A.G. Gancarski
There is never a dull moment at a meeting of the Jacksonville City Council. On Tuesday, councilors mull microfinance, ex-offender jobs, and travel budgets.
____
Microfinance: 2016-486 revives the city’s Access to Capital program for Jacksonville’s Small and Emerging Business program, allowing microfinancing from $5,000 to $100,000 for Jacksonville’s small and emerging businesses.
A sum of $932,032.65 will be provided for this third-party administered program from the city. Of that money, $425,000 goes to administrative capital, with the balance going toward the JSEB capital pool, which will have $829,000 available after this appropriation.
The hope among policy makers: that more loans can be advanced to local small and emerging businesses. The previous pace was 10 a year, and the hope is that more loans — to be granted at an 8.99 percent interest rate for up to five years — can be offered.
____
Ex-offender jobs: A watered-down version of a bill (2017-35) requiring that city contractors hire ex-offenders looks poised to get through the full council.
The substitute version of the bill allows contractors to hire ex-offenders who did not emerge from city-subsidized re-entry programs, while requiring “satisfactory evidence” of at least an attempt to hire an ex-offender.
Program providers would be responsible for providing a list of ex-offenders with skill sets, and contact contractors after they win the bid.
The Associated Builders and Contractors balked at the original version of the bill, asserting that it imposed an onerous burden on contractors by requiring them to do the legwork of reaching out to program providers — that argument proved more persuasive to council members as the bill worked through committees, leading to a deferral and the current substitute two weeks prior.
____
Safe Travels: One unintended consequence of a hard cap of $3,000 on travel budgets for council members has been an impediment to traveling to association events, such as those held by the Florida League of Cities and the Florida Association of Counties.
The issue has percolated for some time, and 2017-97 resolves that issue, with $16,408 appropriated from the current year’s budget for such travel.
Going forward, $20,000 or 10 percent of association membership fees will be appropriated for delegation travel.
_____
Springfield Overlay: Public hearing continues on a bill (2017-36) that could affect the Springfield Overlay.
This bill amends the zoning code to amend the definition of administrative deviation, ensuring consistency with federal civil rights legislation, offering a process providing disabled people reasonable accommodations from the code.
n 2014, Ability Housing set out to renovate an apartment building in Springfield to create 12 units of housing for the chronically homeless and disabled.
The planning director balked, likening the proposed use to that of an assisted living facility. Soon thereafter, the Department of Justice, Disability Florida, and Ability Housing sued.
The proposed settlement ensures that the city not discriminate via zoning against those with disabilities, including via so-called zoning “overlays” such as Springfield and other neighborhoods have.
To that end, the proposed ordinance would block people from using planned unit developments to “discriminate or violate civil rights,” to quote the bill summary.
As well, the bill would “remove prohibitions on new community residential homes, housing for the elderly, nursing homes, hospice facilities, and group care homes, allow group care homes by exception in the RMD-S District, and to allow residential treatment facilities and emergency shelters by exception in the CCG-S District.”
Springfield residents are less than thrilled with recent developments.
“The board members in attendance voted unanimously to oppose this legislation, on the grounds that the recommended changes to the Springfield Zoning Overlay and Historic District Regulations were drafted without appropriate community input; are unnecessary; are unfairly applied; and are potentially harmful to future development of the historic district.
“Further, the proposed changes do not accomplish the stated goal of the settlement agreement, which is to protect the rights of disabled citizens to live wherever they choose in Jacksonville. Instead, the effect of the agreement is to single out Springfield to be the default and de facto area in Jacksonville for disabled housing,” contends the Springfield Preservation and Revitalization Council.
The position of neighborhood activists is convincing in a vacuum, but the federal Department of Justice is unconvinced by NIMBY arguments.
