Hemming Park Shocker: Friends of Hemming Out of Money

[Downtown Osprey]

Absolutely frustrating the COJ fumbled this. Honestly feels like they've been out against this group from the start.

[Tacachale]

Well they're good at rallying the troops, anyway.

[jph]

The city is getting tired throwing money in that tiny little park. Why are they asking for  so much money to maintain that tiny little park anyway? Really don't get it. What the park needs is a few cops to keep those homeless and those bums away

I agree. The biggest reason the park is so unpopular is all the people that spend their time there talking, eating, playing chess, etc.

[DrQue]

The park would be better served with having a slightly more polished look (referring to the decorations). The cafe area and game tables are great touches but I often feel like I am walking through a middle school decorated for spirit week. Don't get me wrong, I like where their head is, but massive shark heads and chickens that resemble over-sized grade school art projects are not how we need this centerpiece park to look.

Perhaps one day they will exchange bricks for grass. 

[Dapperdan]

I think they want to turn it all to greenspace and put a carousel by the library end.

[JaxJersey-licious]

This does not look good...

http://jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=547921

Excessive spending, inconsistent funding, many more money-losing than money-making events, unfinished projects, and now serious accounting lapses? Sounds to damn familiar. What next?

Were the naysayers right all along?

[mtraininjax]

$842.71 for an 18 percent late fee to an architectural firm

Oops.

$1000 sink? Gold or silver plated? The $25 sink from Home Depot would not work? How about a donated one?

This whole thing stinks as much as that BBQ joint that sits empty at Davis and Union Street.

People and projects downtown know one thing, waste!

[MEGATRON]

Hard to believe that Pogopalooza didn't make money.  Top tier draw right there.

[tufsu1]

I feel like I could have put that on for like $500 plus insurance, there really wasn't much to it.

if of course you didn't bring in anyone from outside of Jacksonville, as they did

[CityLife]

Starting to sound like One Spark Part 2. A good idea in theory that is financially mismanaged so poorly that the project looses credibility....

As someone that has managed a substantial amount of taxpayer money, this is careless management of public money. Let's be clear though, it is all public money.  Even money that is "privately raised" is still essentially public money. FOHP is able to raise funds solely because they have been given management of a public (taxpayer) asset and those that donate do so for the public. I'm guessing the City is also on the hook for the $76k grant that was used for operating expenses if they can't raise the funds for it.

It's convenient for FOHP's leadership to make the former operations manager the fall guy, but I doubt he was doing much they weren't aware of.

[Gunnar]

This project has so much promise and I would hate to see it tank because of a failure of leadership.  Sounds like the City Council is, rightfully, losing patience. 

It does not appear that the non-leadership personnel fought the free food and tickets.
So if you have leadership that failed to do their job and the rest of the team that did not say "no" to all the free stuff, where is the project's promise ?

[Captain Zissou]

That's absurd.  Lunches and snacks paid for with public funds?  They need to start acting more like a nonprofit and less like a tech startup.  The one point I do agree with is that initially the city should have gotten more behind them to kick start fundraising efforts.  They have been fighting an uphill PR battle for the past couple years and that has no doubt affected their ability to solicit donations. 

Side note: I'd really love to see this $1,000 sink.

[TheCat]

I love how we're tangled over what amounts to somewhere around $20k in funds, yet we piss away LITERALLY  hundreds of millions on the Jaguars. We should just sell hemming park to shad khan so we can drop a decent amount of money on it without complaint.

Our council, just like most of our governments, are handicapped by ignorance. We are powerless to solve so many of our problems, so we make issue with $1000 sink because that's easy to yell about.

How are we supposed to outrage over a $100 million scoreboard? We can't. It's too abstract. The money is too unreal at those amounts for most people, including me, to understand. The projects are too large to put in perspective.

But, tell me about a hammer that cost more than $10 or a lunch that costs more than I am willing to pay, and I'll have a righteous sense of outrage. Our city council is the same way.

[Steve]

I love how we're tangled over what amounts to somewhere around $20k in funds, yet we piss away LITERALLY  hundreds of millions on the Jaguars. We should just sell hemming park to shad khan so we can drop a decent amount of money on it without complaint.

Our council, just like most of our governments, are handicapped by ignorance. We are powerless to solve so many of our problems, so we make issue with $1000 sink because that's easy to yell about.

How are we supposed to outrage over a $100 million scoreboard? We can't. It's too abstract. The money is too unreal at those amounts for most people, including me, to understand. The projects are too large to put in perspective.

But, tell me about a hammer that cost more than $10 or a lunch that costs more than I am willing to pay, and I'll have a righteous sense of outrage. Our city council is the same way.

The problem that I have isn't with the amount per se, it's the fact that no one could seem to answer where it was going until this happened.

The Jaguars argument is apples and oranges-you can argue whether or not the city should spend it, but you know what you're getting for the money.

[Tacachale]

There's been an unfortunate "circling the wagons" tendency from FOHP whenever the finances are questioned. This was bound to happen sooner or later. Hopefully Hemming Park improvement can continue even if FOHP can't.