Jim Bailey: Why I Want to be Mayor of Jacksonville

[Metro Jacksonville]

Mayoral Candidate Jim Bailey live Q&A October 25 on MJ



Jim Bailey, Candidate for Mayor, and the owner of the Daily Record newspaper will be joining MetroJacksonville on Monday, October 25th, for a live question and answer session online.  This is a special service for our readers, who are welcome to submit their questions to Jim beforehand, or join us during the live session.

Jim will be answering questions and talking to our readers on Monday evening between the hours of 5:30-7:30, a good two hours of time just chatting with voters and MetroJacksonville.

Please join us.  To check out Jim's original essay, click here: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-sep-jim-bailey-why-i-want-to-be-mayor-of-jacksonville

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-oct-mayoral-candidate-jim-bailey-live-qa-october-25-on-mj

[CS Foltz]

stephen.............I am curious as to what Mr Bailey's stance is regarding "Ethics"? If he does have a stance does he feel that ethical issue's should be looked into by the OGC or should ethics be a separate agency? How does he feel either option should be funded........public money or all of the City agency's, including the independents, funding said office from their operating budgets? Should Ethics be reinserted into the City Charter, so there is no questions about what or how things should be managed? If he has other idea's regarding ethics.......just what are they?

[Ocklawaha]

Jim, do you see us starting on a streetcar project with a self funded starter line in the $30-50 Million range, connecting downtown with the surrounding historic neighborhoods?

Would you approve moving JTA'S BRT routes to feeder status for commuter rail preserving the federal funding where ever possible rather then competing with ourselves with duplicate brt-rail services.

On a similar note, what is your opinion of JTA's downtown BRT southbank plan to duplicate the Skyway route in it's entirety and still miss the Baptist-Aetna-Wolfson complex.

JTA has proposed a transportation center plan that has come under fire as a real-estate consuming "ranch", would you encourage a more compact center with expanded rail capacity with an immediate start-up in order to capitalize on Amtrak's expansion plan.


OCKLAWAHA

[jimbailey]

Good evening, everyone!  I'm Jim Bailey and I'm delighted to be with you.

[jimbailey]

We're spending a couple of minutes learning the posting format here ...
give us just a second! 

[fieldafm]

Good evening.

Stephen has summorized my questions previously

From Fieldafm:

What will you do to create incentives for the growth of small business in Jacksonville?  Small businesses are the number one job creators.  We need an environment to create the next great Jacksonville company.  Our next Charter, Barnett Bank, Winn Dixie, CSX, Fidelity is going to blossom from a new small business.  What are your plans to create an environment that would allow this to happen more easily?

What are your plans to secure federal funding for navigational and deepwater issues for the Port?
Say something like a dedicated federal funding specialist/liason solely devoted to this issue...

Would you be in favor of creating special economic zones to encourage a clustering of medical research firms to relocate and/or start in Jacksonville?  Research shows that for every one job created by a medical research firm, about 5 jobs are created from businesses used by the facility and its employees.

Are you in favor of seperating the 680' pier from the Shipyards site, and using exisisting external funding mechanisms to create a public pier park?  Are you in favor of extending the Riverwalk across the entire length of the Northbank and connect Metro Park with the core of downtown?

Are you going to commit to better maintenance/repair of our existing park system?  Several parks are in poor repair, and others need desperate revitilazation(I.E. The Hogan Creek park system).  In the same token, are you in favor of redirecting the park system's efforts to focus on more eco-tourism opportunities?

Would you keep Bill Killingsworth in place?

What would you do to bolster the historic preservation fund?

What are your thoughts on fixed mass transit in this city?

How would you continue to foster Downtown Jacksonville's future?

How would you fix the secondary public education system in Jacksonville which is continuing to get low marks when stacked against its peer cities?  I think this is a key issue when trying to attract more high-wage jobs to this city as our current school system does not produce adequate numbers of college graduates as a percentage of our overall population.

How would you transform our city into a world-class SMART city that runs on network-based on telecomm-based systems to allow for better management of city services, encourage more economic opportunity, and an overall better quality of life?

Interested to hear your thoughts...

[jimbailey]

Golly - lots of questions embedded in that list.  Let me start with small business, because that's a subject that's near and dear to my heart. 

[Ocklawaha]

Hey Jim, a big Rebel hello! Looking forward to this.

OCKLAWAHA

[jimbailey]

Business drives jobs!  It's as simple as thought.  And what we need right now is more and better jobs.  We have far too many people out of work, but we also have far too many people who aren't getting in enough hours each week to make a living.  People who aren't making commissions and aren't making sales.  Our effective unemployment rate is much higher than the stated 10%.  

[jimbailey]

The first thing we need to do for small business is, frankly, to get out its way.  Our businesmen and businesswomen need to do what they do best:  employ people and get product out the door. 

Business is faster today, investors are more nimble and quicker.  Investors are more nimble and quicker.  If we are to compete for jobs and investment we have to match the tempo of the market.

We have to drive down the cost of city government, we have to drive down the unreasonable demands that government places on us.  Whether it’s the time it takes to make a decision, the arbitrariness of regulation, or just plain old general bureaucracy, we need a government that intrudes less on all of its citizens, including the businesses that invest here and employ our people. 

The first fire engine we send to small business isn't some "assistance" plan that requires them to fill out more paperwork.  The first responder needs to be less unreasonable governmental demands. 

[jimbailey]

Good question on ethics ... let me give you my take.

The first thing we need to do is to elect good people who are accountable - that's what voters and elections are for.  

The next thing we need to do is to have a Mayor and Council leadership who brook no improprieties.  Elected and appointed office are a trust, if you don't want to go the extra mile not only be correct but to APPEAR correct and trustworthy - one that's an example for others - you really don't need to play.  There are other ways to be involved.  

But the City needs an ethics code, and it needs to be commonsense in its format and progressive in its nature.  The City Council first should police their own, the General Counsel should actively advise, the Ethics Officer should oversee the entire arrangement, and the State Attorney should - and appears to be - aggressively interested in issues of public corruption.  

As to whether it also needs to be in the Charter, I'm not yet convinced that more "laws" will benefit when more "enforcement" hasn't been tried.  I'm open to the argument, but I'm not there right now.  Good people, good policies, good enforcement, good accountability.  I just don't know that adding words to the Charter helps that formula.  

[jimbailey]

On the whole surface rail/streetcar issue, here's a beginning thought ...

On rail transit

There's a lot of railroad track in Duval County.

The City doesn't own much if any of it. 

The people who do own the track - the railroads - have a right to that property.  We need a long-range look at a partnership with the railroads to figure out how we can do business together.  They've got a right to make a profit out of their property, but we've got a right to work with them on providing new transportation services that build them a new revenue generator. 

The truth is that Europe does a great job with passenger rail and not so much on freight rail.  We in America do the opposite.  Railroad tell me that passenger and freight traffic do not elegantly mix on the same rail.  Maybe that's true. 

But I bet that the railroads would be just as excited as the Mayor would/will be when we figure out a what to MAKE IT HAPPEN. 

[jimbailey]

>> What is the number one policy change that needs to occur to reverse the business exodus from Downtown? <<

It's not "downtown" that's experiencing the exodus.  Downtown is the cultural and economic mirror of our neighborhoods.  Jacksonville is a city of neighborhoods and the exodus is occurring in every strip mall, shopping center, and commercial office building. 

[Ocklawaha]

Jim, the streetcar issue is really apart from commuter or freight rail in general, as they rarely operate over the same routes. Federal laws restrict that mix, and though it CAN be done, it is rare. So the streetcar question, especially as to the historic districts stands. Streetcar and Skyway, like our buses need to be addressed by our leadership.

You are correct on the EU V US rail differences, and yet our city suffers from NOT having decent access for freight rail to the port. The railroads are after one thing, PROFIT, and capacity expansion is the best way to obtain it. The worst way for the major carriers NS, CSX, FEC, is to go out and ferret individual freight cars from industrial side tracks and spurs. Thus the city purchase of the Terminal area, not only serves the railroads by handing this to a neutral shortline, it opens the door for us to join in the new freight corridors PORT TO MID-AMERICA, as well as our own JAX-BUSH-AIRPORT ROAD-YULEE-FERNANDINA commuter possibilities.

OCKLAWAHA

[Noone]

Jim,
Welcome.