A.G. Gancarski
Via 2018-133, Jacksonville City Council President Anna Brosche seeks to establish a task force to look at transparency in local government.
The bill will be on Tuesday’s Council agenda.
“The Task Force on Open Government” will “undertake an in-depth review of Jacksonville’s legislative process and the methods by which the public accesses government” and “make recommendations for how the City of Jacksonville can be more open and accessible to the public.”
There was a potential sticking point between the Council President and the Mayor’s Office: “One cycle emergency passage of this legislation is requested. The nature of the emergency is that the committee’s reporting date is no later than June 30, 2018 and time is of the essence in order to allow the task force to convene, organize and accomplish its work in a thorough and thoughtful manner to meet that deadline.”
On Thursday, Brian Hughes, current Chief of Staff for Mayor Lenny Curry, noted in a memo that he had some issues with that emergency timing.
“This topic is related to our administration’s steadfast commitment to following all laws and regulations regarding ethics and sunshine. We always stand ready to consider ways to ensure transparency is achieved,” Hughes wrote in a memo.
Hughes’ principal objection: Brosche’s desire to expedite the creation of the task force.
She “intends to ask council to Consider legislation for creating the commission via a single meeting “in and out” basis … it seems contradictory and lacking in transparency for legislation that celebrates the 5 week cycle to be considered in such a rushed manner without committee input or multiple opportunities for the public to weigh in with their opinions and concerns.”
Hughes added that, “however worthy the commission and its charge, I think this is a troubling breach of the precedent that she herself has cited as an important tool for citizen participation.”
Brosche told us Thursday that ultimately it would be the Council decision whether the bill is what is called “in and out legislation.”
By Friday, her position had evolved, per an email to Ali Korman Shelton, head of intergovernmental affairs for the administration.
“I understand that the Administration is requesting you to speak with all my colleagues regarding the Administration’s desire to ensure the resolution I filed on Wednesday creating a Task Force on Open Government travel the full legislative cycle (versus the 1-cycle emergency under which it was crafted; not an in and out emergency),” Brosche wrote.
“While my desire was to allow the Task Force the fullest possible time to fulfill the charge by June 30, 2018 while still allowing my colleagues the opportunity to discuss and deliberate the creation of a task force to help us serve the citizens more effectively, two fewer weeks will not jeopardize the work of the task force,” Brosche said.
Brosche has been one of the more skeptical people on City Council regarding JEA sale exploration, and there has been some thought that the open government task force was a means to explore, and perhaps submarine, moves in that direction.
Other divisions of Jacksonville’s consolidated government are scrutinizing how business is conducted.
Spotlighting the JEA sale exploration running parallel to the 2019 elections and temptations for termed out pols, Ethics Director Carla Miller has suggested an overhaul of the city’s ethics code relative to lobbying, dark money, “the revolving door” between legislative and administrative jobs, and other attempts to peddle and exert influence.
One comment
Frankie M.
February 26, 2018 at 11:22 am
It’s only an emergency if they’re trying to sell off JEA in a hurry. Transparency in government does not meet the same threshold apparently.
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