A.G. Gancarski
Members of the Jacksonville City Council Finance Committee asserted that they felt “targeted” by a poll from the political committee Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams ahead of their inevitable vote to authorize the hire of 100 new police officers.
They asserted that the poll was an attempt to pressure them into voting to authorize the hires, before taking a 90 minute lunch break and then coming back and authorizing the hires — completing a marathon session with the city’s chief lawman that sprawled out across Friday afternoon like T.S. Eliot‘s “patient etherized on a table.”
As the committee unhappily squabbled its way through Happy Hour, their vote to authorize the new cops took flak from their left flank, via the activist group “Jacksonville Community Action Committee.”
Citing police “misconduct” in recent months, the group noted in a statement that “our community still has no method of accountability or control over the JSO.”
The group had made its case to committee members: the $4.41M in FY 17-18 money would be better spent on social programs; however, they continue, the group was “bullied” into approving the appropriation.
“Today the City Council Finance Committee FAILED the victims of JSO police crimes and the Black community by passing the Mayor and Sheriff’s $4.4 million proposal to add 100 new cops to patrol the streets of Jacksonville – with ZERO community accountability.”
The group then called committee members “all bark and no bite.”
“They’ve made their choice on where they stand on JSO Accountability and who they serve at the end of the day. When it comes to holding police accountable, Councilmen Dennis, Brown, Gaffney and Councilwoman Brown were all bark but no bite.”
