A.G. Gancarski
Jacksonville City Councilman Reggie Brown is still looking into a measure to review the nature of city consolidation, but action won’t happen anytime soon.
Brown told us Thursday that he spoke with the city’s Office of General Counsel this week.
“What we’re finding out is that we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re going to have to make a presentation to the [Duval] Delegation first before we can go to Tallahassee,” Brown said.
“This is a state issue. It’s going to take the state legislators to hear our concern and then take it to Tallahassee,” Brown asserted.
“In the meantime, we have some homework to do as to what our issues are going to be. Because what they have intended to be a good bill for the entire county in ’68, we’re starting to realize that as it pertained to the growth of Jacksonville, the Northwest area of Jacksonville is not moving at the same pace as the rest of the city in terms of infrastructure and things like that. Consolidation did not work for the best interest of these areas.”
“We also want to look at the voting process. Maybe it was a good thing to have at-large seats [on the city council], but we feel now when we look at … the voting process where one can vote in two municipalities, it appears to be unfair,” Brown said regarding voters in the Jacksonville beach communities who also get to vote in city elections.
“Obviously any type of Department of Justice voting rights [violation], we don’t know. It’s time we had that real discussion,” Brown said.
When asked if the presentation to the Duval Delegation would be at January’s meeting at Jacksonville’s city hall, Brown said “we’re going to take some time to do it,” as “the state legislators have a process, and if we don’t follow the process, they won’t take it up.”
Brown intends to work toward getting a presentation on the delegation’s schedule ahead of the 2018 session.
“We’re going to work diligently,” Brown said, “because I believe it is time for some changes.”
Brown also said that “if it’s in the best interest of the beaches to have their own county, then we do,” referring to the “Ocean County” proposal advanced late in the 20th century by some seaside localists.
“They talked about it in the 90s and they’re willing to entertain it. They would have to do legislation as well to create that.”
“My preference is that we stay together. I just want to make sure that one area of the city is not disenfranchised more than others. I just believe that we should have a fair system,” Brown said.
Brown then asserted that consolidation can work “if it’s done correctly. To consolidate with exceptions is not good. The sheer definition of consolidation is everybody gives up everything and become one. That didn’t happen in ’68, and that’s where the problem lies. Folks are able to use consolidation and the charter when the mood suits them, instead of following the real sense of the word consolidation.”
“When they talk about having one Jacksonville, one city, that means you need to be truly consolidated without the exceptions,” Brown continued.
“No laws were intended to be permanent. They always are supposed to be reviewed, and if we need to change it to make it better for the time period, that’s what we do,” Brown said.
“It’s pretty transparent and clear what needs to happen, and I’m just ready to move forward,” Brown added.
The city’s consolidation task force, Brown said, “had its opportunities.”
“I don’t need any more meetings. It’s pretty transparent and clear what needs to happen … these problems aren’t new. I’m looking for action now.”
That action?
“If the steps that are required is to go to the Duval Delegation, then that’s where we’re going. We’re going to spend the next few months, if you will, a year putting something together so I can present to the Duval Delegation.”
Whether the delegation has enthusiasm for an initiative that could divest regional power and voice, at a time when Jacksonville still wonders when or if it will ever have another Speaker of the House again, is another matter.
In the short term, however, Brown and his allies will attempt to work something out for 2018.
