A.G. Gancarski
In Jacksonville, the TRUE Commission (Taxation, Revenue, and Utilization of Expenditures) advises the city on fiscal policy.
A recent email to city leadership shows that, while you can take a commissioner off of the TRUE Commission, that doesn’t necessarily divest that person of vigilance.
Patti Anania, a former TRUE Commission member and wife of a defeated city council candidate from 2015, expressed displeasure with dilatory post-storm cleanup in the hardscrabble Arlington neighborhood.
“The City of Jacksonville has really let down its residents since Hurricane Matthew. It was bad enough that some residents and businesses have had to wait six weeks to have small piles of debris picked up. But, when an entire street’s regular household garbage gets missed and the residents do their due diligence by calling 630-CITY and also put in care tickets online the next day and for every day afterwards,” Anania writes.
“We then are told on Friday 11/18 that ‘they have until next Tuesday to pick it up’ is unacceptable. Tuesday is our regular scheduled pickup day. This is outrageous, for what we pay in contract fees to the solid waste companies this type of service should never happen.”
Anania then asserted that in her neighborhood, “very little bulk items (couches, furniture and other normal items) be removed. This contributes to the blight here in Arlington.”
Anania urges review of relevant contracts related to solid waste collection, while noting — as residents of Arlington do — the neighborhood is mired in a seemingly perpetual cycle of decline.
“The residents of Arlington were told almost two years ago, Feb. 11, 2015, by former Mayor Brown and JU’s President Tim Cost that the Renew Arlington Initiative was going to bring Arlington back to life. Arlington is worse now than it was then,” Anania observes, “with anchor restaurants and businesses such as Neros, Outback at Regency, Sears, Belk, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Walgreens all closing their doors.”
