is running, and how these changes will affect you:

This is a good question. We have seven elected positions for the Gainesville City Commission: the mayor, two at-large seats, and 4 district seats. The Mayor and At-Large seats are elected city-wide and the candidates can come from anywhere in the city. The four district seats are elected from four district-specific areas where only the voters of that district can vote and only candidates that live in that district can run.

There are four local races Gainesville voters will be voting on, which make up a majority of the 7-member city commission. Everyone in the city will be deciding on who will succeed Lauren Poe as mayor. There are also three of the four district seats up for election. These seats are replacing Comm. Harvey Ward (Dist 2), Comm. David Arreola (Dist 3), and Comm. Adrian Hayes-Santos (Dist 4). No one is running for re-election as they are all term-limited out, so all (aside from mayor) will be entirely new people.

All of these races are being voted on August 23rd, 2022, and if any candidate wins 50% they will win the election. If no candidate wins 50% then the top two candidates will be in a runoff election during the general on November 8th.

As I said above, everyone in the city can vote for Gainesville Mayor. If you live in the East-Side District, District 1, that is the only race you'll be able to vote in. If you live in any of the other three districts you will be electing both Mayor and your district commissioner. The lines for those have all changed this year, so the best way to know is by looking at this handy map that was created in Districtbuilder:

Let me go into the changes in a bit more detail though and give some background on each one:

Current Commissioner: Desmond Duncan Walker

Up for election: 2024

Candidates: N/A

Gainesville City Commission District 1 is the legacy majority/minority seat that was created to ensure African-American Gainesvilleians have a voice on the commission. It is currently held by Desmond Duncan-Walker who is midway through her first term. If you live in this district you will not be voting for a commissioner this year, only the mayor.

This district has had the least amount of changes to it, and the changes that are there were based on trying to follow the State House and State Senate maps as closely as possible to minimize split precincts. It remains a majority-Black district both by who lives there and who votes there, which was the top priority of the Commission (as it should be in my opinion). There are some changes for people living off of 13th street, but those are relatively minimal.

Current Commissioner: Harvey Ward

Up for election: 2022

Candidates: Jo Lee Beatty, Ed Book, James Ingle, Mike Raburn

City Commission District 2 is the North-West district and has historically been the most conservative of the four districts. That has changed over the years as it's currently held by Harvey Ward, who is not a conservative, but the district still boasts a more moderate and conservative electorate than the rest of our (very) liberal city. It will be up for election in August with a fairly large group of candidates having filed already (see above).

District 2 grew during redistricting and now encompasses all of the neighborhoods south of 16th to the neighborhoods off of Newberry Road that were previously in District 3. It also lost all of the neighborhoods east of 13th Street, which are now in District 4. Redistricting split the Brywood neighborhood, so if you live there I would check closely to see whether you're in District 4 or 2.

Current Commissioner: David Arreola

Up for election: 2022

Candidates: Casey Willits, DeJeon Cain, Patrick Ingle

City Commission District 3 is the district that saw the most radical changes to it. This district encompasses the apartments off of Archer Road. It then goes north and encompasses all the apartments through Butler Plaza and off of 20th. It then snakes up the far west side of the city encompassing the apartments west of 62nd boulevard. It's a strange enough district that, if you think you may live here, it behooves you to just check out the map and be sure.

What is interesting about this district is it's a firmly multi-family, student and working-class district. Previously this population was split between District 3 and District 4 with the more established neighborhoods to the North dominating the politics of those districts, but that is no more. No one is sure what that will bring, but the hope is that a commissioner focused on the unique needs of that community will come forward and advocate for their issues on things like bus service, traffic, and other specific South-West community issues.

Current Commissioner: Adrian Hayes-Santos

Up for election: 2022

Candidates: Bryan Eastman, Christian Newman

If you've made it this far down, welcome! This is the district I'm running for and I hope I have your vote.

District 4 has also changed radically in this redistricting. Historically this district was the Duckpond-College Park-University of Florida District, which it still is. But the apartments to the south are now put in to District 3, and to make up for that District 4 grows north-west encompassing what was previously District 2 and District 3. These include the neighborhoods of Ridgewood, Raintree, Brywood, Forest Ridge, Stephen Foster, Golfview, and a few more. It also includes the previous District 2 neighborhoods on the North East Side.

District 4 has historically been the most progressive district in Gainesville, which it still remains with the new maps. Currently there are only two candidates for this district, myself and a gentleman named Christian Newman. Whoever you support just make sure you get out and vote in August, which as I said will be an important election.

Not particularly, except that this election is going to be critical for the future of Gainesville and you should really do your homework on the Candidates for office and vote. I hope I have your vote, but even if I don't this is going to be a change election which will really decide where our city goes in the future, and your voice will really matter in it.

On top of that make sure you're up to date on your vote by mail and precincts. In addition to the new districts there are new precincts as well (these aren't live on the Supervisors website but we'll update this blog post once that is). So if you vote on election day make sure you know where you’re going.

Also verify your vote by mail. The Republican legislature has been tamping down on vote-by-mail for arbitrary, partisan reasons and your status needs to be renewed once a cycle now. Don't let the bastards win: make sure you get your vote by mail if that is something you want. You can check your vote-by-mail status here and request a ballot here.

The most important thing is that everyone make their voice heard. Get out and vote and support candidates that will listen to the people and have a real vision for how our community moves forward.