On Fixing Jacksonville

[gatorback]

I think a lot of downtown jacksonville should be broken up and sold off or shut down.

Here's what I'd do and "YES on Christmas Taffy!"

1) IPO JTA.  Let the buyer beware.  It'd be sink or swim for them then.
2) Let the JEA  buy the parking police.  We've loved what the JEA has done for water and sewer.
3) Break up FBC.  Have REBOCS (REgional Baptists Organisations Centers)
    They could not be closer then 20 miles from each other.  Let's spread the word Brothers.
4) Let the Times Union start a cable channel to compete with the other  Players
5) Let the Jaguars move to St. Johns county if the players don't get their acts together
6) Buy the Red Sox and  bring them to a respectable city with good moral values and no juice for the players.
7) Keep the Skyway running 24/7 and expand to San Marco, Riverside and the Stadium, Baymedows and Spring Field
8 ) Recall Payton
9) Put a Jumbo Tron at the landing and sell advertising space
10) Lower our school tax since we just don't seem to be getting our act together on that front
11) Legalize Tasers for Metrojacksonville Sr Members and Above (Downtown use only)
12) Add a $1.00 cigarette tax per pack to keep kids from starting and to help pay for these projects.

[NJ to JAX WHAT DID I DO?]

I second the skyway and the cigarette tax.  When I first moved here, I was wondering why I saw so many people smoking.  I then did some research and found that cigarettes in Florida cost around 3.50 per pack while in NJ they cost around 6.50 per pack and around 7.00 per pack in NYC.  Same cigarettes double the tax my friends. 

And lets fully eliminate public places smoking, I feel like I am in Kentucky when I go out and night and come home smelling like a chimney.  If they want to smoke they can just do it outside, it doesn't get too cold here!  I remember seeing people huddled outside a club in Ithaca, NY (NY, NJ, etc. have fully eliminated public places smoking) in the middle of February smoking cigarettes and it was below zero (not celcius!).  So don't tell me it is too cold to smoke outside here!

[adamh0903]

i dont understand most of your post, but the landing installed a screen months ago,

what jags are you talking about not getting their act together, are you talking about the few that have gotten in trouble or the MANY who work to better the community, thats the kinda of blanket stadium that really bothers me

[Ocklawaha]

Damn it brother Gatorback! You missed that Zeppelin Mast, on top of the Bank of America Tower! We just gotta get Zeppelin here.


All joking aside, Cecil Field, comes to mind as a GREAT location, with a "RIDE" facility already built and preserved out at World Golf Village" That big round field in the bottom left on the new thread is "FRANCIS LIGHTER THEN AIR NAVAL STATION'S" blimp field. Don't know if the Zeppelin NT's would fit there but it's worth a look.


As for Cecil, if they already were running the NT "trourist Zeppelins" here, with our port and rail facilities, we'd be a sure bet for the first container ships.

Anyone thinking this is still just an "Ocklawaha Joke" check out:

http://www.zeppelin-nt.de/index.htm


Above the globe symbol you click and see the word "Sprache" (language) you will see a pop up for English, just click on that link and go to the pages.

It's coming folks, either Orlando, Miami, San Francisco (which is already in the game with the first NT ship going west as soon as the FAA gives the okay) and Maybe New York. It would be a great tourist attraction, FANTASTIC PR, "Now high over Metropolitan Stadium in Jacksonville, these photos are brought to you by the ZEPPELIN AIRSHIP JACKSONVILLE!" Of all the above cities, who has the most Aircraft techies? Where does the Navy fix EVERYTHING? Who retires here and looks for another job? Which city has the most economical land? Which city has the best workforce? Less wind then most other states? Booming Port? New Boeing factory? Why do I think we belong in this game? We were once a LTA base and had two HUGE LTA bases on each side of us... and yes, I AM old enough to remember.


Right now the NT series are "Toy" passenger ships for testing, the big plans are for trans-atlantic containers and historic size Zeppelins filled with helium and space age electronics.

Ocklawaha

[Ocklawaha]

I just hope your not one of those Jacksonville newbies from up-north that is boasting to your frozen friends, "First thing we did was throw out our jackets". Big mistake, HUGE!

While rare, the temps in Jax. have reached into the single numbers many times. Christmas of 1983, it was snowing and 5 degrees outside. Sleet/snow mix in Orlando at 9 degrees! Jan.-Feb. will often have cold snaps into the 20's or teens. I understand cold, transporation work is outside much of the time. I've lived in Oregon, Oklahoma, Florida and a dozen or so other places. That day in 1983 I was in Florida, and I'm here to tell you, Oklahoma or Oregon NEVER felt THAT cold!

Ocklawaha

[copperfiend]

5) Let the Jaguars move to St. Johns county if the players don't get their acts together

[thelakelander]

Jax isn't as bad as we make it seem sometimes.  The city has a superior physical location, storied history and strong bones, despite the agressive urban renewal schemes of the mid/late 20th century.  All we need is a little vision to pull everything together.

[gatorback]

Okay. Okay. Okay.  I agree in part to most if not all the statements above, plus, I've softened in my advancing age (1 day is a lot these times).  So, some clarification and the updated list:
1) IPO JTA.  Let the buyer beware.  It'd be sink or swim for them then.
2) Let the JEA  buy the parking police.  We've loved what the JEA has done for water and sewer.
3) Break up FBC.  Have REBOCS (REgional Baptists Organisations Centers)
    They could not be closer then 20 miles from each other.  Let's spread the word Brothers.
4) Let the Times Union start a cable channel to compete with the other  Players
5) Zeppelin Mast, on top of the Bank of America Tower and Cecil Field facility
6) Keep the Skyway running 24/7 and expand to San Marco, Riverside and the Stadium, Baymedows and Spring Field
7 ) Recall Payton
This is a jumbotron
this is how the city attracts the crowd just passing  by on I95
9) Lower our school tax since we just don't seem to be getting our act together on that front
10) Add a $1.00 cigarette tax per pack to keep kids from starting and to help pay for these projects.


Players didn't just mean the guys play on the field, but  the key players -- the ones giving away the sky boxes, not paying the taxes, yelling at hot dog vendors blocking official police busines,  using etc, etc., et al.

I had to cut the list down a little bit, sorry folks, if your deal got cut,  but we did add a few and added a few back.

[riverkeepered]

I am certainly no expert on downtown revitalization.  However, I can tell when something doesn't seem right, and our downtown is hurtin'. 

Here are some excerpts that I posted recently about my observations on the way to work:

Next, I ventured through the heart of our vibrant city and all of the bombed out buildings, overgrown lots, sediment and trash-choked storm drains, poorly-timed street lights, homeless and disenfranchised, outdated city buses spewing clouds of diesel exhaust, an empty lot that says "Home of the future courthouse", a half-built and abandoned restaurant subsidized with taxpayer $, the "revitalized" Lavilla, and the Skyway Express chugging along with not one passenger on board.

By this time, I was starting to get depressed, so I tried to think about all of the progressive policies and actions that we have taken to encourage economic activity and make this city a leader in sustainable development.  After the shipyard project came to mind and afer looking up to see stacks from the northside generating plant churning out a mercury-laden plume of pollution that stretched for miles, I gave up on this exercise.

I include my cynical remarks because it demonstrates many problems that were observed or recalled in a very short period of time from a quick pass through the heart of our city.  One of the biggest deterrents besides the parking meter issue, is the fact the street lights are often poorly timed, so it can take an unneccesary amount of time to travel through our good city.  Also, some streets are cutoff or dead end, making it an unpleasant and inefficient experience for the commuter.  Improving the efficiency of travel through downtown would be a relatively easy important first step. 

Next, the appearance of downtown has to be improved dramatically. There are too many "bombed out buildings, overgrown lots, sediment and trash-choked storm drains" and streets.  If you were new to Jax and were to travel to some areas of downtown, you would think that this was a city in rapid decline not on the rise or brink of revitalization.  Let's get tough on property owners who allow their buildings and properties to become dilapidated and overgrown.  It takes more than pavers, a few crepe myrtles and fancy lightposts to spruce up the downtown.   

I also agree that the Skyway needs to become a useful tool in transporting people around downtown and to downtown from the San Marco and the south bank.  The "trolleys" and buses are not getting the job done.

Finally, we have to recognize how important our river is and could be for our downtown.  This is the central feature of this city and for good reason.  Other cities like Chattanooga have recognized the value of their rivers and have made public access a primary focus, allowing economic development to occur on the perimeter of those public spaces.  We have made dramatic errors in how we allocate public dollars for incentives (i.e. Shipyards) and attempt to attract new economic development (i.e. Lavilla), and all that needs to change.  We should be trying to carve out meaningful civic spaces (not pocket parks that no one uses) and allowing those to attract the economic activity.  We have lost a lot of those opportunities, but it's still not too late.