Peter Schorsch
As Special Session continues in Tallahassee, local stories continued apace, as you will see below.
For a U.S. Representative and a state Senator, we see some campaign intrigue.
For state Representatives, some bills were signed into law — and some were vetoed.
On the city level, we saw a power struggle between Jacksonville’s Mayor and a City Councilman. Guess how that went.
As well, a couple of city agencies dealt with audits, CSX paid off their CEO, and the Jaguars again pointed out that they need a London game to make this market viable.
A lot of news and some views; in the words of M.C. Hammer: “Let’s get it started.”
Competitive primary for John Rutherford?
It looks like Rep. John Rutherford will face a primary challenge in 2018. Sort of.
Palatka petition collector Rob Ficker filed as a Republican in Florida’s 4th Congressional District race — a neat trick for an NPA living outside the district.
Ficker hasn’t consulted donors yet. Nor has he considered what committees to which he’d be best equipped to start strong on Day One.
Nor could he recall who he voted for in the 2014 gubernatorial or 2016 presidential races.
However, when asked if he’s ready to challenge the sitting Congressman to debate, Ficker spit fire.
“Sure. Always.”
Related: Ficker’s father’s Wikipedia entry. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
‘Nothing sinister’ about Audrey Gibson Special Session fundraising email
Sen. Audrey Gibson turned some heads on her email list as Special Session began, with an email from her campaign account promoting a South Florida fundraiser this week.
Senators are prohibited from fundraising or solicitations thereof during Special Session, but Gibson pins the blame on a wayward staffer.
“I didn’t send this out,” she said at first.
When we noted the campaign account email, Gibson said: “I don’t have an email for my campaign. Perhaps the person I’m working with emailed not knowing not to.”
“Thanks to you I sent them a text just now not to email anymore,” Gibson added.
When we asked what would happen if someone did call to RSVP or contribute, Gibson said: “I follow the rules.”
Big win for craft distilleries
Gov. Scott signed 33 bills into law last Friday, including Northeast Florida State Rep. Cyndi Stevenson’s bill (HB 141) to remove some restrictions from craft distilleries.
Among the highlights of the legislation: Increasing production caps from 75,000 to 250,000 gallons; allowing for off-site distribution points; and relaxing limits on how many bottles a consumer could buy in a given year.
More remains to be done, Stevenson told us.
“I had hoped to get the ability for distilleries to have unlimited bottle sales to the end consumer,” the St. Johns Republican said, yet a “compromise of six bottles” was reached.
“I know there was support in the industry and in the House and the Senate for a more robust bill, but going for more placed the entire bill at risk,” Stevenson added.
Shot, chaser: Jax liquor bills signed into law
While Republican Cord Byrd is meeting the wrath of the veto pen, Democratic Rep. Tracie Davis scored two big wins for the city of Jacksonville Tuesday.
Scott signed into law Tuesday two “local bills” regarding alcohol sales and consumption.
Both bills, carried at the request of the Jacksonville City Council, make it easier to drink in public places. One bill: Near the stadium. The other: At smaller restaurants in older neighborhoods.
HB 1291 waives the open container restrictions on alcoholic beverage consumption within and contiguous to the A. Philip Randolph Entertainment District, “during 15 designated ‘special events’ and any other event designated as ‘special’ by the City Council.”
HB 1293 creates “special zones” in older neighborhoods with smaller commercial buildings, such as Murray Hill, Springfield and San Marco, to lower the required seating for a restaurant serving liquor from 150 to 100.
New recourse for terror victims
Stronger civil penalties for terrorism in the Sunshine State are imminent, as Gov. Scott signed Rep. Jason Fischer‘s “Civil Remedies for Terrorism” bill into law last Friday.
HB 65 was Fischer’s first bill, filed November.
Previously, under Florida law, there had not been a civil cause of action for terrorism. This bill changes that, allowing a person injured as a victim of terrorism to collect minimum damages of $1,000, along with legal fees, from the assailant or assailants.
Kim Daniels takes ‘glass half-full’ approach to Legislative Session
Though much of the narrative this week has been an evaluation of what Scott’s vetoes mean for local priorities, HD 14 Rep. Kim Daniels is looking at the positive: $1M brought home to the Jacksonville Democrat’s district.
“Despite difficult political circumstances, I am bringing back almost 1 million dollars back to District 14 as a freshman,” Daniels said in a news release this week.
Daniels cites four big approps victories: HB 3307 (Veterans’ Villa Training), HB 3509 (No One Left Behind Initiative), HB 2203 (ShotSpotter Pilot Program), and HB 2869 (Wayman Community Development).
Of those four, ShotSpotter may have been the biggest for Jacksonville; the pilot program will identify where bullets came from in high-crime neighborhoods.
“I am encouraged by these important recent budget developments,” Daniels continued. “My legislative glass is half full, not empty.”
$400K mistake for Cord Byrd?
Every budget process has winners and losers. Reports First Coast News this week, Neptune Beach lost after the gubernatorial veto pen X’d out $400,000 for stormwater culvert improvements.
“We’ll keep fighting for it. I think it’s an important and worthwhile project,” said State Rep. Byrd.
“That’s an evacuation route for hurricanes and storms,” Byrd, who initially wanted $950,000, added. “Obviously the beaches where that’s important for people to be able to leave in case there’s a bad storm. But also for general flooding in the area.”
Byrd was on the wrong side of Gov. Scott in the fight for economic incentives during the Legislative Session. One can speculate as to whether or not that was a $400K mistake.
That speculation would only be augmented by another Scott veto Tuesday: a proposed expansion of the purview of the Ocean Highway and Port Authority of Nassau County get the ax.
Scott’s objection was that the bill authorized construction of infrastructure outside of FDOT Work Program’s scope, pushes for infrastructure in Georgia, and allows the Authority the ability to issue bonds.
Lenny Curry wins again
Jacksonville City Councilman Danny Becton wanted to push a bill mandating extra payments on the city’s pension debt. But Mayor Curry didn’t want it. And the Finance Committee voted it down 4-1.
Becton had hectored, both personally and through proxies, media to cover his grandstand play — but once he got the coverage, the Southside Republican melted in the spotlight.
Red-faced as his bill got shelled in Finance Committee Wednesday, Becton laid into his colleagues before leaving the room.
The bill “made too much common sense” for them to vote for, he said.
Becton, who has been at cross-purposes with Curry’s office before, started a fight he never had a chance to win, via a poorly-timed bill out of step with legislators.
Visit Jacksonville’s big record-keeping fail
The Jacksonville City Council Auditor stung local tourism agency Visit Jacksonville with an audit this week that showed real issues with record-keeping, as WOKV reports.
“The audit couldn’t find adequate support for $22,474.24 in payroll, because of insufficient documentation on time off requests, pay rates and similar areas. As an example, auditors found 39 payments for cellphone allowances in the time studied, but in 69 percent of those cases, they couldn’t find documents to support the employee was entitled to a cellphone allowance at all,” the WOKV report notes.
And regarding “the organization’s incentives program,” auditors found “payments, but not documents detailing the goals of the program, meaning they couldn’t verify the incentive payouts were proper. “
Other issues: duplicated reimbursements, checks authorized by past members of the board, and timecard management problems.
Visit Jacksonville wasn’t the only audit this week; as we reported, the Police and Fire Pension Fund also got dinged for botched bookkeeping.
Skateboarding is not a crime
This week, Councilman Bill Gulliford quietly withdrew a bill he filed a year ago that would have made skateboarding a crime on certain downtown sidewalks.
Gulliford’s beef: Skaters were destroying property, via sick moves better suited to street skate videos than the public policy sphere.
Gulliford had taken a lot of heat from members of the skateboarding community, as well as from one or two overage hipster types; however, he notes that there has been progress made toward dedicated skate parks downtown and elsewhere in the city, which could at least alleviate the problem.
ShotSpotter on schedule, sez Sheriff’s Office
The city of Jacksonville places a lot of stock in its new ShotSpotter program, and a Sheriff’s Office representative noted that training for officers will start in July, presaging deployment of the anti-gunshot technology before the end of the summer.
The pilot program will encompass 5 square miles in Jacksonville that, despite being a small fraction of the city’s over 800 miles of land mass, account for over 10 percent of gun shots.
ShotSpotter will help with investigations initially but will become part of a more holistic surveillance portfolio.
License plate readers, NIBIN (a federal database that identifies bullets from casings), and ShotSpotter: all parts of a larger JSO strategy to fight old crime patterns with new technology and techniques.
ShotSpotter and NIBIN can be married to video surveillance, leading the JSO rep to observe that “the sky’s the limit as far as the technology goes.”
Now, if they can only compel people to use turn signals in traffic.
CSX gives $84M to Oxygen Tank CEO
Life is good for CSX CEO Hunter Harrison — except for needing an oxygen tank to breathe.
The Jax Daily Record reports that the shareholders OK’d $84M for the man who came in and gutted much of the company.
Did the shareholders have a choice? The alternative was a hostile takeover.
A CSX VP notes that needing assistance breathing doesn’t slow Harrison down, saying the man in charge “brings a lot of energy from 9 o’clock in the morning to 9 o’clock at night.”
London calling for Jaguars
This week, the Jax Daily Record became the latest local publication to cover the cash cow that London is for the local NFL franchise.
“The reason we’re interested in London is maximizing our local revenue,” Jags’ President Mark Lamping said. “Just maximizing Jacksonville is not going to get where we want to be.”
“Lamping said the Jaguars generated about 15 percent of their local revenue from the London game, although that percentage dropped to 12 percent last year because of a less favorable foreign exchange rate … With the help of the revenue stream from London, the Jaguars’ local revenue rank has increased into the mid-20s among NFL teams,” the Record report continued.
Mark Hulsey replacement named
Disgraced and resigned Judge Mark Hulsey has finally been replaced on the 4th Judicial Circuit Court.
From the Governor’s Office this week: “Eric Roberson, 37, of Jacksonville, is currently a county judge for Duval County. He previously worked in private practice, and as an Assistant State Attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit.”
Roberson’s ASA stint went from 2005 to 2007. From there, he moved onto McGuireWoods, Jason Porter, and then his own firm before becoming a county judge in 2015.
Those familiar with the selection process asserted that Roberson had the inside track all along. Whether that’s the case or not, the rumor mill was accurate in this case.
Armada’s Kevan George called up to national team for big clash versus USA
Jacksonville Armada FC midfielder Kevan George has been called up to the Trinidad and Tobago national team for the 2018 CONCACAF World Cup Qualifier against the United States and Costa Rica.
George, who has started all 10 games in the NASL with the Armada FC this season, left to train with the Soca Warriors ahead of the two qualifying matches earlier this week.
Trinidad and Tobago faced the United States Thursday at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Denver. The team will then leave for Costa Rica to play at Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica San Jose Tuesday, June 13. Trinidad and Tobago now sit just one point behind the U.S. in the final World Cup qualifying spot from CONCACAF.
The Armada FC vice-captain has appeared in 32 games for the Trinidad and Tobago national soccer team. George’s most recent appearances for Trinidad and Tobago came in March when he was called up to play in two Round Five games of the CONCACAF Qualifying Competition for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. George started in both games at Hasley Crawford Stadium in Trinidad. The team won 1-0 against Panama March 24, but then lost to Mexico March 28.
George will return to the Jacksonville Armada FC in time for its away match against the Miami FC Saturday, June 17, in Miami.
Father’s Day at Jacksonville Zoo
On Sunday, June 18, the Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens celebrates Father’s Day with a buy-one, get-one free general admission ticket offer. The downloadable coupon is available here.
Coupon is good for one free general admission ticket for dad, with the purchase of a child or adult ticket. Cannot be applied to value tickets or already discounted admissions.
