A.G. Gancarski
Out of all of the first-term Jacksonville City Council members, District 9 Democrat Garrett Dennis arguably does the best job playing the inside game. Monday’s meeting between leaders in the communities of his sprawling Westside district, at-large Council members, and him was a good indication why.
For close to two hours, all five at-large Council members heard from people in the community whose concerns are largely ignored. And Dennis, in a meeting that was unprecedented between at-large members and leaders of neighborhoods in his district, was the reason that dialogue happened.
Dennis’ district extends from Grand Park in the north, to the Collins Road/Blanding area in the south; a “large district” with “different issues in different areas,” as Dennis put it.
The New Town area, west of downtown, has issues with drainage. A speaker on New Town’s behalf noted that a project was started in 1989 or so, then funds were cut off, and the situation has been as-is since.
Dennis noted that $4 million is earmarked for drainage in these areas, even as $25 to $30 million is needed.
“Let’s start trying to acquire land for a pond,” Dennis suggested, noting that a previous consultant plan was unsuitable as it would have displaced a lot of residents.
Grocery access is also an issue in New Town. The easiest grocery store to get to is at Gateway, and requires two bus transfers to get there.
Also facing issues: the Grand Park neighborhood. Issues specific to it: “crime, drugs, people getting killed,” said an activist, of her neighborhood that looks like something “third world” in many ways, including unmowed easements.
Concomitant to those issues: the abandonment of homes, some for a decade, which become havens for drug addicts and homeless people.
Along those lines, absentee landlords, who fix up homes just enough to rent them. But they can’t be said to be habitable in any meaningful sense.
And then there’s Fairfax, where people are actually dying due to environmental contamination, due to a wood treater factory put on an EPA list in 2012.
Ali Korman Shelton, from the mayor’s office, noted that the fix is “up to the EPA,” adding there’s “not much we can do.”
Other issues, however, are within the city purview, such as vacant lots where people sit around fires, loitering and conducting open air drug transactions.
As one speaker put it: “they look like a bunch of buzzards, destroying our kids.”
North Riverside, which includes the flood-prone McCoy’s Creek area, likewise has its issues: crime, assault, drugs, and prostitution on Edison Avenue.
Police come when they come.
“If you call,” a speaker said, “they’ll be there, but not like in other areas.”
Robinson’s Addition, meanwhile, faces similar issues. An 85-year-old woman, attending the nearby senior center since she was 60, noted that the same chairs had been there for 25 years.
She asked for computers, “so we can learn to go online.”
Dennis, in his role, faces dealing with inequities throughout his district that have festered for decades, through a long-standing policy of not-so-benign neglect of these neighborhoods.
Unfailingly positive, he noted that “the biggest room in District 9 is room for improvement, adding that “you all being here put my colleagues on notice that it isn’t business as usual.”
This meeting was well-timed, giving Councilman Dennis five more advocates for District 9’s long-neglected priorities ahead of budget season in City Hall.
