Consolidation Task Force

[JayBird]

Taca, looks like Clay does have issues providing basic services as well.

http://jacksonville.com/community/clay/2013-07-14/story/clay-public-ballparks-deteroriating-county-cites-economy-budget

Clay County public ballparks are deteriorating for want of maintenance and repairs.

County officials blame budget and manpower constraints for the decaying conditions. Close parks or put off non-safety-related repairs and maintenance is the hard choice the county's faced since the 2007-08 fiscal year, County Manager Stephanie Kopelousos said. This year, the department's budget totals nearly $1.6 million.

Take an afternoon, or better yet a drive on a Saturday and visit the ballparks around Clay County and you will quickly find that what Clay County calls "lacking" people of Duval would most likely call "a vast improvement".  This article is actually politically motivated as the result of a three year debate between the County, City of GCS, and the little League Associations about how much $$$ each pays into the pot for improvements and maintenance. With certain county administrators trying to ram a new $16-50M (according to who you talk to) baseball complex down people's throats without giving a hoot to what they say, the battle is soon coming to a head.

[CityLife]

I don't know about that. I partially grew up in OP and played baseball at OPAA. Was just up there recently and its pretty crappy. Not nearly as nice as some of the baseball parks I've seen in Mandarin. My old elementary and junior high are now dumps. The neighborhood I grew up in has gone downhill quite a bit (as has most of OP, not Fleming Island). Clay wouldn't exactly be considered a model county by any stretch.

But yea the whole big league park thing is an awful idea. Especially when considering that long term, baseball is losing a lot of traction to other sports. Definitely seems a bit shady and not in the public interest.

[JayBird]

Keep in mind that any "recreational, educational or pre-existing community facility" that falls within the limits of the Town of Orange Park receives no funding through the county due to an erroneous decision in September of 2009 by John Bowles.  Cindy Hall has mended relationships and they are believed to recieve some funding for the 2014 fiscal year, but this has been one of the examples used by those of us fighting against the constantly growing group whom want Fleming Island to be their own Town. There are actually services provided by the county for OPAA that they get paid back for from monies from both OPAA and the Town of OP, which is why they were blatantly omitted from this article.

Any talk of changing consolidation as it is today should account for new people stepping into management who may waste resources by trying to "establish" their power. While I agree with re-evaluating how money is spent and services provided, in my opinion any talk of breaking the consolidation will have disastrous effects.

And yes, I would say America's PASTtime is losing its foothold to soccer, At least in NE Florida.

[CityLife]

Looks like things are moving quickly for the task force. The first meeting is tentatively scheduled for August 5th.

Combined, their two lists of volunteers and suggestions had more than 60 names with some overlap.

Names on the lists include Peter Rummell, former Jacksonville Civic Council chairman; Wally Lee, retired JAX Chamber CEO; Wyman Duggan, past chair of the Charter Revision Commission; Fred Franklin, attorney and former City general counsel; Susie Wiles, consultant and Civic Council acting director; Rena Coughlin, Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida CEO; Sam Mousa, former City chief administrative officer; and Alton Yates, community leader.

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=540041

[Uh Duh]

Jim Bailey speculated in today's Daily Record that this may be an attempt by Council President Gulliford to revive "Ocean County."  http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=540056
Unlike Tampa, Orlando, or any other city in Florida, Jacksonville has a consolidated government.  There is no Duval County Government or County Commissioners.  We have a City Council and Mayor, as does Atlantic, Neptune and Jacksonville Beach.  Baldwin also has its own Mayor, but it gave up some of its autonomy a few years ago because it could not afford to provide public safety services.  The four towns' taxpayers pay taxes to run their local government and pay some taxes to COJ.
The Ocean County concept was proposed years ago and it was to include the three beach communities.  The formation of a new county would require the Florida Legislature to approve and the Governor to sign into law.  It will never happen.  The primary reason is that much of the tax base for the various big counties in Florida is found along the coast and these coastal areas would like to be their own political entities and not have to pay both local and county taxes. 
While Consolidation has had it flaws and issues over the years, it has also helped to avoid many issues you find in other big Florida Counties.  There are some very intelligent people who have been named to the Consolidation Task Force.  It will be interesting to see what they come up with in the way of recommendations.  It will take either voter approval or legislative approval to change the City Charter, so there will be plenty of opportunity for public comment.

[BrooklynSouth]

I think the city needs to go back to the pre-1968 boundaries. Screw consolidation! It has resulted in everything being stretched too thin. (police, fire, rescue, the libraries, too much sprawl) It's time to cut the suburbs free. They can surly afford to take care of themselves.

Consolidation practically saved this city, downtown would be worse than Detroit without consolidation,  riverside/Avondale would be ghettos. Independent life building? Bank of America tower? Forget it, they would have never been constructed without consolidation. Our resources are only streched to thin because we aren't willing to spend the money necessary to run a city of this size.

+1,000,000

James Crooks, Jacksonville's most prominent historian of the city, was on First Coast Connect this morning (89.9 WJCT radio) to discuss the consolidation task force. I called and asked if he thought consolidation had saved us from Detroit's problems and he heartily agreed. He said it kept a lot of residents from moving to "the suburbs" and destroying the tax base.

Here are his books on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Jacksonville-Consolidation-Jaguars-Florida-History/dp/081302708X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374678388&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Jacksonville-after-Fire-1901-1919-South/dp/0813010675/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374678388&sr=1-2

[Debbie Thompson]

I guess he has a point.  When we moved here in 1966, off University near Beach, we were outside the city limits, which ended at Emerson.  It was in the unincorporated county where all the new housing was going up, and we didn't pay city taxes, only county.

So is it the law of unforseen consequences?  Consolidation both saved and destroyed the City?  Saved it by increasing the tax base, but destroyed it because of so many people moving out of the urban core into the suburbs where the new housing was being built.  Destroyed it because we didn't foresee how far we would sprawl or how much that would stretch our resources.

[Tacachale]

^People were already moving out of the urban core and had been for twenty years. The county government was also totally unequipped to deal with it. It's not a result of consolidation.

[vicupstate]

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

The urban cores of other consolidated/large-land-mass cities are strong and thriving today.  See Charlotte, Indy,  Nashville and Houston for examples.

The urban core of Jax has not made the turn around that those cities did, because of weak leadership, not consolidation itself.

[fieldafm]

The urban core of Jax has not made the turn around that those cities did, because of weak leadership, not consolidation itself.

Completey agree.

[Noone]

^And taking the money. Shipyards $36,500,000 of taxpayer money gone. That's a ton of dough. add your own examples.

[Tacachale]

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

The urban cores of other consolidated/large-land-mass cities are strong and thriving today.  See Charlotte, Indy,  Nashville and Houston for examples.

The urban core of Jax has not made the turn around that those cities did, because of weak leadership, not consolidation itself.

Yes, this is what I mean. Suburbanization and sprawl predated consolidation and affected cities that didn't consolidate. By and large our struggles in downtown and much of the core are due to reasons beyond consolidation.

[Shine]

What are people's thoughts on City Manager form of government – change though Charter Revision.

Its kind of hard to run a city when all the talent gets fired every 4 years.  Add to it, a Mayor-Manager that may be the best politician, but lacking in management ability.

[Tacachale]

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

[CityLife]

I made my thoughts on that known earlier in the thread. Definitely think it should at least be explored.

Its possible to have both a mayor AND a county manager. In that scenario, the mayor is typically more of a figurehead, but can also be a voting member of City Council. In some places that run that system, the mayor is actually the acting head of council. I'm sure that the charter could be crafted so as to give the Mayor some additional powers. Which would potentially create a proper system of checks and balances.