Is a downtown Council District in Jacksonville's best interest?

[AbelH]

If I may, a snippet of a blog I posted on our PolitiJax blog:

Are the needs of downtown Jacksonville adequately represented on the Jacksonville City Council?

Personally, I don't think they are and here's why. While thousands of office workers call downtown home during the day, the core is only home to around 2,000 actual residents, meaning its voting population is nowhere near the roughly 55,000 residents needed to justify its own district. But, instead of rolling it into another neighborhood in the core, such as Springfield or Riverside, the City Council splits it up among five districts.

The center of downtown - Hemming Plaza, the Carling, 11 E Forsyth, etc. - is represented by Councilman Don Redman, whose true base in his district (i.e., voting base) is in the suburban Southside, backing up to the sprawl of the St. Johns Town Center. In other words, the polar opposite of urban development being advocated for by downtown visionaries.

More here: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/abel-harding/2011-02-08/downtown-jacksonville-adequately-represented-city

Thoughts?

[Wacca Pilatka]

Strongly agree

[ChriswUfGator]

Yes, absolutely necessary in fact.

[Jaxson]

It would be nice if we create a city council district that includes downtown, Riverside-Avondale, San Marco, Murray Hill and Springfield.  I makes a lot more sense to do this than the status quo...

[Jimmy]

Good for downtown and the urban core, but very hard to do.  The Council Member from District 14 won't want to let go of Riverside-Avondale.  Similarly, the CM from District 5 won't want to let go of San Marco.  Also, because of gerrymandering, getting Riverside-Avondale, San Marco, and Springfield into the same district is an unlikely outcome of reapportionment...

[fsujax]

I think you could get Downtown and Springfield into the same district.

[Jimmy]

You probably could get downtown and Springfield into the same district, but without more than just downtown added to District 7, would you be getting effective leadership there that speaks to the unique needs of downtown?  I don't think so.

[simms3]

I remember that blog...agreed.  If anything a councilman specific to downtown/the immediate core only is someone who may not represent tens of thousands of residents, but who does represent tens of thousands of workers and hundreds of businesses and non-profits.  A councilman specific to downtown would represent close to 20% of the city's employment base.

For that matter, part of DT Jax is in the city's Enterprise Zone, but more is needed.  The district needs to form a separate CID and call it the Northbank Alliance or Downtown United, etc.  Our whole city should look into TADs (and CIDs).  Basically, there are so many tools at our disposal that I'm pretty sure most city leaders are clueless about.  These are tools that are propelling our peer cities and all of the large and prosperous cities into being even more prosperous and attractive to people/employers.

[ChriswUfGator]

I agree with Simms, the new councilperson needs to be exlusively serving downtown or there would be no point.

[dougskiles]

I like the idea.  I wonder if we could simply add a council person whose district is only downtown (or take away one of the at-large spots) and then shrink the boundary of the current districts?  But I wouldn't stop there.  The spoke of the wheel looking map doesn't make sense either.  The issues facing Argyle and Riverside are completely different, as are the issues facing San Marco and Baymeadows.  It would make more sense to me for San Marco, St Nicholas, Arlington to be one area and Springfield, Riverside, Avondale to be another (with apologies to the ones I left out...)

And then have the suburban areas more uniformly represented, also.

[thelakelander]

^I agree.  Many of the urban core's neighborhoods are split into multiple districts.  For example, San Marco is 5 & 9, Riverside/Avondale is 9 & 14 and Murray Hill is 9 & 14.  At the very least, the Northbank should be in 7 or 9.

[tufsu1]

I think you could get Downtown and Springfield into the same district.

Springfield's district (#7) goes all the way up to I-295

[Jimmy]

With only around 2,000 people living downtown, that's not enough residents to make up a city council district. You can't really count people working downtown in any plan to justify it.  Those workers are represented at their homes (whether within Jacksonville or outside of Duval County).

What you need is someone on the Council, either at-large or from one of the five districts that encompass part of downtown, to step out and make a name for themselves as the Downtown Councilperson.  This approach was used by Suzanne Jenkins who championed some of the few positive things that happened downtown during the years of her time in office.  That's another approach.

I would love to see new districts drawn that are more compact and contiguous.  We have the same problems locally that we see in state and federal district seats.  There's gerrymandering.  There's incumbent protection.  Politicians picking their voters instead of the other way around.  You have to get a handle on that before you can try to carve out some specialty district in the center of town.  Best idea is to deal with all of these issues when we begin reapportionment later this year.  People just need to engage.

[fieldafm]

First off, I'm very sad that a certain someone chose not to challenge Don Redman(who is running unopposed) in the upcoming election. 

A strong leader on the council is something downtown needs.  We do not have that now.

However, in keeping with the oft repeated themes of connecting the urban core neighborhoods with the core of downtown itself... I could see how a redistrictering that would lump downtown with the surrounding urban core neighborhoods could be a positive thing... provided the official elected to the position would be an effective advocate for the core and the surrounding core neighborhoods.  Perhaps a new district that includes downtown, LaVilla, Brooklyn, Stadium District, Springfield, Durkeeville, New Springfield and parts of San Marco/Southbank...

Maybe a visual map of the current districts versus a realigned map comparing a downtown/urban core specific district is in order.... any graphic artists out there want to take a stab to further the discussion?

[ChriswUfGator]

Field, I bitched at him to run too...wish he'd done it.