Another Lenny Curry subcommittee votes for Neighborhoods Department

Florida Politics has obtained a copy of Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry’s Infrastructure Subcommittee recommendations, which hit on topics such as Park Programming, Parks and Recreation, and lapsed programs such as Intensive Care Neighborhoods. The major theme, however; maximizing the utility of the Neighborhoods Department that is a leit motif of these meetings.

Some of Infrastructure’s most interesting recommendations include:

• Following along with what seems to be a consensus recommendation among these Transition Committees: re-establish the Neighborhoods Department. This is all but a sure thing at this point, and follows through on campaign rhetoric prioritizing neighborhoods as the building blocks for the city.
• Housing and Community Development, Citizen Planning Advisory Council, and the Jacksonville Public Library system, along with Social, Senior, and Disabled Services, would all fall under the aegis of Neighborhoods.
• Put more resources into Citizen Planning Advisory Councils, which are “understaffed and underfunded.”
• Re-establishing Neighborhood Magazines and Mayor’s Neighborhood Summits will contribute to this re-prioritization, as will, in theory, pride of place in the Neighborhoods Department.
• Parks, Recreation, and Community Services (a weird hybrid of functions) would be subdivided into a still weird hybrid of functions, with two chiefs. One responsible for “Athletics and Aquatics” and “Programming,” and the other in charge of “Park Maintenance” and “Park Trades” (a term which sounds different than what it undoubtedly means).
• A Public Works recommendation of note: roads partially funded/designed “should be a priority to complete.”
• Sports and Entertainment will directly report to the mayor’s office. As Wednesday’s announcement of the Navy versus Notre Dame game revealed, there is no bigger fan of local sports than Lenny Curry.