Citizens Rule in One Florida County

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Mary Alford: We can’t do it alone. It takes everybody to make a good county. I truly believe that. It takes us all.

Good government to me, is being fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars while providing for the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of my county.

You know, if you institute something overnight than usual here and institute it wrong. And so I’ve learned that doing it right does take time.

I’m a sixth generation, seventh generation Floridian. I’m taking care of my home in this place that I love and care about. And you know, when I think something needs to get done, I can get it done. And that’s important to me.

They have time to complain.

David Martin: Yeah.

Mary Alford: So if they’ve got time to complain, they have time to ask a question.

David Martin: I’m welcome to the Good Government show. I’m your host, Dave Martin. On this show and on every show, we highlight the many ways across the nation that government is working and working well. And there’s a lot of good government going on and Alachua County, Florida. This is Gainesville, University of Florida territory. As a Florida State Seminole, I hate to admit it, but they are creating a lot of good government in Alachua County.

I had a really good conversation with the county commissioner, Mary Alford. She boasted that she is in a very progressive county. And, you know, after talking to her, she’s right. I was really impressed with some of the ways they’re solving their critical housing shortage, a problem many counties and cities are facing. And I’ll let Commissioner Alford explain it.

But listen to her tell you how they convert shipping containers into one and two person homes. I was impressed. You will be to just listen, as the Commissioner knows personally. Jails are not a substitute for mental health treatment facilities. And she’s going to explain how they started 50 years ago with being progressive when it comes to mental health programs.

Here on the Good Government Show. We really like hearing ways that government creates not just good government, but better government. And Alachua County, they run a citizen’s academy. And if I lived in Gainesville, not that I would just know Tallahassee better. But anyway, if I did, I would definitely sign up for the Academy. Just think about that. Me, a county commissioner.

All right. Maybe not. But it’s a great idea for a program, and you want to hear about it. So join me as I talk with Mary Alford, Alachua County commissioner. And that conversation is coming up next.

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Welcome to the Good Government Show. And I am talking with a new friend and rival. This is Mary Alford from Lucia County, Florida.

Mary Alford: Alachua County.

David Martin: Alachua county, I said it, I practiced and I did it again. Mary Alford from Alachua County.

Mary Alford: That’s right.

David Martin: Is that.

Mary Alford: Better? That is right.

David Martin: All right. Now, we talked briefly. Apparently you went to some some college in the middle of the state, I heard.

Mary Alford: Oh, yes. I’m a graduate twice from the University of Florida College of Engineering.

David Martin: And I just like to say, as a Florida State alumni, we are still getting along, so that’s good.

Mary Alford: Go, Gators!

David Martin: Go, Noles! All right, so, I asked you a little bit about what was going on and Lucia County and you said we’re very progressive. We’ve got we are way ahead of, of other counties. We’re doing things no one else is doing. We’re way ahead. Is that true? And, could you prove it?

Mary Alford: Well, you know, we have the things that we’re working hard on, and, some of them are we have have to do a lot with mental health, with, criminal justice, with, affordable housing. Those are some of the major things we’re working on right now.

David Martin: So affordable housing is something. And all of these issues are things that every county in this part of is, is trying to get a handle on. Let’s start with, housing. Okay. What is something that you have done that others can learn from?

Mary Alford: Oh, gosh. So, we have three big initiatives right now. First, we’ve bought two motels, and we’ve we’re turning them into efficiency apartments. We are doing, small, houses for 1 to 2 people out of shipping containers and, shipping containers. Shipping containers.

David Martin: Yes. Okay. Explain that because I’ve seen that project.

Mary Alford: Right. And so, this took a little while for, the commissioners to wrap their heads around, but I have a background in architecture and engineering, so perfect. This is something that I’ve done in the past, but you can, build.

David Martin: These are shipping, and these are just leftover abandoned shipping containers. They could be on the deck of a ship, but not exactly.

Mary Alford: Now, now they are going, into a field and being organized into a neighborhood. Each shipping container will have a small kitchen, a bathroom, and a living sleeping area.

David Martin: And how do you modify.

Mary Alford: Them to 1 to 2 people? We,

David Martin: Do you put windows in that?

Mary Alford: We do. We and we put in windows and doors and many split air conditioners. We put in internet, we put in, insulation, we put in lighting, electrical systems. We put in a full plumbing system. The nice thing about them is it’s if we solve our housing problem, which I don’t expect is going to happen anytime soon.

So, as I said, a thousand people a day are moving to Florida, and we’re really.

David Martin: Relevant people.

Mary Alford: Today. Thousand people. It’s a new Orlando every year. Wow. And, yeah. And so the housing pressure is huge.

David Martin: Sure.

Mary Alford: But, we can get one of these containers built for less than $60,000, and it’s nice. It’s something that you and I would feel fine living in. Although it’s a little small.

David Martin: It’s a little small. I’m 62, so it’s.

Mary Alford: Well, it’s it’s all right, though.

David Martin: So it cost $60,000 to convert that to into livable.

Mary Alford: And if we, you know, and we can move them around so they are self-contained so we can pick them up and rearrange them in some other place if we want to do that, which is nice.

David Martin: Do you put them on a I mean, you don’t just put them in the ground. Do you. Put them on a frame or on.

Mary Alford: Yeah. We have a mounting system for them. So, you know, shipping containers are made to be mounted to the surface of a ship so you can mount them to the surface of the ground. Just the same way when.

David Martin: You tell someone that you’re moving, they’re going to get their own house, their own home, and it’s going to be a converted shipping container. What’s the reaction?

Mary Alford: Well, the people that we are moving into this places are folks that have been living in shelters. So they are happy to have a door. They can lock their own bathroom in their own kitchen, and to have a place of self-sufficiency that they can, you know, have an alarm clock and go to work every morning without having to rely on other systems.

David Martin: So what do they look like? A field of code to shipping containers into homes?

Mary Alford: They can look like that. Or you can, you know, hire a bunch of artists to do really nice murals on the outside. You can. So what, you coat the outside of them so they look more like a traditional home. But quite frankly, if you’re going to put something on the inside of the shipping container and then something on the outside of the shipping container, you might as well just build a wall and build a whole other thing.

Okay. So you know, the the benefit of the shipping containers is being able to pick them up and move them somewhere else if you want to, you know, if a project is finished in an area or you want to utilize that property for something else. So that’s actually an advantage, though, leaving, looking like shipping containers, but painting them and making them look nice on the outside, you know, you can kind of do both of those things.

David Martin: And when people move into them, how do they react? What do they say?

Mary Alford: Well, this is the beginning of the project, right? However, I’ve been doing this myself for a long time. Quite frankly, I have regular folks calling me on the phone, you know, every week wanting to move in to a shipping container because they’re considered cool right now. So. Okay, you know.

David Martin: Cool is good.

Mary Alford: Cool is good. So, I haven’t made the choice to live in one, but other people like the idea.

David Martin: All right.

Mary Alford: And then the other, affordable housing, project we’re doing is in the area of rental housing, and we’re providing from leftover Arpa funds. We are providing up to $15,000 per rental unit to do energy efficient upgrades in exchange for those units being maintained as affordable.

David Martin: Housing, $15,000 per.

Mary Alford: Unit.

David Martin: Per unit. That’s a lot.

Mary Alford: It is, but that’s enough to, like, replace an air conditioning system so it’s more energy efficient to put in better windows, to do some insulation, to do, energy efficient appliances, whatever it needs. The more money they get, the longer it has to remain affordable housing. So it’s it’s not you know, you don’t just get $15,000 for, you know, switching out your refrigerator.

David Martin: Does that that amount, $15,000, is that enough to do, you know, on almost a complete renovation and it is.

Mary Alford: Just unfortunately, the cost of construction right now is pretty high. However, we spent a lot of time meeting with owners of rental properties and with, property management groups before we instituted this program, and it seemed to be the right amount to do the most needed work.

David Martin: And how many properties have you worked on so far?

Mary Alford: We have about, 45 in the queue right now, so it’s not a whole lot, but we’re a small kitchen. I mean, we’re getting there in.

David Martin: By little, little by.

Mary Alford: Little. That’s people that wouldn’t have affordable housing otherwise.

David Martin: And how long have you been in kind of commission?

Mary Alford: For years.

David Martin: What prompted you to run?

Mary Alford: Well, I’d been serving on a lot of, advisory boards and other committees and things, and I got tired of advising, and I was ready to make some decisions.

David Martin: And you got over your shyness.

Mary Alford: Yeah.

David Martin: Good for you. Good.

Mary Alford: Thank you, thank you.

David Martin: You’re welcome. You also mentioned, you know, another area that’s certainly, attracting a lot of attention by government to try to do what they can with it. You talked about mental health, and I think you said earlier you had a program in place that’s been adopted nationally. Now.

Mary Alford: Yeah. So over 50 years ago, we started a hotline for folks that, were undergoing a mental health crisis. And we’ve been running, our, our hotline for, I believe it’s 53 years now. Yeah. We just, I go to a volunteer luncheon every year, and we’ve had employees that are, sorry, volunteer or have been working on that program for 50 years.

Wow. It’s pretty amazing. Yeah. But, it’s volunteer. Run. It’s 24 over seven. When the national, mental health number went into place, we just transitioned our number to that. Okay. Because we it’s we’ve we’ve already been doing it. And they actually modeled a lot of their, ideas off of the program that we started. We were the first in the nation.

David Martin: So you really were showing them, showing the nation how to how to go.

Mary Alford: Yeah, yeah.

David Martin: A lot of Gainesville.

Mary Alford: Florida that right there in Gainesville, Florida. Okay. Yeah. Who don’t don’t don’t make jokes about our mental health now. All right.

David Martin: I make jokes. Artist of okay is filled out of my battle. Health. Continuing with this mental health issue, you said you have a mental health court.

Mary Alford: Yeah. So, you know, if someone comes into court and they they have, they’re on it. They have a mental health diagnosis, they’re on medication, or it’s pretty obvious that they should be.

David Martin: Yes.

Mary Alford: Then we can.

David Martin: Which is a problem. I mean, there’s so many people who are in jail who, you know, did bad, bad and or stupid things not because they’re criminal, but because they have real mental health issues.

Mary Alford: Well, you asked me why I run for office. I have a son who is, has a schizoaffective disorder.

David Martin: Okay.

Mary Alford: And when he was younger and his illness was out of control, he was jailed. Okay. And I saw firsthand the consequence of this. And he did not have a diagnosis. And he went through the regular jail system. And because of his mental health diagnosis, it took him seven months to get through the court system and have his charges dropped to get out.

And that was devastating for my life. So having a middle.

David Martin: And mom as well.

Mary Alford: Yes, it was very difficult.

David Martin: I’m sure.

Mary Alford: And so having a mental health court so that those folks can get the specific help they need, get the medication that they need, get put into a facility if that’s where they need to go, makes a whole lot more sense than putting them into our criminal justice system, where, quite frankly, we should not ask our, you know, sheriff’s department who runs our jails to be in charge of mental health programs.

You know.

David Martin: And it has a cascading slew of positive effects, right, in that they’re not in the criminal justice system. Right? They’re not subject to, you know, the life of being in criminal justice and being in jail. With that, all the stigma goes along with and it’s.

Mary Alford: Already hard if you have a mental health diagnosis, to find housing, to find a job and to, you know, make peace with your family. And so if you can stay out of the criminal justice system and get the help that you need, then you maybe can maintain that house and that, you know, that job and all of those things.

David Martin: Well, that sounds like good government to me.

Mary Alford: If we think so.

David Martin: Good. And you also mentioned a little bit. Well, before we turn on the microphones, you have a couple of other similar court systems that are taking people out of the criminal justice courts and sort of off to other side. Right.

Mary Alford: Similarly, we have a veterans court. And so, you know, we we know that veterans have challenges with housing. They have challenges with PTSD and things like that. So this also allows us to give them the special care that they need, rather than just immediately funneling them through the normal court system and the normal criminal justice system. We are working right now to institute a gun violence court.

We don’t have this in place yet. We’re working on seeing what it looks like. But for us, we’re seeing more and more young people being jailed as adults because of gun violations. And we would like to look at the root cause of of those and look at what we can do to maybe separate those kids from, the normal criminal justice.

David Martin: Are they are they kids?

Mary Alford: Yeah. Often.

David Martin: And certainly there’s just a significant part of the population would say, well, you know, too bad you’re you’re shooting people. You’re firing off weapons. That’s a crime. Go to jail. Yeah. Why? Why do you disagree with that?

Mary Alford: Because we are taking kids that have started off doing something violent because they see it every day. They see it in video games. They see it on TV. They are, in neighborhoods where there may be gangs and guns.

David Martin: Okay.

Mary Alford: And, you know, that may be the life that they’ve all, you know, that they’ve seen and think is cool by introducing them to other things in their life, by giving them an out, then perhaps we can take that child which may turn into, you know, a career criminal. If we put them into the criminal justice system.

David Martin: Always review.

Mary Alford: Them and give them an opportunity to turn things around. That one chance could make a huge difference to and good.

David Martin: So you’re continuing with good government alternatives to the courts? Yes. And where do you think you’ll have that program going? How far away?

Mary Alford: Well, it’s our goal to get it done this in this next fiscal year. So.

David Martin: All right. So Alachua County is is working on good government.

Mary Alford: We try to think so. Yeah.

David Martin: All right. You said you were an, I think an engineer and an architect.

Mary Alford: I’m an engineer. I owned an architecture engineering consulting firm. Yes.

David Martin: And what did that bring into County government?

Mary Alford: Well, my firm specialized in sustainability. Okay. Sustainability is a balance of, taking care of the environment, but also providing, good economic decisions and equity. And so when you balance those things, like you can build the greenest building in the world, but if nobody can afford to buy it, it makes no sense.

David Martin: Right.

Mary Alford: And so balancing things like energy efficiency with, with equity, making it so that everybody can afford that energy efficient home, that’s the kind of thing that I focused on when I did affordable housing in my business. So by bringing those ideas to the table, you know, my first program that I brought was that, rental housing program where we do energy efficient.

David Martin: Energy efficient. That was your idea?

Mary Alford: That was that was my first big initiative.

David Martin: Oh, and did you get support from your fellow commissioners immediately?

Mary Alford: Yes. Oh, good. They were like, yeah, that’s a good idea.

David Martin: Where have you been? This is good. Where have you been? We could have used you. Well, that all sounds like, good government and good government ideas. But now we’re going to get to the heart of your view of government. We’re going to find out what you really think about government. All right?

Mary Alford: Okay.

David Martin: We’re going to do we’re going to do that after this.

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David Martin: All right. So this is our good government question here. Are you prepared.

Mary Alford: I hope so I have no idea what you’re going to ask.

David Martin: Exactly. That’s the.

Mary Alford: Point.

David Martin: So for years in this county Commissioner, prior to that, you said you had some consulting roles and some advocacy roles defined good government.

Mary Alford: Good government, to me is being fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars while providing for the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of my county.

David Martin: That is good government. It’s that simple.

Mary Alford: That’s that to me. That’s that simple.

David Martin: That sounds easy.

Mary Alford: That’s I don’t think it’s easy, but that’s what it is.

David Martin: Okay. So how do you you know, you’re you’re, now you’re a county commissioner. You know, when you had your own firm, it was easy to know if you were doing well. How do you judge your success now?

Mary Alford: Well, it’s budget season. Yes. And and we didn’t do the rollback rate, but we did lower the military for the seventh year in a row. So I feel good about that. Okay. So we are, trying to keep taxes under control. At the same time we are maintaining all the programs. We have nothing that we’re cutting and we’re actually adding.

Okay. And,

David Martin: Those are big picture goals. What about week to week? How do you know, how do you how do you decide?

Mary Alford: How do I decide if I’m doing a good job?

David Martin: Yes.

Mary Alford: When I go to the grocery store, okay. People walk up to me and they say, Mary, I think you’re doing a good job. Yeah. And I’m like, great. Always. There’s going to be somebody that’s going to say, have too many potholes in my road. But of course, I do listen to what people tell me. And I those day to day things people don’t know about what goes into county government.

They really don’t. Yeah, we we teach a class about it’s one of the cool things to do, but most people don’t do that.

David Martin: Tell me about this. You teach a.

Mary Alford: Class. Yeah, we have a class C.

David Martin: This is more good government.

Mary Alford: Oh, yeah. We have a class called Citizens Academy.

David Martin: I may have to stop in Gainesville.

Mary Alford: Sometimes when we run this, we run this class. We just got finished. It’s eight weeks. And for a whole Friday. Yes. We take a group of, citizens and we take them to each of the county departments. They tour the jail, they get tours, public works, you know, they get to go into the tax collectors office. See how that works?

David Martin: That must be the fun, fun, fun stuff.

Mary Alford: It’s amazing what people find interesting. Really? Sure. And and, at that end of the class, we, have a graduation ceremony, and they are almost, to a person, extremely happy and glad they took the class. And they learn things and they understand government, and then they come and they sign up for advisory groups and they occasionally run for office, which is I’m a graduate of that.

David Martin: Oh, you are.

Mary Alford: And oh. And I don’t think I would have run for office if I had not been a graduate of that program.

David Martin: Wow. How long ago did six program?

Mary Alford: About nine years ago.

David Martin: And it took you five years to decide run.

Mary Alford: Well, no, I signed up for advisory boards. Okay. And then I served on advisory boards. And then I thought, you know.

David Martin: How many how many of your alumni from your from your program got involved?

Mary Alford: Out of our commission of five commissioners, four of us are graduates of the program. Yeah.

David Martin: This is cool. What’s it called again?

Mary Alford: It’s called the, Citizens Academy.

David Martin: The Citizens Academy. And, Alachua County.

Mary Alford: Alachua again a.

David Martin: Alachua county? I’m all for three. Alachua I Alachua I’ve got to remember that. Can I just say Gainesville now? So, you mentioned that, you know, you get stopped at the grocery store, how do your, the citizens, the voters, your constituents, if they’re not getting good government other than assaulting you in the grocery store, what should they do?

Mary Alford: I encourage them to get involved. Yes. Right.

David Martin: But it’s hard. It’s hard. I don’t want I don’t have time.

Mary Alford: You know, they don’t have time that they can.

David Martin: I have other things to do. I have kids, I have little league, I.

Mary Alford: Have they have time to complain.

David Martin: Yeah.

Mary Alford: So if they’ve got time to complain they have time to ask a question. Okay. And so if you if you ask a question about what it is that you have a complaint about, then you can learn about why that there’s a problem and you can help us solve that problem, because we can’t do it alone. It takes everybody to make a good county.

I truly believe that. It takes us all. We don’t send code enforcement out to look for code violations. We count on somebody to call us up and say, hey, this guy’s piling up dead cars in his yard, you know? And then we send code enforcement out.

David Martin: Then we do, Okay. And then we do. Yeah. Do you get stopped in the stores? I mean, you know, does it take you extra time to do your grocery shopping?

Mary Alford: I try to go incognito, you know, with a baseball. Okay. No, that’s not really true, but, I. Yeah. You know, sometimes I’m in a hurry, and it’s a little frustrating, but I enjoy talking to citizens when they stop me.

David Martin: What would you said this before? You said county government is hard. What would you like people to know about government other than it’s hard?

Mary Alford: Things take time. Yeah. You know, when I first got into government, I complained a little bit about how long things took to get done.

David Martin: And now not much.

Mary Alford: And oh, now I realize that, for instance, you know, our attorney, our attorneys were like, looking to make sure that taxpayer interests were being protected. Our financial folks were looking to make sure that we were following each and every law, and that our contracts were were right and do it. And well done. You know, it’s not. And we were making policies and procedures to make sure things happened the right way.

Okay. You know, if you instituted something overnight, then usually you’re going to institute it wrong. And so I’ve learned that doing it right does take time.

David Martin: So everybody relax. We’ll get to that.

Mary Alford: Well we’re we’re getting there. We’re getting this weekend I.

David Martin: You know, one of the things I’ve heard many county commissioners and other people in government say is I don’t care how many potholes you fix, if you don’t fix the one in front of my house, you haven’t fixed the potholes, correct? Right. How do you combat that?

Mary Alford: Well, you know, I ran on roads.

David Martin: You did.

Mary Alford: I did.

David Martin: It. Sustainability.

Mary Alford: The roads were so.

David Martin: Mental.

Mary Alford: Health and. Well, I.

David Martin: Went.

Mary Alford: On I ran on, I ran on roads. Yes. Resilience. Okay. And the environment.

David Martin: Okay.

Mary Alford: And, and I tied those all together. Okay. Because we’ve made $1 billion investment in our roads. So if we are not maintaining them, we’re not taking care of our investment. Right. And, we’ve had previous commissioners that would rather spend that money on, I don’t know, more environmental things. Right. But to me, taking care of your investment, it’s the right environmental thing to do.

And the voters agreed with that. And we have gone from spending $4.5 million on roads every year to $44.5 billion on roads every year. So I feel good about that.

David Martin: What’s the best part? Just the two part question. The first part is what’s the best part of your job?

Mary Alford: The best part of my job. The best part of my job is going outside every morning and looking around and saying, this is my county. I’m a sixth generation, seventh generation Floridian. I’m taking care of my home and this place that I love and care about. And you know, when I think something needs to get done, I can get it done.

And that’s important to me.

David Martin: What’s the word.

Mary Alford: Sounds? Sounds very selfish, but no.

David Martin: No no no no. It you know, I mean, you care enough to get involved and do the work and make sure it stays that way. So no, that’s, that’s, that’s good. That’s what we want. Right.

Mary Alford: And the worst part of my job is the exact same thing, which is I go get up every morning, I go out and I look at the door and I see so many things that I that need to get changed, that need to get work done. And I and it’s it’s a lot. And you know, we’re, we’re, you know we’ve got climate disruption.

We’ve got you know, you know 700 miles of roads defects. And we’ve got all these things, but we’re getting it done. It’s just takes longer than I wish it did.

David Martin: How often do you get frustrated?

Mary Alford: I get frustrated every day. But I’m also happy every day, you know? All right, I’m like that.

David Martin: Okay, good. So you’re a newsmaker, but where do you get your news from? You make news in your county. Where do you. Where do you what do you read? What do you listen to? What do you watch?

Mary Alford: Oh, golly. Locally, for local news there, we have a couple of small local newspapers that I follow.

David Martin: Good.

Mary Alford: State wise, I’ve got a couple of, news lists that I get every morning on email and through those nationally, I read, well, I’m from a progressive county. I listen to NPR, read the New York Times and the Washington Post.

David Martin: All right.

Mary Alford: Yeah.

David Martin: That’s a that’s a good you didn’t mention podcast. Anyway, we’ll get to that another time.

Mary Alford: Yeah I do listen to podcasts. That’s that’s it’s not part of my like daily routine. It’s like it’s like I’m washing dishes. I turn on the podcast.

David Martin: Good. All right. Well, as long as you turn on every once in a while. So who’s your political hero? Did someone inspire you to do the, government work?

Mary Alford: Elizabeth Warren.

David Martin: Really?

Mary Alford: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So she had a plan for everything?

David Martin: Yes, yes she did.

Mary Alford: And, you.

David Martin: Know, I’ve applied for that.

Mary Alford: As an engineer. I really liked that. You know, she had a notebook and she’s like, all right, this question, you know, this is my and I that that type of organization appealed to me.

David Martin: All right. Have you met yet.

Mary Alford: Have I what.

David Martin: Have you met yet? You Elizabeth Warren?

Mary Alford: No, I haven’t met her. I did take her campaign training class.

David Martin: All right. Did it help you with your campaign?

Mary Alford: It did. It was special. I think she. You know what? She had a plan for.

David Martin: Do you have a plan for everything? Yeah.

Mary Alford: Strangely enough, I have a big fat plan. Notebook? Yes. Do you? Yes.

David Martin: All right.

Mary Alford: I don’t know if they’re all good plans, but I’m working on it.

David Martin: So you’re now a county commissioner? I know you said you went to school to become an engineer. Did you ever envision a career in politics? When I was president.

Mary Alford: I did not. I actually, if you test out my personality. Yes, I’m an introvert.

David Martin: Okay. You are, I am.

Mary Alford: I had to train.

David Martin: You were not shy with. Would you stop by to talk to me?

Mary Alford: Well, I was looking for a phone charger.

David Martin: Oh, sorry. We’ve got your phone charging. So. Yeah. So that’s why you stayed. Okay, I to that, but was it something you thought about? I mean, you said you were. You took a you took a class. Somebody inspired you to get involved.

Mary Alford: Well, you know, I did run for, for student government in high school.

David Martin: Did you read?

Mary Alford: I did.

David Martin: Good.

Mary Alford: And,

David Martin: Are you one of the cool kids?

Mary Alford: No.

David Martin: Okay, so the.

Mary Alford: Two there, three of us ran. Yes. The cap to the football team. The head of the cheerleaders and me.

David Martin: Okay.

Mary Alford: Well, they split the vote of the popular kids here. Bills voted for me. So, you know, I was the nerd that won. All right.

David Martin: Listen. Hey, that’s.

Mary Alford: The lesson there.

David Martin: There’s a lesson in politics, right? And with the ticket, whatever you had.

Mary Alford: And I didn’t. I didn’t plan to run it by nominated me. And and I was like, all right, I.

David Martin: And so there you are.

Mary Alford: There I am.

David Martin: But you took that, the, government academy. Did you, when you took that, did you think I there’s there’s something here for me.

Mary Alford: Well, you know, I’m an engineer and I want to do more for my town, okay? You know, and I thought, well, the best way for me to do more for my community is learn more about my community. So I took the citizens Academy, okay. And, and, I learned about all of these problems and things that I can help with.

And I signed up for those advisory boards. So they’re they’re in there in.

David Martin: And here we are now. Yeah.

Mary Alford: I signed up for code enforcement, environmental, the environmental Protection Advisory Board and for the Utility advisory Board. I served on all of those.

David Martin: But George, a little girl growing up and said, I’m going to be the first female president. That was not, you.

Mary Alford: Know, not me at all. You know, I was going to write books.

David Martin: Oh, have you read the book yet?

Mary Alford: Not one that I want to read.

David Martin: Okay. We’ll leave that alone. That, So I am coming to your town. What’s what’s the what’s your favorite local dish? What’s the what’s the local cuisine around here around Gainesville?

Mary Alford: Oh, golly. We have a really, really, good restaurant scene. I would I would probably send people to the what we call the Fourth Avenue food park.

David Martin: Okay?

Mary Alford: And it’s like a bunch of little local restaurants. We got everybody from, a local sausage maker to a little Mexican restaurant, one of our really iconic pizza makers, you know, all right down there. And so you can, like, sit around outside and there’s a stage and listen to music, and you can go try a bunch of local food all at one time.

David Martin: What’s your favorite? What’s your dish? What’s your what’s your where do you start first?

Mary Alford: Depends on what day it is. You know, if it’s Taco Tuesday, I get the taco.

David Martin: Okay. Well, we’re recording this on a Friday.

Mary Alford: So it’s on a Friday. It’s on a Friday. I’d probably get a veggie burger from Dick’s Burgers.

David Martin: Okay. All right. A veggie.

Mary Alford: Burger. Yeah. You know, if you get a, bag of burgers from Dick’s Burgers that’s labeled a bag of dicks.

David Martin: Gotcha. So that’s what you go for.

Mary Alford: But,

David Martin: Again, we’re going to leave that alone.

Mary Alford: I just had to make you laugh.

David Martin: No, it’s good for you. Well, let’s hope.

Mary Alford: This is the kind of local places we have in Gainesville.

David Martin:
Gotcha. Okay.

Mary Alford: All right, that is there.

David Martin: Is there a local Gainesville dish? Is there a local Gainesville thing?

Mary Alford: Well, you know, anything with Gator in it?

David Martin: Okay. Do you like, do you Gator like.

Mary Alford: I’m a gay. I’m. I’m a Florida girl, I be gator.

David Martin: Me too.

Mary Alford: But probably manatee. But, you know, that was a long, long time ago.

David Martin: I don’t think you can eat manatees.

Mary Alford: You can’t do that anymore.

David Martin: I don’t think that’s a good thing.

Mary Alford: No, no. And I’m not advocating anyone eating manatee, but they were. That was a food source back in the day. And I’m like, I’m a 67th generation Floridian.

David Martin: That’s a long.

Mary Alford: Time. Yeah. Back then, people eat whatever they can get their.

David Martin: Because there wasn’t much well, this is the good government show and we always bring it back to good government. You’ve given me some examples. Give me another example of some good government projects that you’ve worked on that you’re pretty excited about.

Mary Alford: Oh, golly. Let’s see.

David Martin: Take your time.

Mary Alford: There was one that I really.

David Martin: Like good government.

Mary Alford: Wanted to focus on. Yeah, we talked about all the ones I mentioned, right? Yep.

David Martin: You said you said environment was one of the issues that you ran on. Have you you been able to start an environmental project that you’re.

Mary Alford: We have multiple environmental projects, but the one that I think is probably the most important is the fact that we’ve identified how much land we need to save in our county in order to protect the groundwater, and to, protect the, the flora and fauna of our county.

David Martin: Okay.

Mary Alford: And so we now have 30% of our county under some sort of, protection. So we’ve either bought that land under under our Alachua County Forever program. Our, our citizens voted in, half penny sales tax for us to do this with. We call it wild spaces, public places. We use that.

David Martin: Money to wild spaces. Public places. Yes. Okay.

Mary Alford: And half of that money goes to half of that whole penny sales tax. Half of that goes to buy conservation land.

David Martin: All right. That is a good government project.

Mary Alford: We think. So in Alachua County. Not everybody would agree that taking money, taking land out of the tax base is a good idea. But we believe it maintains property values for everyone else and it, protects land from development. It concentrates our urban areas, and it makes sure that we always have wonderful, beautiful places to visit.

David Martin: Alachua County Commissioner, they get it right. Alachua County got it right. Yeah. Just at the end. Alachua County Commissioner Mary Alford, thank you very much. It is a pleasure to talk to you. And it’s always nice to have a good conversation with somebody from Gainesville, Florida.

Mary Alford: It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.

David Martin: Thank you. The Good Government Show is sponsored by our. That’s oh you are for our community. Get involved. We hear that all the time from government leaders. Our co-branded with your governments name and logo. Your staff and the people you serve are connected and part of your community. From any device. Your members provide reliable data and meaningful feedback.

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After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for mayors Kasim Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter, a Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt. Talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts.

Think about that. Four of the five current Alachua County commissioners are graduates of the Citizens Academy. That’s citizens who said, I want to learn more about county government. They enrolled in the program, they got involved and they ran for office and got elected just like Mary Alford did. I hope a lot of county commissioners are listening to this episode, and I hope the wheels are turning about how do we incorporate something like that into their county?

Well, if you live in Alachua County and you see Mary Alford in the grocery store, let her know how you think she’s doing. She really does want to hear, well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening to another example of how government does work for all of us. Please like us and share this with your friends and reviews right here.

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**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.