The Gainesville Iguana

by Bobby Mermer, PhD, Alachua County Labor Coalition Coordinator

Those who moved to Gainesville from elsewhere in Florida know that Gainesville Regional Transit System (RTS) punches well above its weight. RTS provided over 25.9 trips per capita in its service area in 2023, the most recent year available from the Department of Transportation. HART in Tampa provided 11.4 trips per capita that same year. LYNX in Orlando provided 8 and Jacksonville provided 5.28.

In this interview, polio survivor Judy Hudson recounts her experience with paralytic polio that she contracted at age 19, probably during her honeymoon. Born in 1939, she came down with polio after the vaccine was available. Part of what she discusses was her choice, due to the newness of the vaccine, not to get vaccinated and how it felt later to live with that choice. Hudson [H] was interviewed by Nina Stoyan-Rosenzweig on July 23, 2013; transcript edited by Beth Grobman.

S: Can you tell us where you were born and grew up and also when? 

H: I was born in Tampa on July 8, 1939. I’m seventy-four. I lived in Tampa all my life. 

S: Could you tell us about meeting your husband and when you were married?

by Autumn Johnstone

On Sept. 10, I was sitting in one of my journalism class lectures when another student gasped behind me. I turned around. The student looked mortified as he stared down at his phone. A video on Twitter of Charlie Kirk’s assassination played over and over again. I asked to see the video, completely unaware of how gruesome the video would be. Now, I wish I never saw it.

by Alachua County Labor Coalition and National Women’s Liberation-Gainesville

The Alachua County Labor Coalition and National Women’s Liberation-Gainesville are pausing distributing Medicaid Expansion petitions. Florida Decides Healthcare, the statewide campaign to amend Florida’s Constitution to expand Medicaid, has suspended petition collection and distribution operations until February, 2026. If you have petitions, please shred and recycle them but save the envelopes.

By Savannah Green, the FL4EverGreen Team

Did you know UF is currently planning to remove hundreds of large, healthy trees across campus, with little transparency or input from the public? From the Graham Pond area tree stripping (155 trees) to Jennings Creek recontouring (69 trees), campus will become much more barren in the name of UF’s insatiable appetite to build, build, build, at the expense of its history and the environment. However, there is at least one upcoming Project that the Gator Nation can still weigh in on vital to the campus ecosystem and worker health, and organizers are asking for your help to sign a petition (tinyurl.com/Iguana2292) and learn more about the harmful “Surge Area” Project.

by Janice Garry, of What You Can Do

Nationally, in the state, and locally, there’s a lot going on. Shortly after the inauguration, a couple of local activists could see that responding to the onslaught against our democracy would require activism. And we knew that people are busy, making it hard to be involved. Thus, on Feb. 13, What You Can Do was first distributed. It started with about 100 people and has grown to about 250 recipients. Here’s why. 

The Protect Our Checks National Day of Action brought out the crowds on Aug. 16 in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. 

The rally was part of nationwide celebrations to mark the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act, signed into law on Aug. 14, 1935, by President Franklin Roosevelt. But the events included warnings of the ongoing cuts to Social Security benefits such as raising the retirement age and projections of benefit payment reductions by 2034. And since the start of this administration, the Trump-Musk-DOGE tyranny has fired at least 7,000 Social Security Administration employees, causing delays in SSA phone service and Web site access, among other setbacks.

by Jyoti Parmar, North Central Florida Indivisible 

On Saturday, Oct. 18, join us (NCF Indivisible, Gainesville Women for Democracy, Badass Feminists, and many other community organizations) for No Kings, a peaceful, nonviolent day of music, community, protest, and solidarity. This event is part of a national movement rooted in the principle that in our democracy, no one rules by fiat or force — “No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings.” 

by Jason Bellamy-Fults, Recording Secretary, IBEW Local 1205, proud member of the North Central Florida Central Labor Council

Though the Florida Legislative Session doesn’t begin until mid-January and there’s a whole lot of holidayin’ between now and then, our legislators and their corporate sponsors are already well under way. Legislative committee meetings begin in just a few weeks.  

Per Progress Florida:

by Joe Courter

Things are moving really fast right now, and I am much more concerned about this country slipping further into an authoritarian Christo-Fascist regime than ever.

Lawlessness by the government is rampant, unconstitutional edicts and actions are everywhere, firing, budget cuts, punishing Blue states with grant cutbacks. Look what we have in ICE, founded in 2003 in the civil liberties crackdowns we got from George W Bush & Co after the September 11 attacks. Many on the Left saw ICE as a danger right from the get go. It has now morphed into bands of well-armed, masked virtual gangs snatching people off the street. Its budget is hugely expanded, it is a frickin’ army unto itself, a para-military organization overruling local police. I do not know, and I have not seen any speculation, of how something like that can be decommissioned were we to actually get the votes to turn the government around. 

by Susan Bottcher, Gainesville Residents United, Vice President

HOW WE GOT HERE

Those with long memories know the fight to protect the citizens’ rights to determine how GRU is governed started in 2013. 

That year the Chamber of Commerce created an Energy Study Group that conducted its own (uninvited) review and analysis of GRU. Their 77-page Energy Competitiveness Report made four recommendations, three of which the City Commission immediately implemented. The fourth demanded an independent board to govern GRU. The Chamber asserted a board independent of the Commission is the only avenue to reducing electric rates.