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West Ocala town hall meeting features news updates and calls to action
Ocala city leaders, a state representative and a member of the Marion County School Board spent close to two and a half hours Thursday night speaking, listening and answering questions from people at a forum held at the MLK First Responder Campus Community Room in west Ocala.
City Councilman Ire Bethea opened the meeting by telling the approximately 40 men and women in attendance about major developments coming to the west side of Ocala. Bethea said business leaders are inquiring about the community as they re purchasing properties with the goal of bringing economic development to the area.
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Marion schools: Howard Academy to get $300K repair after water leak
A plumbing leak in a bathroom inside the century-old Howard Academy Community Center has damaged a main support beam that will cost at least $300,000 to repair to keep the historic building open.
The building houses the community’s Black History Museum and Archives of Marion County, which opened a year ago. The school was home to Howard Academy, the first Black school in Ocala.
Howard Academy, which later became Howard High School, was established in 1866 in Ocala. It was the only place Black children could go to get an education in Ocala proper after the Civil War. The building in question was built in about 1916.
The Rev. Fred Maeweathers Sr. served the faith community here for nearly four decades before he passed away on Dec. 19 at age 82 from complications of COVID-19.
Maeweathers grandson, Michael S. Maeweathers, currently pastor of Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist Church in Jupiter, said his grandfather was hospitalized following a positive COVID-19 test and passed away about 10 days later. My grandfather was treated with an experimental drug cocktail and a few plasma transfusions and he then took a turn for the worse. Just as he spread the gospel, he would want others to know to take the COVID-19 threat seriously, Michael S. Maeweathers said in a phone interview.