A.G. Gancarski
In one of the longest running and most depressing soap operas in Jacksonville history, the city council’s Hemming Park special committee met Wednesday, agreeing reluctantly to amend 2016-385, which would have appropriated $150,000 to Friends of Hemming Park (FOHP). The committee opted to amend the bill to approve two months of operating funds — $29,000 a month.
Standing committees will have to approve that.
The discussion ran the gamut, from accounting procedures to park “congregants” snorting lines of OxyContin and full-grown men and women drinking beer in the “kids’ zone,” with the committee settling on funding the FOHP for at least a couple of months to facilitate an “orderly transition.”
Meanwhile, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office took more than a little bit of heat for not curbing the activities of park patrons.
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Mayor Lenny Curry, in his budget, recommended $250,000 dispersed to the Friends of Hemming Park over the first six months of the new fiscal year, a number his team expects FOHP to augment with fundraising.
If there was any enthusiasm for that, it was kept secret during the almost two hours of discussion.
The real discussion: despite the public investment and despite the events, the fundamental conditions aren’t altered on a day-to-day basis.
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At issue also was the way forward. There wasn’t a ton of enthusiasm for any choice after over an hour of discussion.
Councilman Bill Gulliford urged continuing the FOHP experiment through the rest of the year.
Councilwoman Anna Brosche, meanwhile, said the expectation is that the park is to be “welcoming and safe,” and FOHP is being set up to fail because the city isn’t doing its part.
“I believe we’re doing this ‘have our cake and eat it too’ thing,” Brosche said, wanting a meeting with JSO to convey expectations for enforcement.
CAO Sam Mousa recommended the $29,000 continue for “at least two months,” to facilitate an “orderly transition.”
Gulliford wants a meeting with the sheriff himself, advocating to continue the funding at $29,000 a month, and find a way forward.
Also on the table is a request for proposal to change management.
“There’s nothing to stop us from doing that,” Mousa said.
The problem, said CFO Mike Weinstein, is discord between the goals of programming events to effectively gentrify the park, and addressing the public safety and nuisance issues created by park regulars.
Council President Lori Boyer noted the committee, a couple of years ago, sought a “change in perception and friendliness, and we were sold by the belief that the activation of programming … would be the way to get it.”
FOHP Interim Director Bill Prescott believes that with private security, there can be stronger enforcement of park rules.
“I would not have stepped up to be interim CEO if I did not believe we couldn’t make the changes, even with JSO not being on board,” Prescott said.
Councilman Danny Becton was more skeptical.
“We need to move into a reconciliation piece,” Becton said. “It’s like throwing good money after bad. We’ve got to be partners and make changes … figure out where we went wrong.”
Becton describes himself as a “supporter of the park,” but wants a “change of attitude” and a decision regarding the next 12 months.
Brosche, meanwhile, spoke for many in the room when she said there were things she’d rather be doing than hashing out this issue.
“If we don’t solve the fundamental problem in the park,” said Gulliford, it won’t matter.
Black Sheep was to open a kiosk, but pulled back because of “cold feet” related to the myriad social maladies in the park.
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Social services took up most of the discussion, with much of that having to do with the recurrent problem of regulating those who don’t regulate themselves and, as mentioned above, more than a dollop of blame being dumped on law enforcement.
Social Services coordinator Od’Juan Whitfield talked about how FOHP has had 2,600 points of contact, with 20 job placements and housing secured for 42 people.
There have also been referrals to shelters locally.
Whitfield noted issues with “conduct” in the park could be alleviated by coordinating “release times” from shelters, which tend to be before dawn.
He would like to extend the times the homeless can be in the shelter, so they have someplace to go.
Whitfield also would like social service groups to come to the park, while reducing church feedings in the park.
“If you’re homeless in the downtown area, you can eat five times a day in less than a six-block radius,” Whitfield said.
Such feedings “cut into the service dollars of shelters.”
Whitfield also wants a meeting with council and the sheriff’s office, to address “inappropriate behavior” in the park.
The beat cops say they are hamstrung by current ordinance, which is “useless” when it comes to allowing the enforcement of rules and regulations in the park.
An extended discussion of the perils of feeding the homeless in the park followed, with fascinating anecdotes about church members and the like flouting permitting regulations to feed people.
Other issues: drinking, and smoking “illegal substances” in the park.
Indeed, when walking through the park, the smell of said illegal substances often competes with the smell of urine.
As well, said one park staffer, people were at one point doing “lines of OxyContin.”
The officer removed the linemen for trespassing.
And still another complaint: fights in the park, which the JSO said they could do nothing about, Whitfield said.
And still another complaint from park staffers: “congregants” taking cans of beer and drinking in the kids’ zone.
“I can see them drinking in the afternoon out of my window. Drinking Bud Light out of a blue can. Sometimes, I want to join them,” said CAO Sam Mousa.
Some officers are more motivated than others to serve as social workers for full-grown men and women, which nettled the FOHP members and council members on the committee alike, with Council VP John Crescimbeni saying that there needs to be a conversation with JSO.
