OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Tears, laughter, and a standing ovation filled the Ocala City Council chambers on June 3 as longtime City Projects Director Tye Chighizola made his final presentation, his 3,000th and last after 36 years of dedicated service to the City of Ocala.

Chighizola’s retirement was marked by a video tribute featuring current and former colleagues praising his decades of service. Mayor Ben Marciano and City Manager Pete Lee presented him with a key to the city, recognizing his deep impact on Ocala’s growth and planning efforts.

There will be a reception for Chighizola at the Marion Theatre on June 20, 2025, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Fittingly, his final presentation helped resolve a lingering legal matter involving a city-owned property. The council unanimously approved a quit claim deed from the City of Ocala to Episcopal Children’s Services for property located at 1701 NW 10th St.

“This dates back many years, we’re doing a quick claim deed with Episcopal Children Services, they took over for Childhood Development Services in this building in 2016,” said Chighizola. “The long story of it was the city owned the property. We didn’t build the building the federal government built the building with HUD funds to support the Head Start program.”

While the city owned the land, the building itself had been constructed using federal HUD funds for the Head Start program. Childhood Development Services ran the program for 16 years before ECS took over in 2016.

“Episcopal took over, when that happened, we found that there was no deed to the property,” said Chighizola. “City council had agreed that they were going to deed the property to Childhood Development Services. That never happened.”

Efforts to finalize the deed in 2016 stalled after Childhood Development Services disbanded.

The intent is to give the property to Episcopal Children Services, and there’s a revert if it ever stops, that the claim deed would come back to the city, said Chighizola.

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