A.G. Gancarski
The rationales for Jacksonville’s controversial gun registries maintained for nearly two years at the Yates Building and City Hall continue to mount, while stories suggest correlation between parallel processes intended to restrict the rights of gun owners entering city buildings.
Mayor Donna Deegan attempted damage control in an interview with Action News Jax, but tacitly admitted that her administration sought to ensure that gun owners couldn’t bring weapons into City Hall.
And to that end, she proposed a novel solution: a police substation in City Hall, in order to exempt the administration from the permitless carry law that went into effect the day she was sworn in: July 1, 2023.
“There are a million places that are exempt. You know, you have the police department, you have the State Attorney’s Office, you have the Legislature, you have all sorts of, you know, different athletic facilities, everything exempt, and yet we weren’t exempt,” Deegan said. ”So, we said, is there a way to become exempt?”
The Sheriff’s Office denied the request for a substation in the building.
Former interim General Counsel Bob Rhodes sent an email to city lawyers to this effect.
Rhodes is one of nine people subpoenaed in the investigation by the 4th Circuit State Attorney. That list also includes Roy Birbal, former public safety chief Lakeisha Burton, Chief Administrative Officer Karen Bowling, Steven Long, Pat McCollough, Kelli O’Leary, Facilities Manager Mike Soto, and former city lawyer and current City Council lawyer Jason Teal.
The email was sent the same day as guidance went out about the gun registry, via a “Check Points and Perimeter Security” memo from Facility Manager Mike Soto that was drafted June 30, 2023 and finalized on July 24.
“At a minimum, record the name, state issued photo ID unique identification number, age, (and) weapon type in the WEAPON AND FIREARM LOGBOOK,” the document dictates. The subsequent revision maintained that language.
“It never made it to my level. It never made it to me,” Deegan said on First Coast Connect.
“This directive was written before I came into office. I’ll say that again: It was written before I came into office, before I was sworn in, and we know that from documentation. So we don’t know how long before that that was under discussion, but apparently it was simply sent from a city employee to a security firm.”
The two documents on the same day raise a question.
How is it that Mayor Deegan’s handpicked lawyer looked to become “exempt” from the law independently of an apparently unsupervised city employee going rogue and implementing a registry without supervisory sign off for nearly two years?
The “directive” may cost a lot of money.
Florida Statutes 790.335, which preceded the permitless carry law by 19 years, bans registries under threat of criminal and civil penalties, including potential “felony of the third degree” charges and “a fine of not more than $5 million” via a civil action from the Attorney General.
