Planning Commission member refuses Jacksonville Mayor Curry's request to resign

[strider]

Of course, one could also look at the fact that the Mayor knows his time is limited (4 to 8 years) and if he wants to do something long lasting with the Urban Core (just an example) and he thinks the various department heads and committee members will be a stumbling block to get that accomplish, it makes sense to bite the bullet and make the changes right up front, since as we all know, it is perfectly legal and allowable and even ethical, assuming the appointments are indeed being made on merit not political favors.  People may complain a bit at first as to the fairness of it all, but in the end, if the results in 6 months are positive, will anyone care? 

[vicupstate]

are indeed being made on merit not political favors.

How will ending the only means of autonomy accomplish that? Not sure how this can lead to anything other than it becoming MORE based on political favors.  If the mayor and/or his contributors don't like a decision that a Member makes, they can be replaced immediately. An entire panel of newcomers is going to be a lot easier for the Paul Harden's of the world to run over, than a panel that at least has some experience under it's belt and doesn't have the fear of reprisal omnipresent. 



   

[strider]

Of course, one could also look at the fact that the Mayor knows his time is limited (4 to 8 years) and if he wants to do something long lasting with the Urban Core (just an example) and he thinks the various department heads and committee members will be a stumbling block to get that accomplish, it makes sense to bite the bullet and make the changes right up front, since as we all know, it is perfectly legal and allowable and even ethical, assuming the appointments are indeed being made on merit not political favors.  People may complain a bit at first as to the fairness of it all, but in the end, if the results in 6 months are positive, will anyone care?

are you serious?

So just because its easier and faster, why bother with the process? 

But he did indeed follow the process per the by-laws, the ordinances and the Charter...in other words, the only argument against his asking for a few to leave before their terms expire is that it hadn't been done before.  Show us the proof that it has never been done before and at least your argument will have some merit. Until then, it is nothing but sour grapes.

Are a few people who perhaps should be left in their positions being asked to leave?  Maybe.  Are the new appointees better than the current appointees?  Maybe.  Are they worse?  Maybe.  All we have are maybes, except for the fact that the changing of the board members is being done legally.  Until the dust settles and we see how the new people do, we can't know if this is better or worse.

[strider]

are indeed being made on merit not political favors.

How will ending the only means of autonomy accomplish that? Not sure how this can lead to anything other than it becoming MORE based on political favors.  If the mayor and/or his contributors don't like a decision that a Member makes, they can be replaced immediately. An entire panel of newcomers is going to be a lot easier for the Paul Harden's of the world to run over, than a panel that at least has some experience under it's belt and doesn't have the fear of reprisal omnipresent. 
   

What autonomy are you talking about?  There is no difference between this and the directors that serve at the pleasure of the Mayor.  Some of you keep trying to misinform the public by saying this is being done wrong and is ending some perceived "Autonomy" of the commissions.  Bad news, there isn't any autonomy and there never really has been.

The facts are this.  The Mayor can call for the resignation and appoint a new Commission member at anytime.  To really accomplish that, it has to be important enough for him to spent some amount of political capital to get it done as the City Council has the final say.  That is how it has always worked and how it is working now.

Of course, some appointments are of so little consequence that no one really pays attention.  Others, people step up and take notice.  But in the end, if it is important, it gets done because one side or the other spends that political capital.

How that process can equate to the commissions and boards being anything but political is beyond me.

[RattlerGator]

bizarre.  actually beyond bizarre.  meaningless.

I guess I scored on you, huh? Got you babbling in one to three word utterances.

You know, what's really "beyond bizarre" about all of this are the Orwellian claims of partisanship by people who are quite clearly strong partisans!

[strider]

you realize of course that this is literally the opposite of your argument about why historic structures should not be demolished with the emergency track, right?

Wrong. Now say that the Mayor was trying to circumvent the resident requirement and appoint someone from St Augustine because he was choosing to ignore the legal definition of residency, now that is what Kimberly Scott was doing with the emergency demolitions. Simply ignoring the definition of what was to constitute an emergency demolition to get around the legal way of demolishing a historic structure.

No matter how you wish to spin it, these replacement appointments are legal and are within the Mayor's rights to do. Now, if you think the replacements are not qualified, use that argument.  Won't change anything if the Mayor is willing to expend the political capital to get his people in place but at least it is a legal and supportable argument.

[vicupstate]

bizarre.  actually beyond bizarre.  meaningless.

You know, what's really "beyond bizarre" about all of this are the Orwellian claims of partisanship by people who are quite clearly strong partisans!

If you are willing to take the time to look it up, you will see numerous posts that I have made, going back many years/administrations supporting non-partisan elections at the municipal level.

[vicupstate]

you realize of course that this is literally the opposite of your argument about why historic structures should not be demolished with the emergency track, right?

Wrong. Now say that the Mayor was trying to circumvent the resident requirement and appoint someone from St Augustine because he was choosing to ignore the legal definition of residency, now that is what Kimberly Scott was doing with the emergency demolitions. Simply ignoring the definition of what was to constitute an emergency demolition to get around the legal way of demolishing a historic structure.

No matter how you wish to spin it, these replacement appointments are legal and are within the Mayor's rights to do. Now, if you think the replacements are not qualified, use that argument.  Won't change anything if the Mayor is willing to expend the political capital to get his people in place but at least it is a legal and supportable argument.

No one said it was illegal. Only you are trying to add that straw man to the discussion. The question is, is it good for the city both now and in the long term?  Even if good people are being appointed now that doesn't mean good people won't be replaced later with bad ones.  Experience and continuity will be sacrificed only to add another means of dissension within the body.  Partisanship and potential reprisal is clearly being added into the mix of this board.

The point is this is a new precedent that no prior Mayor has chosen to change. A mayor who has spent years in partisan politics is seeking to inject that into these appointments.

The autonomy that DID exist is now gone. A member could vote their conscience with the reasonable expectation that they wouldn't be replaced just because some applicant/developer didn't like their vote. That is gone now. I submit that is nOT a good thing and only strengthens the hands of developers and lobbyists. 

Please tell me what the people being replaced have done to be warrant replacement?     

[ChriswUfGator]

Regardless of this dispute, something tells me city planning is going to improve from its current level. It certainly couldn't get much more dysfunctional than it has been.

If, and only if, the technical analysis doesn't get polluted with politics.....and I do not have high hopes for that.

It's already "polluted by politics", as well as polluted by dysfunction. If we improve on the latter it will be a substantial net gain.

Adding partisan politics into the mix NEVER improved anything, in my experience, it only gives a new dimension for dissension. From here on out, this entire board will flip with every new mayor.  A seat will be a political 'reward' more than ever.   

The downside of term limited mayors will only be compounded. 

You know, you and I used to go round and round on these kind of issues, and I don't know if you came around, or I did, or a bit of both, but in the last year or two I find you're taking the words out of my mouth. I hate just writing "+1", but spot on.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Didn't I read somewhere further up the thread that certain appointees can only be removed with a vote by the CC?

Isn't that the case with King?  Didn't she lose the vote in Council?

I guess my point is that the mayor is doing what's allowed by the Charter.  If this was such a bad decision, then it wouldn't have been approved by the council. 

The blame seems to be a little misplaced on this one.

[strider]

If these positions were intended to be political, the Charter would have structured them as such (as purely appointed by the Mayor with no term of office prescribed). They were given election-spanning terms of office specifically to take political considerations out of it.  No doubt also to achieve some experience and continuity for better governance.  That is the way it has been done too, until now it seems.

This is simply a power grab and partisan reward. This provides a  compelling reason for going to non-partisan elections at the City level.

why bother with the process?

How will ending the only means of autonomy accomplish that? Not sure how this can lead to anything other than it becoming MORE based on political favors.  If the mayor and/or his contributors don't like a decision that a Member makes, they can be replaced immediately. An entire panel of newcomers is going to be a lot easier for the Paul Harden's of the world to run over, than a panel that at least has some experience under it's belt and doesn't have the fear of reprisal omnipresent.

Just a few quotes that actually imply that it was not done properly and therefore possibly unethical if not illegal.  I think the straw was from someone other than me.

My only problem here is that the same type of rhetoric used to support Lisa King here on this thread is the same kind of rhetoric used to deny the rights of the Disabled and others. Some are forecasting doom and gloom here when the facts are, we do not know what the result of replacing some of the planning commission members will be.  As even some of the people yelling foul over this issue have stated the replacements are good, solid people,  one would expect the recognition that the Mayor has the right ask for the replacements and the City Council has the right to stop it.  As of yet, they haven't so either they agree with the Mayor or the Mayor decided it was imprtant enough to spend the political capital to get it done.

[strider]

Strider doesn't actually care about any of that. I suppose it's time to reconsider  his position on my list of people whose opinions I seriously weigh.

The authorship of his current miseries is this very practice, written small.  Department heads are political appointees, and people with administration favor have more power than people without it.  Ok simple and common enough.

But in the case of Code Enforcement, this led to the empowerment of a demolition happy, vindictive woman named Kim Scott who began tearing down historic structures out of spite.

Strider knows that the source of her ability to do this derived from her connection to the Browns (both Alvin and Corrine), the political protection afforded her by Karen Bowling, and Denise Lee.

He hoped to end this practice of political conferment onto incompetent people (at least in Scott's case) except there was no backup from the head of Planning, a cousin of Mayor Brown's wife.

So in return for the promise of removing Kim Scott, Strider gave full throated support to Mayor Curry, even to the point of being personally insulting on this site to people who supported Brown.

But it turns out that the answer to insider political trading isn't really more of the same.  People who cut cynical political deals with one party can just as easily cut them with another, and so, Kim Scott remains.

And make no mistake about it, I like Curry's appointments by and large. In fact Im quite excited by the prospect of an administration that features, Bill Killingsworth, Abel Harding, Ben Davis, Sam Mousa, Brent Fine, and Kerri Stewart.  All solid, great choices.

But simply further politicizing the process isn't the way to a better future, and only speeds up those appointments by a small percentage of time.  The same thing could have been done with private meetings, thank yous, and appointments to other volunteer boards.

Other than the fact that you have no idea what you are talking about, other than the fact that you threw your support fully to Brown and got nothing for it, other than the fact that you are so out in left field, you can't see home base, nice post.

[RattlerGator]

Reality is what they say it is, strider. Anything else becomes -- remarkably -- indecipherable. Or bizarre. I'm currently reading Charles C.W. Cooke, The Conservatarian Manifesto, and it is doing a damn good job of explaining the manufactured response here. They (many of them, at least) honestly don't see it as manufactured.

But it quite obviously is, and the black-letter law ends discussion on the matter to all but the bent out of shape partisans. It doesn't matter that one has historically pushed for this or that, vicupstate. Has it truly escaped your attention that nonpartisan elections are quite partisan? Seriously? Or that the protocol Curry isn't following *also* didn't mean good people wouldn't be replaced later with bad ones.

Come on, people. Drop the foolishness.

[jph]

Reality is what they say it is, strider. Anything else becomes -- remarkably -- indecipherable. Or bizarre. I'm currently reading Charles C.W. Cooke, The Conservatarian Manifesto, and it is doing a damn good job of explaining the manufactured response here. They (many of them, at least) honestly don't see it as manufactured.

But it quite obviously is, and the black-letter law ends discussion on the matter to all but the bent out of shape partisans. It doesn't matter that one has historically pushed for this or that, vicupstate. Has it truly escaped your attention that nonpartisan elections are quite partisan? Seriously? Or that the protocol Curry isn't following *also* didn't mean good people wouldn't be replaced later with bad ones.

Come on, people. Drop the foolishness.

Why should the black-letter law end discussion? Whether it's legal and whether it's a smart thing to do are separate questions and only one is answered by the law.

[mtraininjax]

It was way toooooooo early in the political season for any of the less seasoned CC members to stick their neck out for Lisa or anyone for that matter. Its going to be a long 4 years, so why risk going against the mayor for something that is his right? It was all politically motivated, we all see that, but it was his right, just as stacking the boards of other agencies, JPA recently, and Planning, and we will see more of this too.

Anyone have a run down on on where Mayor Alvin is these days? His old staff? There were some good people on the staff.