Consolidation Task Force

[Shine]

^I think I'd rather start voting for better leaders than trust the city council to pick them for us.

But, you voted in the members of the city council?

Remember, School board is based on same model as city manager concept - that's a budget as big as COJ.

[vicupstate]

You get bad and good results with either form of government, Strong Mayor or City Manager.  The people filling the roles is the key, more than the form of government.   

In the case of Jacksonville, the city council would probably pick a city manager that would give them the most 'lollipops', that is 'goodies' that the council can tell their respective constiuents they 'got' for them.   

[Shine]

Like it or not, I think it is going to get legs.  Same with the concept of changing to Police Chief and getting rid of At-large Council positions.  The balance of power is changing in Duval County where the democratic majority is actually showing up at the ballot box and voting democrat.  One way to keep the status quo is to move to appointed positions where "team red" holds a majority on the Council.  Not saying that is right or wrong but as the saying goes: "politics is a contact sport" – and I don't think they are talking about phone calls and knocking on doors.

[TheCat]

Link to a program about the attempt to create Ocean County in 1993. 30 minutes long. Informative.


http://thefloridachannel.org/video/ocean-county/

[Jaxson]

We tend to point to the worst-case scenarios of becoming like a Detroit or Newark if we did not consolidate our city and county governments.  This, in my opinion, is the challenge of 'what if' or 'alternate history' speculation.  Being that our state politics are decidedly different from those of Michigan and other northern states, I would like to know how Florida's state government would have reacted to Jacksonville's situation if consolidation did not pass.  I am sure that the Duval delegation of the state legislature would have been summoned by city and county leaders to address the matter.  If consolidation had failed, I believe that they would have had to go back to the drawing board and find a new solution.  The burden of finding a solution would have fallen on the heads of the so-called 'black hats' who would have been successful in killing consolidation.  Another unanswered question would be how the city's elites and business community would have proposed that the city move forward.  One possibility might have been to wait another decade or two to try again for another consolidation vote.  In the meantime, there may have been some arm twisting and deal making with unincorporated areas to agree to being annexed.  It is a lot of speculation, but it's anybody's guess that would have happened.

[m74reeves]

CityLife makes a valid point about the productivity of SJC employees versus Duval as I have witnessed the same and I will reiterate my point its about management in Duval.  I wish there was an objective to measure how much money was spent on administration, i.e. employees, supervisors, etc., versus services.

I agree with this. How can we set up a government measurement system?  I'm not even sure what some of the City's administrators do or who they report to.

[CityLife]

Lori Boyer gets it...not that we didn't already know that.

While maybe not directly tied to consolidation, Boyer said since the group has met she has realized the detrimental effect that a loss of institutional knowledge has had. It's been caused by election turnover from term limits, a stream of mayoral appointees instead of retained civil service employees and the decision to eliminate deputy directors in departments.

The latter was through Mayor Alvin Brown's government reorganization. Boyer was in favor but said she's changed her mind after seeing what their loss has meant to that knowledge base.

"I would totally be opposed to that today," she told the group.

She said afterward that possible ways to put a structure in place could include extended, hiring a city manager that remains beyond council and mayoral terms, and expanding civil service employees.

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=541054

[CityLife]

Sprawl occurred everywhere, the only difference was Jax didn't lose tax base as a result, due to consolidation. 

Jax may not have immediately lost its tax base as the initial wave of sprawl didn't jump counties, but I think a very strong arguement could be made that over the long term, it has enabled St. Johns County to aquire a significant amount of the middle and upper income residents of Jacksonville.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to back that arguement up right now.

[Tacachale]

Lori Boyer gets it...not that we didn't already know that.

While maybe not directly tied to consolidation, Boyer said since the group has met she has realized the detrimental effect that a loss of institutional knowledge has had. It's been caused by election turnover from term limits, a stream of mayoral appointees instead of retained civil service employees and the decision to eliminate deputy directors in departments.

The latter was through Mayor Alvin Brown's government reorganization. Boyer was in favor but said she's changed her mind after seeing what their loss has meant to that knowledge base.

"I would totally be opposed to that today," she told the group.

She said afterward that possible ways to put a structure in place could include extended, hiring a city manager that remains beyond council and mayoral terms, and expanding civil service employees.

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=541054

Good article. I'm glad this stuff is really being explored; the loss of institutional knowledge is a major problem in our government.

Sprawl occurred everywhere, the only difference was Jax didn't lose tax base as a result, due to consolidation. 

Jax may not have immediately lost its tax base as the initial wave of sprawl didn't jump counties, but I think a very strong arguement could be made that over the long term, it has enabled St. Johns County to aquire a significant amount of the middle and upper income residents of Jacksonville.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to back that arguement up right now.

I think the argument there would be that sprawl would have continued into surrounding counties regardless of consolidation. It certainly has in Orlando and Tampa.

[vicupstate]

Sprawl occurred everywhere, the only difference was Jax didn't lose tax base as a result, due to consolidation. 

Jax may not have immediately lost its tax base as the initial wave of sprawl didn't jump counties, but I think a very strong arguement could be made that over the long term, it has enabled St. Johns County to aquire a significant amount of the middle and upper income residents of Jacksonville.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to back that arguement up right now.

I agree and it is pretty self-evident.

I think the argument there would be that sprawl would have continued into surrounding counties regardless of consolidation. It certainly has in Orlando and Tampa.

Consolidation didn't STOP sprawl, then or now.  It simply allowed the first few 'waves' of it, to still produce revenue and growth for  the city.  That will run it's course as sprawl pushes further and further into the surrounding counties.

[CityLife]

Consolidation Task Force Report is out.

Hoping to peruse through it later.

http://www.coj.net/city-council/headlines/city-council-task-force-on-consolidation-presents.aspx

Challenges identified by the Task Force on Consolidated Government in Blueprint for Improvement II:

• Continuity in government and retention of institutional knowledge
• Integrated mission and strategic plan
• Central services
• Neighborhood engagement, participation and involvement
• Increased efficiency and effectiveness of local government
• Consistency with the intent and goals of consolidation
• Public trust and confidence in government
• Present and future planning