Bonnie Burgess is perhaps busier than ever these days. She may have stepped down from her role as mayor, but now she’s running for another office – Alachua County School Board.
One of the preliminary steps in that campaign is collecting signatures, 1,200 in all needed to qualify her as a school board candidate in the August 24th primary.
Burgess collected a small chunk of those signatures at the Freddie Warmack celebration on April 24, where she was honored as the first black female mayor of Alachua. Minutes after the presentation, Burgess raced off to the next event for more signatures and more campaigning.
In that busy schedule, Burgess managed to also squeeze in some time to answer questions by e-mail – reflecting on her past nine years on the Alachua Commission.
“The experience was always a challenge, all the way to the last city commission meeting, because the city of Alachua is changing, and with those changes, the demand on me to make sure that all of my decisions, made on behalf of the citizens, had to be beneficial for them today, tomorrow and extended into the future,” Burgess said, in an e-mail.
Burgess said she decided to step aside as mayor because she felt she had an even better opportunity to serve the city’s citizens.
“Now, and in the future, all of my political decisions will be guided by how much more I can serve our citizens best.”
She said her biggest regret as a commissioner and mayor was not realizing her dream of affordable housing for all citizens of Alachua. A lot of long-time citizens are renting places in Alachua instead of being property owners, and that has been a great disappointment, Burgess said.
Her decision to run for the school board was not a hasty one.
She said her family has a long history in education – from her grandfather, who bought the first school bus in Alachua, to her father, who coached football and served as teacher and principal at A.L. Mebane High School, and her mother, who taught music and wrote the Mebane school song.
“I felt compelled to complete my family’s journey by helping enhance the lives of the families in the ‘village’ that helped raise me.”