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CALLING FOR PROJECT 3/50 PARTICIPANTS IN ALACHUA COUNTY!

The 3/50 project helps keep the independently owned business you love in your area in business. If you stop in and browse at 3 of your favorite local shops and spend just $50 a month in those shops they would stay around for you to enjoy. We will be starting a new feature that highlights local business in Alachua County.

If you want to nominate your favorite business OR you own your own business send us an email to events@allaroundalachua.com with the following information:

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General Information on what they (or you) sell or the services they (or you) offer:

The Fat Tuscan Cafe

Please Attend
What: City Plan Board Meeting
When: Thursday, July 22nd, 6:30pm
Where: City Hall
For: To Support The Fat Tuscan Zoning Language Change

Dear Cafe Friends,
Sorry for the long time delay between newsletters for the Cafe. I waited to send news so that I could send good news. But, unfortunately, it seems that I have no real good news to report regarding our zoning issues with the City. At this time, we are still not allowed to be open past 4pm and, are in fact, still only operating Monday through Saturday 11am to 4pm. We petitioned many people within the city, including multiple Departments and their prospective Directors, begging them to allow us an extension to operate our Friday & Saturday evening hours while we pursued the lengthy and frustrating bureaucratic process of trying to amend our zoning. We were met with a wall of arms crossed, stony faced men, silent head-shaking behind huge desks while leaning back in their swivel chairs and all saying their cryptic yet void of emotion words, "I wish I could help you". It is sad and a huge failure our laws are now so complex and fears so great that no matter what is presented, the answer is always 'no!'

For those of you who are just catching up, here is some background on our situation.

Our current zoning restrictions:
- do not allow for any music in our enclosed courtyard.
- restricts hours of operation both inside the cafe and further restricts the operation times of our courtyard area.
- restricts types of food we can serve.
- restricts seating.
- restricts our business use.
Last month we submitted a petition to change some of the language to be amended to:
- allow for acoustic music and outdoor speakers with regards to our Café background music and in compliance with the City of Gainesville Noise Ordinance
- we have asked for the seating number to comply with our actual seating
- we are asking for additional hours of operation so that we may have evening hours
- we are asking that our Business zoning use be restored back to its original usage.
The reasons for these requests are many but mainly because it is important for a business, especially in this climate, to have the ability to be flexible and change its model if necessary to accommodate its needs and the needs of its customers. In this way, it insures a long future, as any future must include adaptation. We are not seeking, however, to alter our zoning so much that it allows future use of this property as a negative business. In our zoning there will still remain the restrictions on seating, limitations on restaurant space within the building, and states that the café can only be an ‘accessory’ use to the main Business classification.

While researching Planning codes and rules, I found an Ordinance the city passed in June of 1998. Its called 'The Special Area Plan for Traditional City'. The Fat Tuscan lies directly on one of the mapped corridors it discusses. Basically the intent of the Ordinance was to establish and improve a ‘sense of place’ within a community. Its goals are to encourage an environment for business and specifically suggest “smaller, locally-owned businesses” which in turn are to be used to create a healthy economy for the immediate community and, at the same time, providing for a vibrant mix of commercial, office, retail and residential uses in close proximity to each other. If the city is to actually begin to implement this Ordinance, then the Fat Tuscan, as an individually based business, should be the very “Star child” for this type of development. The Fat Tuscan meets every aspect of the specified guidelines written in the Ordinance. We are in fact a place that citizens already take pride in, we have already created entry-level jobs and strengthened the tax base, we have saved a historic building from demise and opened it to the public creating a sense of place and history for residents and created a local pedestrian destination for the immediate residential neighborhood located directly to our East. http://library.municode.com/HTML/10819/level4/PII_C30_AA_s4.html

So, friends and customers I ask for your help and your support because I really need it about now. Be a voice for our Cafe. Please attend the Plan Board Meeting tomorrow night - Thursday, July 22nd - at 6:30pm at City Hall.

What: City Plan Board Meeting
When: Thursday, July 22nd, 6:30pm
Where: City Hall
For: Fat Tuscan Zoning Language Change

I hope you will attend and I hope that the room is packed with supporters helping me convince the City that indeed the Fat Tuscan is a worthy business that deserves the right to continue operating. Because, to the Planning staff members, every business is some headless monster out to destroy local environments doing anything and saying anything to keep profits high. And so, as City officials have told me, they can not and will not look at individual businesses no matter their track record. It is my belief, in doing this, that they will continue to create that which they fight so hard to keep out. Because, it is those huge corporations that have the budgets, the time and the legal expertise on their sides to manipulate the system into what they need in order to install their shops, in which profits are paid to shareholders and money is sent outside of the community and which they can in turn use to undercut the small shops and close them down and be the last ones standing. It is a vicious cycle and seems to be what will continue to happen and all inadvertently with the help of the professionals within the City.

I remember being told once that to accomplish any task within the public realm you must be ready to hear thousands of 'no's' before you will hear one 'yes'. I just didn't realize that the road would be this hard and that it would always seem to be uphill and never end. I knew running a restaurant was going to be hard and require endless hours and I was prepared for that and the initial battle to open the business, eager even for the work, because I thought that on the other end I would have something extraordinary and it would make it worth all the hardship. But believe me, I never in a million years thought I would still be fighting for the existence of something I pour myself into every day. A place that I pick cigarette butts up from the parking lot and clean out the dumpster to keep it from smelling. A place that I get excited about because its fig season and I want to pick them fresh from my neighbors tree so I can make a tart for my customers. A place I mop the floors myself and experiment with new foods and recipes and talk about the ideas of healthy eating and healthy living to everyone I meet. A place that, yes, is a business, but also my dream, my child, my gift I share, my passion and my heart.

Thank you for your ear, your support and your time. I hope to see you tomorrow night at the Plan Board meeting. I will be in the front row clutching my documents with white knuckles, I'm sure.

Sincerely, Michelle Reeves

PS - If you can't attend, but would like to send a supporting email, please send it to Dean Mimms, with the City at mimmsdl@cityofgainesville.org
 

ENOSBURG FALLS, VT – Shirley E. Lavallee, age 60 passed away Monday, June 28, 2010 at the Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans.
She was born in East Fairfield on December 15, 1949 one of thirteen children of Moses P. & Evelyn (Ducolon) Ryea.
 
Shirley had worked at Misty Mountain Sewing Factory and at Verdelle Village Nursing Home as a nurse’s assistant. She enjoyed listening to music especially Elvis Pressley, knitting, crossword puzzles and collecting wind chimes. She loved spending time with her grandchildren especially her granddaughter Victoria.
She is survived by her husband, Roger Lavallee of Enosburg Falls; her children, Scott Lavallee of East Highgate, Mary Boylan and her husband John of Richford, Roger Lavallee Jr. and his wife Denise of Enosburg Falls, Peter Lavallee and his wife LeeAnn Richford, Linda St. Martin and her husband Roland of Richford, and Tiffany Lavallee of Enosburg Falls; many grandchildren and great grandchildren; several brothers and sisters.
 
Funeral services were held Thursday July 1, 2010 at 11:00 AM at the Lighthouse Assembly of God Church, 878 Horseshoe Rd., East Berkshire with Pastor Patrick Hoadley officiating. Interment was at the St. John the Baptist Cemetery in Enosburg Falls.
 
Visitation was held at the church on Thursday from 10:00 AM until the hour of the funeral.
 
For those who wish, contributions in Shirley’s memory may be made to the Lighthouse Assembly of God Church, P.O. Box 237, Enosburg Falls, VT 05450  

Community Support:

We would like to thank the following businesses for their continued support:

Victoria Masters Art: http://www.victoriamastersart.com

Christy Nicholas, also known as Green Dragon, Art: http://www.greendragonartist.com

Would you like to be listed? Just send us an email and post our website URL on your business page and we'll happily support you too!