Bill Scheu: Jax Council President Clay Yarborough needs to step down

A recurrent criticism of Jacksonville City Council President Clay Yarborough is that he has played politics with the Police and Fire Pension deal that Mayor Alvin Brown and his team have been trying to get through.

Council keeps delaying discussion of the measure. As our Kevin Meerschaert reported Tuesday night, Yarborough raised concerns about “mortality tables” that show that retirees are living longer life spans” as he referred the legislation back to committee for review — thus ensuring that the measure will not be discussed by city council before the March 24 election.

Under the 10-year agreement that the Police and Fire Pension Fund wants, Yarborough asserted the city could be left vulnerable, paying out more in benefits than is forecast if retirees live longer than expected. Yarborough’s latest exercise in obstructionism was more than enough for Bill Scheu, the erstwhile chairman of the Jacksonville Retirement Reform task force, who told David Chapman of the Jacksonville Daily Record  that Yarborough was “looking to the election” and that it’s time for “leadership to step up.”

Scheu said he heard of the decision after departing a plane in Richmond, Va., and said he was immediately dismayed when he heard of the delay.

“It’s time to put up or shut up,” he said. “Politicians can always find something to avoid making a decision.”

Asked whether he had any advice for the council, Scheu said he’d tell Yarborough to resign for his lack of leadership.

Curious about whether the passage of time had mellowed Scheu’s take, I called him. He was not mollified.

“I thought it was a political stunt,” Scheu said regarding Yarborough’s move Wednesday night. “He’s not exercising good leadership.”

Scheu reiterated his call for the council president to step down “even though I know that’s not going to happen.”

“I don’t know who’s telling him to do this (given that the deal) was already done,” he said, comparing Yarborough’s recalcitrance on the pdension deal to his push to defund the local Museum of Contemporary Art because it displayed a nude photograph of a pregnant woman, which Yarborough deemed “pornographic.”

Yarborough made waves in Tallahassee with state Rep. Janet Adkins this year, when he called on the state of Florida to audit Jacksonville’s pension plan. The Joint Legislative Auditing Committee almost unanimously rejected the Adkins/Yarborough proposal and made the case that city council has the power to do what Yarborough and Adkins asked the state to handle.