A.G. Gancarski
One of the roughest Jacksonville ZIP codes, 32209, was a place of epiphany for Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry on the campaign trail.
Slayings and abject poverty in the area shocked his conscience, in a way roughly analogous to John F. Kennedy visiting Appalachia during the 1960 campaign.
Curry vowed to address the crime, the blight, the infrastructure neglected since before he was born.
A journey (specifically, a Jacksonville Journey) begins with steps. Or in this case, with a walk-through.
On Thursday, ahead of the Jacksonville Journey “community conversation,” Curry and Councilwoman Katrina Brown held a media availability before a neighborhood walk-through, standing in front of a house with boarded-up windows in a neighborhood full of them, to assess the long-standing blighted conditions.
Curry noted that during the campaign he’d “spent a lot of time in [these] neighborhoods,” vowing they were “not going to be left behind.”
To that end, Curry introduced a new lighting plan from JEA, which would “align” with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and the city’s efforts to counter blight.
The lights are part of a larger LED conversion, a five-year project that starts Tuesday with eight two-member crews in the area.
Councilwoman Brown noted that the city’s attention to “infrastructure” and “lighting” embody the spirit of One City One Jacksonville.
Lighting is an issue on Moncrief: The lights on the street were absent.
“I get a lot of calls,” Brown said, about “people [who] knock down the lights … drug dealers, et cetera.”
Curry, noting his gratefulness to the media for covering the relaunch of Jax Journey, renewed his earlier pledge to “invest in neighborhoods.”
“We’re here and committed to make sure it’s happening,” the mayor said.
“We’re about getting things done. This sends a message to neighborhoods [that] we care and are looking out for them. We’re here and we’re ready to take action” on a “whole lot of neglect over the years.”
“We’re making a statement today,” Curry said.
