A.G. Gancarski
Jacksonville City Council President Lori Boyer will gavel out her last meeting Tuesday evening; on Wednesday, she will speak to constituents.
The scene: a lunchtime meeting at the Southside Business Men’s Club, held at the San Jose Country Club.
For Boyer, this year as City Council President has been one full of accomplishments that will be remembered after she is termed out of office in 2019.
The long and winding road of getting pension reform through the voters via referendum, then through the unions in collective bargaining, then through the City Council to ratify the deals — that was completed under Boyer’s watch.
That closed the extant defined benefit pension plans to new hires, creating a new defined contribution plan for them, a mechanism which — when combined with a future revenue source via a sales tax extension that kicks in by 2030 — offers some budget relief that will go to infrastructure and new hires for long-suffering city departments.
Another hot-button issue resolved on Boyer’s watch: securing LBGT rights, via an expanded Human Rights Ordinance.
That issue had plagued city government for most of the decade, with failed expansion attempts in 2012 and 2016. Boyer was able to ensure the integrity of the process, handling the heated discussions from proponents and opponents in a way that codified protections for LGBT people that didn’t impact religious institutions — a key worry of the religious right.
Expect that Boyer will address these issues Wednesday, along with a key initiative of hers during her term: waterway activation, part of Jacksonville’s long-standing yet eternally thwarted desire to make usage of waterways in the way other cities do.
In addition to talking about the past and present, Boyer may be asked to address the future — such as a City Council under the control of President-Designate Anna Brosche, who dispatched the chosen candidate of Boyer and the Mayor’s Office in a contentious election for Council President.
