The Alachua County Commission sent a delegation to Washington, D.C., this week to ask the county’s elected officials to support a cleanup of a local environmental nightmare.
Commissioner Paula M. DeLaney and Legislative Affairs Director Rick Mills met with Rep. Corrine Brown, staff from Rep. Cliff Stearns and Sen. George LeMieux.
The delegation urged the federal lawmakers to support cleaning up the Cabot/Koppers site, which has been a serious environmental issue for Alachua County since the 1980s.
The commission also requested $2.6 million for education programs, $4 million for the county’s homeless initiatives, $750,000 to revamp Santa Fe Hills’ water system and to get funding for green-collar jobs.
The county already supports all of the programs, but federal funding in the form of millions of dollars in federal appropriations keep the programs alive.
Sen. LeMieux said he will not support earmark spending, or funding for specific programs and institutions.
This means he will most likely vote against the funding of these programs for Alachua County.
“We don’t come and ask for money for anything we're not already spending on,” DeLaney said.
