Happy New Year Gainesville.
Listen, I’ve been having a lot of fun with FREE GNV on Facebook for the last few weeks. But we’re got a whole new year ahead of us. We’re literally entering into uncharted territory.
And so it’s time to get serious.
When I launched FREE GNV – my mock initiative to make Gainesville an Independent City – I admitted up front that mine was a Quixotic endeavor.
Mostly I was making fun of the Springs County people…the rural and small town Trumpsters who have given up trying to own Gainesville’s libtards and now want their very own county to sulk in.
My point was that we have at least as good a chance of making Gainesville an Independent City – in the legal sense – as they do of making Springs County a reality.
Which is to say no chance at all. The barriers are too high, the politics too polarized.
So why bother with FREE GNV?
Because if we choose to employ them, we have the resources, the intellectual reservoir and the deep pool of talent and creativity necessary to make Gainesville an Independent City in function if not in law.
We are Florida’s most educated city after all.
And what is independence but the ability to exist, prosper and thrive with as little outside influence as possible? We can do that.
How can we make Gainesville an Independent City in function if not in fact?
It’s an excellent question. One of many we need to be asking ourselves in 2021 as we go about the necessary business of reinventing a post-Covid Gainesville.
So starting today FREE GNV becomes an open forum for ideas. An ongoing discussion about how we, all of us together, can make Gainesville more resilient, equitable, greener, self-sufficient, economically vital and…well, liveable.
Let’s talk, GNV.
Listen, making fun of Springs County has been a lark, but we don’t need the blessing of Keith, Chuck or any other suburban politician to make Gainesville an Independent City.
We can do it ourselves. And in the process we can make GNV a better city in which to live, work, play and face the future.
I’m here to tell you that 2021 is going to be a trip. Enjoy the journey
FreeGNV 
We have to elect people who sincerely appreciate the Homegrown that makes us special and understand the environmental connectedness so many of us treasure.