Lobbyist wrote charge memo for Jax City Council ‘future of downtown’ committee

Jason Gabriel. Image via Burr-and-Forman Law

The city of Jacksonville effectively has a $1.75 billion general fund budget this fiscal year. Yet City Council President Ron Salem relied on a volunteer to write a heavily publicized memo regarding what is being called a Special Committee on the Future of Downtown.

That volunteer, former General Counsel Jason Gabriel, left city employment during the Lenny Curry administration and has ended up lobbying for more than 20 different projects in recent years.

Among those projects have been issues that appeared in front of the Downtown Investment Authority (DIA), including the Laura Street Trio project under the auspices of SouthEast Development Group, LLC.

Salem’s disclosure that Gabriel wrote the memo in question raises questions about the process in which people outside the consolidated government are scripting language for those inside it.

Salem tells Florida Politics that he knows Gabriel “personally” and that the former city lawyer was not compensated or driven by any expectation of future gain due to this document, which at least in theory could drive toward the dissolution of a committee charged with downtown development issues.

“I write very little,” the most powerful man on the City Council said.

Beyond the personal connection, Gabriel’s “historical perspective” was valuable.

“He was there when the Downtown Investment Authority was formed during the Alvin Brown administration,” Salem said of the independent panel that has come under fire for a failure to spike downtown development on par with other peer cities since its formation in 2012.

Salem admitted that he used Gabriel’s document almost wholesale as it was.

“I doctored one sentence,” the second-term Republican said. “The charge went out under my signature.”

Salem says the committee is not targeting the DIA or its appointed leader, former City Council President Lori Boyer.

DIA recently approved a one-year extension in her current role, with an option for a second year, which Salem says shows she is safe.

Gabriel tells Florida Politics that he did write the memo on April 28, using his daughter’s Microsoft Word account linked to a Ponte Vedra High School account to do so, and sent it to Salem via his work email account soon thereafter.

He noted he was not “compensated” for the writing of the document and that he has written things for city government in his private capacity before, adding that it’s commonplace to see documents drafted by people outside city employment for city lawyers and elected leaders, and there’s “nothing nefarious or wrong” about volunteering documents.

“Lobbyists and lawyers,” he said, “write a lot” of what eventually becomes ordinance.

Gabriel added that the charge memo was not intended as an attack on DIA or Boyer, and that he just happens to be representing the Trio project, which Boyer had wanted to stop negotiations on earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Boyer offered a comment from Phoenix, where she is on a trip with other city leaders.

“I have no comment on Mr Gabriel’s role in drafting the committee charge; however, I will say I was disappointed in the language used that dismisses the significant progress and success DIA has achieved since 2014. Nevertheless, President Salem assured me his goal was to look at the structure and responsibilities of DIA and make improvements in it prior to beginning the search for the new CEO so they could tailor the qualifications and job description to the desired role. We stand ready to assist the Special Committee and have a number of suggestions,” she said Thursday evening.