‘Exit plan’: Jacksonville City Council recaps RNC collapse

The Jacksonville City Council had teed up a bill at the request of Mayor Lenny Curry authorizing $33 million of passthrough spending for the Republican National Convention.

Had President Donald Trump not pulled the plug on the event, it was no means assured that the bill would pass with the required 2/3 vote on Tuesday.

A highly anticipated workshop meeting to discuss the bill on Friday became a discussion of process, both in the limited process of chasing, catching, and dropping the RNC and the larger dynamics of relations on the 4th floor of City Hall.

City Council President Tommy Hazouri said the city was “walking on thin ice the whole time,” with the executive branch unprepared to go forward.

Hazouri, a second-term Democrat, said the Mayor’s office “really weren’t prepared to go to the meeting and have answers” to “some of the hard questions I knew [people] would bring forth.”

“They did the best they could drafting the legislation,” Hazouri said, deeming the bill “not ready for prime time.”

“They wanted to work on it this weekend,” Hazouri noted, crediting the Mayor’s Office with “staying in contact with the White House and coming up with an exit plan.”

Hazouri, say some, has encountered irritations with the Mayor’s Office familiar to previous City Council Presidents. However, unlike the cases where some of them pushed back, he was able to score a victory for the strength of the legislative body over what is now a second-term mayor’s office,

Jordan Elsbury, representing Mayor Lenny Curry, said the Mayor put “public safety above all things when planning this event.”

“When the convention was first agreed to in Jacksonville, our percent of [virus] positives were lower than they ever were … those who watched the President yesterday saw him address COVID concerns,” Elsbury said.

Public safety was also a concern, Hazouri noted, noting that Sheriff Mike Williams said he didn’t have the resources.

“The main issue,” Hazouri added, “was we really didn’t have the answers.”

Councilman Al Ferraro, a second-term Republican, said he’d “been on the phone with the Host Committee and the White House” and safety was a paramount concern.

Safety was a plank of concern for everyone, but for others internal accounting was an issue.

While the city does not, per Elsbury, have spent any taxpayer money beyond “staff planning time,” Hazouri noted the “manpower hours were costly.”

Councilman Garrett Dennis wanted more precise figures, including data from the Office of Special Events and the Sheriff’s Office.

“We owe it to our taxpayers to find out how much was spent,” Dennis, a second-term Democrat, said, expressing concerns about a “blank check” being written to plan the event, and urging legislation to stop a repeat of this process ever happening again.

Legal costs and law enforcement details for events such as the Vice President’s visit to hype volunteers earlier this month could be itemized, Hazouri said.

Councilwoman Joyce Morgan, normally measured, thundered about the double standard of canceling other events but allowing the RNC to come.

“It is what it is. We can say it like it is. But we can’t do both, cancel some but not this one,” Morgan, a second-term Democrat, said.

The legislation, though seemingly moot, will be withdrawn, vowed President Hazouri.

“I’m taking the RNC at their word and I do intend to withdraw the bill,” Hazouri added.

Developing…