Live blogging the vote for 2012-296, human rights ordinance.

[Anti redneck]

Thanks for leaving instead of staying and trying to make things better!

So you're going to call me out now?

[Anti redneck]

Nothing will ever change here.

First BLACK mayor ever in Jacksonville? Um, yeah, that was big!

Congratulations to Alvin! I favored him over Hogan for many reasons. But how does everyone think he's doing? If we need to, we'll start another thread.

[Charles Hunter]

Stephen   +100

[cityimrov]

So Jacksonville is about 20-30 years behind Atlanta?  Yeah, that's about right.

We quickly forget that Homer Lindsay was the most powerful man in Jacksonville, it takes some time to allow that luster to wear off. FBC is still powerful, just not the iron fist they used to rule with, and Jacksonville has grown because of it, but we are still a conservative town in most parts.

Well, Salt Lake City is a conservative city as well.  Probably even more so than Jacksonville.  Even during their early days, they created some very wonderful things. 

I'm still not sure what Jacksonville is trying to do.  I don't think it's conservatism itself that's causing this problem.  There's something else going on here. 

I'm placing my bet on something cultural that's causing this.  That means there's something from the past is biting back hard and won't let go. 

[Timkin]

If anyone cares to imagine the nightmare scenario of a Tea Party Baptist Mayor with this Council, then Id like to hear it.  I don't regret supporting Brown, because the alternative was so awful.

My candidate was Audrey, who is being urged as we speak to run again.

She is waiting to hear more affirmation before she decides, so if you are in her social circle, by all means tell her.

Every day that I wake up and Hogan isnt the Mayor working with this particular group of misfits, is a good day.  In my opinion, Brown was elected to not be Hogan, and to this day he isn't.

You make a very important point   

Brown fails to communicate with the people who voted for him.  I know this is politics.

But I have to admit it would probably be a much worse scenario , the other way around.

I thought YOU  were contemplating running for mayor?

[cityimrov]

If anyone cares to imagine the nightmare scenario of a Tea Party Baptist Mayor with this Council, then Id like to hear it.  I don't regret supporting Brown, because the alternative was so awful.

My candidate was Audrey, who is being urged as we speak to run again.

She is waiting to hear more affirmation before she decides, so if you are in her social circle, by all means tell her.

Every day that I wake up and Hogan isnt the Mayor working with this particular group of misfits, is a good day.  In my opinion, Brown was elected to not be Hogan, and to this day he isn't.

You make a very important point   

Brown fails to communicate with the people who voted for him.  I know this is politics.

But I have to admit it would probably be a much worse scenario , the other way around.

I thought YOU  were contemplating running for mayor?

I think Brown tried his best to NOT communicate with the people that voted for him. 

My guess is Brown is basing his support base more on what happened in the primaries more than the general election.  He's probably having nightmares about what happened to the people who got clobbered in the primaries as well as their supporters. 

[Cheshire Cat]

So Jacksonville is about 20-30 years behind Atlanta?  Yeah, that's about right.

We quickly forget that Homer Lindsay was the most powerful man in Jacksonville, it takes some time to allow that luster to wear off. FBC is still powerful, just not the iron fist they used to rule with, and Jacksonville has grown because of it, but we are still a conservative town in most parts.

Well, Salt Lake City is a conservative city as well.  Probably even more so than Jacksonville.  Even during their early days, they created some very wonderful things. 

I'm still not sure what Jacksonville is trying to do.  I don't think it's conservatism itself that's causing this problem.  There's something else going on here. 

I'm placing my bet on something cultural that's causing this.  That means there's something from the past is biting back hard and won't let go. 

Cityimrov,  What do you think the cultural or past issues might be that are impacting Jacksonville today?

[mtraininjax]

I don't regret supporting Brown, because the alternative was so awful.

Stephen - Read today's paper and the discussion on the Pension costs, your buddy Lumb called the next year's budget a "Bloodbath", and what is Brown going to do about it? He is going to have a plan together BY the end of the year. Kicking the can down the road is what he does best. His administration asked the council to deny the Actuarial  Study which would have brought Pensions to the front LAST YEAR, because it was their 1st year in the Mayors, office. Again, inexperience showing through.

At the very least, Hogan had experience in the City and some of the blunders we have seen, the lack of communication, I doubt Hogan would have had these issues.

We are here now, no use looking at the past. Pensions are now Brown's anchor and the citizens cannot afford to have him blunder here.

[ChriswUfGator]

Meh...

He's been at it long enough that you can no longer call it inexperience. Now it's just laziness.

[simms3]

So Jacksonville is about 20-30 years behind Atlanta?  Yeah, that's about right.

We quickly forget that Homer Lindsay was the most powerful man in Jacksonville, it takes some time to allow that luster to wear off. FBC is still powerful, just not the iron fist they used to rule with, and Jacksonville has grown because of it, but we are still a conservative town in most parts.

Well, Salt Lake City is a conservative city as well.  Probably even more so than Jacksonville.  Even during their early days, they created some very wonderful things. 

I'm still not sure what Jacksonville is trying to do.  I don't think it's conservatism itself that's causing this problem.  There's something else going on here. 

I'm placing my bet on something cultural that's causing this.  That means there's something from the past is biting back hard and won't let go. 

I really think it's pure conservatism.  Jacksonville never had a large gay community so there was never any real relationship (good or bad) between the city, its non-gay citizens and its gay community.

Also, Jacksonville as a rapidly growing sunbelt city has no connection to its cultural past.  Too many people from elsewhere, cultural past too long ago for most people from Jacksonville who are alive today, etc.  It's all about the types of people coming to Jacksonville who control its destiny and who gets voted into office.

The ultimate question is how does Lumb, representing Riverside, vote against the bill?  Is Riverside not as gay as we all think?  Is the most liberal area in town actually still more conservative than liberal?  Here's from Lumb's COJ site.

In 2004 he was elected to the Duval County Republican Executive Committee, the governing body of the local Republican Party, and was subsequently re-elected for a second four-year term in 2008. In 2010 he was elected to serve as Vice Chairman of the Republican Party of Duval County.

The problem with Jacksonville is you have a collection of more level headed but still center right folks (Boyer, Crescimbeni) mixed with FAR FAR FAR FAR right folks running the city, and there is basically nobody dead in the center or even left of center taking part in any decision making processes (well about 2-3 council members from the black community).  Not to discount the African American community, it's going to take more liberal white people to turn the city around considering the city is much more white overall than black.  Personally I judge a city's blueness by what percentage of white people are liberal because not to sound horrible it's almost a given the black community is blue, but in the south it means something when you have a large population of liberal white folk (again, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Orlando, Miami/Miami Beach, Palm Beach come to mind).

[mtraininjax]

Well at least we're not in Russia, where they are really homophobic, poor Madonna!

http://www.accessatlanta.com/atlanta-music/madonna-sued-in-russia-1502123.html?cxntlid=thbz_hm

[Charles Hunter]

Lumb is from At-Large 5, which really doesn't have that much of Riverside/Avondale.  It includes Springfield, Downtown, and westside out to I-295.
Link to map: http://www.coj.net/city-council/council-district-maps.aspx   (don't know how to embed the actual PDF map)
But everyone in the County can vote for him, the At-Large districts are just residence zones - created so they all didn't come from Ortega or Mandarin.

[cityimrov]

So Jacksonville is about 20-30 years behind Atlanta?  Yeah, that's about right.

We quickly forget that Homer Lindsay was the most powerful man in Jacksonville, it takes some time to allow that luster to wear off. FBC is still powerful, just not the iron fist they used to rule with, and Jacksonville has grown because of it, but we are still a conservative town in most parts.

Well, Salt Lake City is a conservative city as well.  Probably even more so than Jacksonville.  Even during their early days, they created some very wonderful things. 

I'm still not sure what Jacksonville is trying to do.  I don't think it's conservatism itself that's causing this problem.  There's something else going on here. 

I'm placing my bet on something cultural that's causing this.  That means there's something from the past is biting back hard and won't let go. 

Cityimrov,  What do you think the cultural or past issues might be that are impacting Jacksonville today?

It's just a hunch right now but I think it has something to do with Jacksonville being easy to live at.

Look at places like Salt Lake City.  The foundation of Salt Lake City was not easy.  They had to take any help they could otherwise they wouldn't survive.  It's the same thing with other states where people had to start from nothing.  It's Trust strangers or Die.  If you didn't trust the new strange people around you, you couldn't survive.

Areas which seem to accept more diversity are areas which kept this survivalist instinct.  It was trust or die.  You had to trust more than your family or race or belief.  You had to trust everyone around you to get you through this.  Jacksonville is the opposite of this.  You don't need to trust to survive.  Your allowed to distrust others and still survive.  It was also very easy to move to Jacksonville.  You didn't have the hardship of the Oregon Trail.

[Dog Walker]

City, You should really read some non-mormon, historic accounts of the founding of Salt Lake City.  It wasn't a pretty picture of cooperation among diverse people and included some nasty incidents of killing passing travelers and native Americans.

[Timkin]

What ever it is or is not, the fact remains ,  a few people control the masses  and have the audacity to use their religious convictions to discriminate.

The irony is they do not live by that which they expect others to do. They are hypocrites in some level of power throwing their weight around.

I find some peace in knowing that eventually they will get whats coming to them.  Karma tends to be a bitch.