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Alachua resident designs and creates works of art

Photo 1: Working out of her home, Alachua resident Linn Check-Mathis is still doing what she loves – creating stained glass pieces of art, many of which have been installed in area churches. Photo 2: The stained glass window for The Family Church in Gainesville is one of the more difficult pieces Check-Mathis has created.  The large window had 13 separate sections with over 800 pieces of glass in the entire work.

ALACHUA – Light speckled through the red and green stained glass. Linn Check-Mathis had been meaning to place such a stained glass window in the door since she and her husband moved in 10 years ago, but hadn’t gotten around to it until the last three or four years.

It’s kind of like the shoemakers’ kids running around without shoes, she said.

The 67-year-old Alachua resident is the founder of North Florida Stained Glass, which she runs out of her home. She’s been working in the art since the 1980s, and in the past she had a shop on Alachua’s Main Street.

“After 32 years, I’m so lucky I still love what I do,” she said.

One of her most recent pieces is a large stained glass window for St. John’s United Methodist Church in Alachua. Shades of yellow, red, green and a hint of blue make up the color palette of the window. It was installed just in time for Sunday morning’s Easter service.

Charlie Fink, a trustee with the church, said he was stunned by how quickly the window was finished. It was greatly appreciated in the sunrise service on Easter Sunday.

“It was absolutely stunning to just watch the windows come to life as the sun rose over the horizon,” Fink said.

Linn’s passion for her art began in Rockford, Mich., where she started taking classes in making stained class. After taking a part-time job at a stained-glass business, she moved up to management. She then moved to Alachua, where she founded her own shop.

Her art even led her to find her husband, Rich Mathis. He had been taking glass art classes in Gainesville at the time. Linn was wearing a shirt that said, “Star light, Star bright, Where the Hell is Mr. Right?” when he walked into her shop under the blinking light on Alachua’s Main Street. A couple of years later, the couple was walking down the aisle.

Her career has also led her to integrate others’ stories into her art.

When she created a stained glass for Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Gainesville after it burned to the ground, she was able to incorporate some of the ashes from the burned building in the window. Another customer wanted a window, so she made the illusion of a window out of an old window frame.

These days, Check-Mathis does commission pieces and is experimenting with other forms of glass art. She said she could never leave her line of work that allows such creativity and freedom.

“If I had to go back to a nine to five job, I’d be in serious trouble,” she said.

The glass pieces, which can be as large as 8-by-12 feet, can be physically difficult, she said. One of the more difficult pieces she’s done was a stained glass window for The Family Church in Gainesville. The large window had 13 separate sections with over 800 pieces of glass in the entire work.

The dark blue background of the window contrasts the large gold cross outlined in radiating lines of red. She admits she didn’t know if all of the pieces would match up until after it was installed.

Stained glass pieces can take anywhere from three weeks to three months to complete. First, she sketches out what she wants the piece to look like and replicates that sketch to make it true to scale. Then, she hand cuts the glass and lines it with a special metal to hold the pieces together. After the glass pieces are soldered together, they are installed.

Check-Mathis said creating a stable window has always been important to her. She wanted to prove wrong those who said women couldn’t make stable stained glass and create a quality product for her customers, she said.

Check-Mathis isn’t limited to just making stained glass pieces. She also began experimenting with fused glass and jewelry in the past couple of months.

“The list of what I want to do gets longer as I get older, not shorter,” she said.

A round glass plate with a smiling cat wearing a cheese hat rests on a table. Her inspiration for the piece was a love for her cat, Bobbi, and the Green Bay Packers.

A fused plate like the one of her cat may go into the kiln four separate times before it’s completely finished.

She said she finds the new types of glass art she’s been working with refreshing. Each piece she works on, Check-Mathis sees as a different challenge.

“Every one has its own potential to be fun and different and exciting,” she said.

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Finance Services Director Helen McIver said the Alachua County Property Appraisers’ Office estimated a 5 percent drop in property values for the 2012-2013 fiscal year, which will equate to approximately $60,000 to $70,000 less in ad valorem taxes than the city received this year. The budget revenues already reflect a $1.5 million reduction in total revenues from the 2010-2011 fiscal year to the current year.

In addition, the Florida Supreme Court is considering a case about the state employee pension fund. If the court settles in favor of employees, the city may have to pay back a 3 percent reduction in retirement benefits that was instituted as a result of a State of Florida mandate. Commissioners suggested setting aside a reserve fund to be prepared for either outcome.

“It’s going to be a tough budget year,” Vice-Mayor Bob Barnas said.

The budget meeting falls on the heels of the commission voting to bring back the emergency dispatch center to the High Springs Police Department.  During the budget workshop, the commission decided to budget for one dispatch supervisor and five dispatchers.  The anticipated cost of the dispatch will be $268,925 for the 2012-2013 budget compared to $143,285 in 2011-2012. Dispatch services are currently handled through the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office Combined Communication Center (CCC).

“Communications is the one that concerns me because of what we have to fund this budget year for next year’s operations, and that’s money that’s got to come out now,” Commissioner Scott Jamison said. “We need to figure out where we’re going to get it.”

Total expenditures from the police department operations have fallen from $1,044,788 in the adopted 2011-2012 budget to $937,318 for the proposed 2012-2013 budget. City Manager Jeri Langman said High Springs will have to fund approximately $54,000 to $75,000 in the current fiscal year to purchase equipment and software, and to begin training employees. The dispatch console alone will cost an estimated $40,000.

In addition, the city’s fire department proposed adding three firefighters and one administrative assistant. The addition will increase that portion of the budget from $507,650 in the previous fiscal year to a proposed $615,600 in 2012-2013 for personnel service costs.

According to the Fire Chief, Bruce Gillingham, the fire department needs more firemen to create a safe environment and improve fire response time. Currently, he said the response time is seven to eight minutes for a downtown call, but a typical fire will consume a house in 11 minutes.

“All I’m trying to do is raise the quality of care we are providing,” Gillingham said.

Commissioner Sue Weller said she would like to keep a full-time Parks and Recreation Director on staff, if possible. Other commissioners agreed. Barnas said he enjoyed the previous director’s contributions to the city, citing Music in the Park.

Barnas said he wants to look at cutting employee health benefits and getting rid of the tag agency to lower city costs.

“We’re going to have to change – dramatically change – what we contribute as a city to health benefits,” Barnas said.

If the employees want to stay with their current plan, Barnas said the employees will have to pay the difference between what the city can pay next fiscal year and the total cost of the plan. McIver estimates the city will pay $6,500 per employee for 45 to 50 employees in the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

Although McIver had estimates on reductions in property taxes, the revenue side of the budget has not been formally prepared.

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The ad valorem tax revenue decrease is the result of a recent property assessment of Vulcan Materials Company, formally known as Florida Rock Industries Inc.

Disregarding Community Development Block Grant revenues and expenditures, anticipated revenues are down 5.6 percent and anticipated expenditures are down 7.3 percent.

One suggestion from City Manager Keith Ashby included reworking city positions. After City Clerk Gayle B. Pons retires, Ashby proposed that current Deputy City Clerk Judy Rice be promoted to City Clerk. The position of Deputy City Clerk would be abolished.

To offset a projected 20 percent increase in healthcare costs, city staff proposed charging city employees $25 a month to offset the cost, which would bring in $17,000, half of the anticipated increase.  Another option would be to offer employees a $350 monthly stipend, which would save the city a projected $49,000.

There was also discussion about transferring money from utility reserves to mitigate the deficit.  The commission will continue budget and personnel discussions in the coming weeks.

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During the April 26 meeting, Commission Scott Jamison said he was concerned that Plantation Oaks did not meet the guidelines required by the ordinance for tax exemption.  The exemption would grant Plantation Oaks a 60 percent reduction in taxes for six years.

“It concerns me a little bit that we are looking at approving something that doesn’t fit any of the criteria in an ordinance that we put forth,” Jamison said.

The ordinance requires at least 25 non-manufacturing employees for a new business, which Plantation Oaks does not meet. To calculate the possible tax reduction, the commission took into account the number of employees and average employee wages.

A majority of the commission felt that the business should be granted the exemption in hopes of creating  a business-friendly environment in the city. The intent was to give benefits and breaks to business coming in, said Commissioner Linda Gestrin.

High Springs city attorney Raymond Ivey said the commission can grant a waiver for Plantation Oaks, but warned that doing so for a business not meeting the requirement could open the door to others requesting the same treatment.

“This is a business that has added employment to the city, has bent over backward to help the city,” Vice-Mayor Bob Barnas said at an earlier meeting. “If we want to continue to invite businesses to come to town, this is something that we said we were going to do years ago in economic developments and incentives. It will go to the county, and they will review it.”

On March 20, Mayor Dean Davis said the owner of Plantation Oaks purchased the building for $2 million. Previously a conference center for Seventh Day Adventists, the building was not on the tax rolls, but the taxes expected from the business for this year total $51,000 to $53,000. According to Barnas, the business pays $12,000 to the city in taxes.

At the May 24 meeting, Commissioner Sue Weller made the motion to pass the application along to the Council of Economic Outreach. Commissioner Scott Jamison voted against the measure citing the applicant’s failure to not meet the required guidelines. The motion passed four to one.

“They are helping our city,” Davis said.

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With former city manager John Glanzer’s resignation effective May 11, the commission is pressing forward to find a replacement.

Commissioners shared their thoughts on each candidate after their one-on-one interviews with them last week. City commissioners Fletcher Hope and Blanch Parker and Vice Mayor Marjorie Zander were present out of the five officials who will chose the new city manger for Archer.

Fourteen applications were submitted in response to advertisements for the city manager position, which was posted at the end of April. Each commission reviewed the applications and rated them based on a grading rubric with 10 to 12 different criteria.

Only five of the original 14 candidates made it to the second phase in the process, and they were given an hour interview with each commissioner separately.

The five candidates are Carlos Tobar, Judith Jankosky, George Hayfield, Craig Gould and Al Grieshaber.

Despite the progress in the application process, the city commission is still accepting applications for the position. The application process will stay open until the position is filled.

City Commissioner Fletcher Hope said, “If it takes us until September, I don’t want it to be until September, October, we need to make sure we have the correct review of profile and criteria for the right fit for Archer.

“I don’t want to slow it down, but I don’t want to rush it either, because we’re frightened of a budget final,” he said. “That’s why we did what we did at an expense to carry John Mayberry on as a temporary employee, and we quickly made sure we had our interim stuff taken care of,” Hope said.

The salary cap for the position is $75,000 including salary and benefits. Applicants are offered the option to give their preferred salary range on the application.

Some of the candidates have previous municipal experience and others have had leadership experience elsewhere.

Hope and Parker were both impressed by Carlos Tobar who has paid and unpaid experience in municipal government in Tampa, Jacksonville and California.

Parker said Tobar had plans for the recreation department that didn’t cost the city any money.

Commissioners Hope and Parker both agreed that someone with diverse skills would be a good fit for Archer.

“We’re so small we just have to get somebody that’s able to do not just the job in the office but they got to be able to move and do,” Parker said.

The city manager candidates are expected to be on the agenda for the next city commission meeting scheduled for June 11.

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SEE COMPLETE VIDEO HERE

LANGMAN'S DETAILED MEMO TO MAYOR DEAN DAVIS HERE

Below is a prepared statement that was released as High Springs City Manager Jeri Langman called for Vice-Mayor Bob Barnas to resign this morning, Friday, June 8.

My name is Jeri Langman. I am City Manager for the City of High Springs. I am here today to call for the resignation of Vice-Mayor Barnas for egregious and repeated Violations of the Charter of High Springs. The City of High Springs has a manager/commission form of government. The City Manager runs the day to day operations and the City Commission makes policy, which the Manager carries out. While it is true the City Manager serves at the pleasure of the City Commission, he or she serves at the Commission’s pleasure collectively, as a Board. The City Manager cannot be directed by any one Commissioner. Our City Charter is very clear:

(b) Duties. The mayor shall preside at meetings of the commission and shall be recognized as head of the city government for service of process, ceremonial matters, and execution of contracts, deeds, and others documents. The mayor shall have no administrative duties other than those necessary to accomplish these duties.

All powers of the city shall be vested in the city commission except those powers specifically given to the charter officers or specifically reserved by this Charter to the electors of the city.

The city manager, when necessary, shall appoint, suspend, demote, or dismiss any city employee under his jurisdiction in accordance with law and the personnel rules, …….. The city manager shall direct and supervise the administration of all departments of the city except the offices of city clerk and city attorney and ….. shall see that all laws, Charter provisions, ordinances, resolutions, and other acts of the commission subject to enforcement by him are faithfully executed.

Section 2.06. - Commission-employee relationship.

Neither the city commission nor any of its members shall in any manner dictate the appointment or removal of any city employee except the charter officers, nor shall the commission or any of its members give orders to any employee other than commission orders to a charter officer. The commission or its members shall deal on all matters through the appropriate charter officer.

Since I was appointed City Manager Vice-Mayor Barnas has attempted to run the day to day operations of the City of High Springs by directing me to take various actions. He is a rogue Commissioner. I was directed by Barnas to fire Christian Popoli. I refused. Christian was a competent employee and I relied  him to help me manage the City. Because I refused to fire him, Vice-Commissioner Barnas manipulated the budget to eliminate Christian’s position. Vice Mayor Barnas then pushed this budget change through the Commission without explaining his true motives to the public or even to all of the Commissioners.

I have voluminous e-mail from Vice Mayor Barnas where he has attempted to direct my every move in this office. He has done this without Commission approval or direction, or even knowledge by some of the other Commissioners. Every time he does this he is violating the Charter of the City of High Springs.

Vice Mayor Barnas has been attempting to negotiate contracts on behalf of the City of High Springs without Commission direction, approval or knowledge. This is a direct violation of the Charter of the City of High Springs.  He has been writing letters on behalf of the City of High Springs without Commission direction, approval or knowledge. This is a direct violation of the Charter of the City of High Springs. He has been directing City staff on his own without my direction, approval or even knowledge. This is a direct violation of the Charter of the City of High Springs. He has constantly directed me to direct staff in a certain and specific manner and each time he does this he is violating the City of High Springs Charter. It is my duty as City Manager to see that all laws, Charter provisions, ordinances, (and) resolutions, …..subject to enforcement by (me)…. are faithfully executed.

Therefore, as a result of Vice Mayor Barnas’ repeated refusal to follow the law of the Charter of High Springs I am calling for him to do the right thing and step down from his position as a High Springs Commissioner immediately.

I will be filing a formal complaint with the State Attorney and Governor’s office as soon as the paper work is completed. Thank you all for coming.