Running a city is not much different from running a business. Both have money to spend, programs to organize and most importantly, people to please.
That could be why Bonnie Mott, a business owner and City Commission District 2 candidate, thinks she would be the best person for the commission seat.
Mott, 58, said municipal work like preparing budgets, listening to constituents and organizing priorities is nothing new to her.
She has been the owner of Prudential Preferred Properties, a local real estate company, since 1993, an experience she said qualifies her for a seat on the commission managing thousands of residents.
She also said her 43 years in Gainesville - more than both of her opponents combined - give her a better perspective on the city's future.
"I've been here longer," she said. "I've seen more things that have occurred and even more things that have not occurred."
Like her opponents, Mott emphasized that the city's policy of distributing tax rebates to new corporate construction needed an overhaul. Though she's not completely against the system, which allots city funds to corporations as an incentive to build locally, she said she thinks money should be handed out on a more scrutinized basis.
She said she also disagreed with some early plans to build the GRACE Marketplace, an open facility for homeless people to get meals, counseling, child care and other social resources, in an area far from those who the facility would help.
"I am not in favor of the homeless center being built across town," said Mott, who went on to question the financial sense in busing homeless people. "It just adds another layer of expenses to get them there."
She said Gainesville's mass transit system, which is plagued by too few routes and overly congested buses, could also use work.
Neighborhood tensions between long-term homeowners and student renters, she said, also deserved attention from the commission. Some students, she added, could show more respect for their neighbors, and those same neighbors could do a better job of welcoming students.
