A Zaxby's employee relaxes for a moment after the line dies down at the grand opening. Business would pick up again in the afternoon after school let out.

ALACHUA – Passing traffic on U.S. Highway 441 could see the glint of the gold scissors used to slice through the thick blue ribbon being held in front of a long-awaited Zaxby’s.

A crowd of citizens, city officials and owners of the newly opened Zaxby’s stood behind the blue ribbon grinning from ear-to-ear for a photo for local newspapers and magazines.

On Tuesday Oct. 7, the City of Alachua said hello to their first, and so far, only Zaxby’s restaurant. Located just past the intersection of Interstate 75 and U.S. 441, the restaurant has been anticipated by the Alachua community since the announcement of its opening, according to some who attended the event.

Zaxby’s owner, Brooks Haisten, chose the location so that Alachua and High Springs residents, in addition to interstate travelers would be able to enjoy the restaurant’s menu.

With news that the students from the high schools would be coming to the restaurant after school that day, Haisten said he was nervous about the rush of business within such a short period of time, but was excited to see how it would turn out.

However, Haisten would be the first customer of his establishment, not the students or hungry travelers. After purchasing his meal, he took a moment to enjoy the first of many Zaxby’s chicken sandwiches the restaurant would sell.

Alachua City Commissioner Ben Boukari, Jr., and Mayor Gib Coerper were also among the people at the opening.  

The first purchase is something Haisten has done a few times now. This is not his first restaurant. He bought his first Zaxby’s 11 years ago, and now owns three of the restaurants. He is working on opening a fourth in Crawfordville, just south of Tallahassee.

After Haisten, David Flinchum, president of the Alachua Chamber of Commerce bought a chicken finger plate and sat down to enjoy it in the newly furnished dining room while the Dave Matthews Band played through the speakers.

He said the restaurant will help the local economy.

“It’s going to be a boon,” he said. “It’s definitely something people have been anticipating.”

The new business has added several jobs to the city of Alachua. Haisten chose to hire locally, rather than recruit employees from the nearby cities.

“The team members, cooks and cashiers, with the exception of two of them, they are all hired locally,” he said.

One of those exceptions is manager Steven Schnieders, a seven-year veteran of the Zaxby’s franchise. Schnieders said he is excited to see the reception of Zaxby’s from Alachua residents

“The word around the staff is that everyone in Alachua is excited,” Schnieders said. “I really hope that we can give that great experience.”

With business just starting and the community buzzing about that new fried chicken restaurant, Schnieders is sure that Zaxbys will be a hit for some time.

“I don’t think it’s going to die down anytime soon,” he said.

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GAINESVILLE – In a half-empty office, with only a few boxes remaining, half packed, Superintendent Dan Boyd, sits in a chair at an empty table and talks about his last few days in office.

Boyd, 72, left his position as superintendent of Alachua County on Monday evening after serving as a Florida educator for, what Boyd would say, 49 and a quarter years. Of those 49 and a quarter, Boyd spent nine of them as the superintendent.

His last week in office has not been like a normal week. Between school events and packing his office up, it’s been much more hectic than usual, he said. Some of the stress comes from the number of celebrations he’s been to, most notably Gainesville High School’s commemorative event for him Wednesday, Sept. 25.

“I enjoyed it,” Boyd said. “It was nice. I got to see a lot of former teachers and people in the community that have meant a lot to me. It was a nice way to say goodbye.”

Of all the schools in Alachua County, Gainesville High School is the one that stands out the most for him. Like the first-born son to a mother and father, Gainesville High School sealed its place in Boyd’s heart as he spent 24 years there as the principal, he said.

Even if his last week at work was slow and calm, Boyd still wouldn’t regret his decision to retire three years early. He’s ready to read, hunt and spend time with his family.

“I’ll get a book and get up in a tree and sit there all day and read and watch to see what comes down the trail, and if it’s something good, then so be it,” Boyd said.

Boyd won’t just be focusing on his recreational activities like hunting and reading, but he’s excited to spend time with his daughters and grandchildren as well. His oldest granddaughter is going into ninth grade at Gainesville High School next year, and Boyd is interested in seeing her experience the high school where he worked for the majority of his career.

While Boyd is confident with his decision to retire, he won’t forget his proudest moments in his career. He will always be known for becoming a principal at Gainesville High School in 1971, he said, as tension between races grew shortly after desegregation.

During a time of serious racial conflict, Boyd looked to student government and sports to bring together the students and instill a sense of school pride. After three years of integrated sports, clubs and band, tensions began to ease, Boyd said.

Later in Boyd’s career when he became superintendent, he looked to unite the Alachua County Middle schools the same way he brought the students of Gainesville High School together, through sports. With a lot of work and campaigning for sports at middle schools, Boyd was granted approval to install three small sports into each of the middle schools. They were girls and boys basketball, volleyball and soccer.

“I have never missed a final or championship game the entire time I’ve been here,” Boyd said.

But his biggest and most memorable achievement is when Gainesville High School received a sports complex after a 20-year struggle to have one built, he said. The sports complex was built while he was still a principal for the school, but when he left it was named after him.

“They even named it in my honor when I left in 1995,” Boyd said. “It was called the W.D. Boyd Education Athletic Complex. I guess it was named for me because I stuck with it for 20 years.”

But in that mostly empty office that still held those half packed boxes, on his final day there, Boyd offered a piece of advice to all future superintendents: Trust the people you work with and to remember everyone is different, nobody is the same.

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ALACHUA - Robert Wilford, Alachua city commissioner, was watching television at his home in Turkey Creek when his wife told him to come outside and listen.

“It sounded like a jet engine,” he said.

They heard the newly operational Gainesville Renewable Energy Center (GREC) generating electricity. Since late August, when the GREC biomass plant started running, some residents of Turkey Creek in Alachua have been vocal about the noise and dust pollution coming from the energy center.

On the Sept. 23 city commission meeting in Alachua, about three dozen residents came to the commissioners with their grievances.

“It’s definitely something that’s affecting a lot of people,” said Adam Boukari, assistant city manager. “It’s a really serious issue.”

In 2010, residents of Turkey Creek were assured they wouldn’t even know the biomass plant was there, Wilford said. State-of-the-art technology was supposed to minimize noise and pollution, but that didn’t happen, he said.

“When they cranked it up in August and the noise came up, it was a total shock to everybody,” he said.

One neighbor reported the plant was running at 3:30 a.m. on Monday morning.

Alachua County is focusing its efforts on putting people in touch with the right agency, said Chris Bird, director of the Environmental Protection Department. Since the biomass plant is in Gainesville, the Gainesville Police Department (GPD) is in charge of enforcing the city’s noise ordinances. The Alachua County Environmental Protection Department is responsible for looking into the issue of dust pollution coming from the wood piles at the plant.

The complaints at the Sept. 23 city commission meeting were evenly split between the issues of noise and dust pollution, Boukari said.

The commission voted to send letters out to several officials, including county commissioners, city commissioners, the county manager, state legislators and U.S. senators.

The city is encouraging Alachua residents to reach out and voice their concerns, he said, and will listen for feedback.

“We’re keeping our ears close to the ground,” Boukari said.

The county’s environmental protection agency will conduct tests to measure the amount of wood dust in the air, Bird said. It has already established wood piles at the plant as the source of the pollution, but the extent is still unclear.

Some employees of the nearby compound for the Alachua County public works department have complained about health problems.

“We’ve had reports of irritated eyes, nose and throats, congestion and breathing issues,” he said.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) doesn’t allow fugitive dust particles. If the plant is found in violation of DEP guidelines, it could be ordered to fix the problem or face a fine if it doesn’t comply. It could also face losing some of its permits.

“Hopefully, what people are complaining about is going to get fixed,” Bird said.

The last few months have been rainy, but he wondered what would happen under dryer conditions, where the dust would be more susceptible to getting blown into the air.

“What happens when we get into a drought?” he asked. “GREC needs to figure out how to manage this dust so it doesn’t become a problem during a drought.”

Commissioner Wilford was diagnosed with chronic bronchitis two years ago, and worries about the effect the pollution might have on his health.

“If it’s not cleared up, certainly I will be concerned,” he said.

He wrote an email to several local officials expressing his dissatisfaction with the biomass plant.

“I realize that you are being bombarded with a plethora of complaints regarding GREC's operations. Being brutally candid, based on the manner in which GREC is failing to address the many valid concerns being expressed by residents of the Turkey Creek, Brooke Pointe and Staghorn subdivisions, residents of the Town of Hague, residents of the manufactured home subdivision located across from the Turkey Creek subdivision, and also some residents of non-incorporated Alachua County who live close to the center, you and the management of GREC have ignominiously earned the wrath of the many individuals and families who are being continually and adversely impacted by your center's questionable operations and the obvious lack of regard for our individual rights,” he wrote.

County commissioners have received several similar emails from other residents.

“If this noise continues, I will be forced to go to a fine rated motel and I will send you'll the invoice,” wrote Paul Yatsko, from Alachua. “You need to close this operation down until all the noise and dirt problems are solved.”

County Commissioner Susan Baird said that like Wilford, she was told the plant wouldn’t be a problem.

“As a county commissioner, I think it’s our responsibility to examine these noise levels right away,” she said. “When 30 people show up at a city meeting, there’s a problem.”

Rick Wolf, assistant director of the county’s Department of Growth Management, wrote to Baird saying the maximum noise level for a commercial property is 60 decibels during the day and 66 during the night. Any facility in violation will be considered a noise disturbance, he said.

Because the source of the noise is in Gainesville and most of the complaints are coming from the city of Alachua, the county probably doesn’t have the jurisdiction to do anything, Wolf said. A meeting is planned for Oct. 8, where the county will hopefully decide on a policy, he said.

GREC has hired consultants to perform their own tests.

Alachua City Commissioner Ben Boukari spoke with GREC representatives on Sept. 30, according to an email he wrote to the county commission.

“What I have learned is that GREC doesn’t deny there is a noise issue,” he wrote. “They are waiting for information to come back to them that will allow them to identify what specifically is causing the noise.”

GREC experts expect to have the information in two weeks, he wrote.

Local law enforcement has already performed some preliminary tests which showed the noise level, while loud, was below the legal limit, said Ben Tobias, spokesman for the GPD. However, the tests were only taken over a period of one night, and are not necessarily indicative of the average volume level of the plant. For a more accurate understanding, tests will have to be conducted over a longer period of time.

“The issue is obviously not resolved,” Tobias said. “We’re not just going to stop with one set of measurements.”

While the state DEP, Alachua County Environmental Protection Department and other local agencies look into some of the complaints, the City of Alachua is weighing its options and waiting to see test results, said Adam Boukari, assistant city manager.

The issues coming from the biomass plant undermine the reason people moved to neighborhoods like Turkey Creek, Commissioner Wilford said.

“We can’t enjoy the peace and tranquility that we used to have,” he said.

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NEWBERRY –Nations Park will hold its Columbus Day Classic tournament Oct. 11 to13, and its Halloween Bash tournament Nov. 2 through 3.

While this may be considered business as usual, the Newberry City Commission has been having preliminary discussions about renegotiating the entire process of running Nations Park, said City Manager Keith Ashby.

The Newberry Department of Parks and Recreation, Gainesville Sports Commission, United States Specialty Sports, Elite Pro Ball Academy and girls softball programs have been involved in the discussion.

“Depending on how they renegotiate the process, we believe the Gainesville Sports Commission may end up being the mangers of the field in operation.

If all goes well with the new contracts, the first tournament put together under the new arrangement will be in December, Ashby said.

The sports commission has started to discuss bringing in events to the park and forming new partnerships, said executive director Joleen Cacciatori.

In addition to the two upcoming tournaments, Perfect Game will hold its North Florida qualifier super 25 series on Nov. 23 to 24.

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