As the city and the unions come to another short term agreement, I wonder when our city will face the 900 pound gorilla in the room. Jacksonville’s financial challenge isn’t the retirement fund, but the environment that continually makes Jacksonville a wasted opportunity. Don’t get me wrong. I love this town, but the combination of pride, poverty, and presumption have hindered this city of achieving the greatness that is her potential.
Jacksonville has many a wasteful element in it’s budget. Some are encompassed in pride, some in greed, some in over-reaching compassion: none of which are acceptable.
Take , for example; the Mayors pride in the fact that Jacksonville has the largest park system owned by a city in the world. This is a proud proclamation, but the mayor, his associates, and the city accountants should remember the advice of Benjamin Franklin:
“Fond pride of dress, is sure a very curse;
E’er fancy you consult, consult your purse.”
The tenacity to hold this land; land that causes funds to drip like a leaky faucet, is an exercise in pride of ownership, but it’s an extravagance that the city can ill-afford. I find the threat of laying off the most honorable of our society, to hoard what cannot be afforded to be short-sighted and naive. The Mayor would retort that Jacksonville must improve itself if it’s to attract business to offer better employment opportunities. This is true, but he’s trying to put lipstick on a pig if he thinks city-owned tractors mowing little used fields of grass are the standards which corporations use to judge a city.
Growing corporations aren’t looking for the place where they can relax- they’re looking for the place they can grow. Growing businesses want to build- they want a place that’s going to be less about benevolence and more about effective productivity and profit. While businesses often acknowledge they have opportunities to make their successes value-added socially; one has to remember that the ability to be benevolent is the result of the profit from which the benevolence originates.
Businesses are interested in locations with people who match their employment needs. If a city has under-educated ruffians, then the the city will attract blue-collar businesses- if it attracts any at all. If the city has a more educated population, then the more technical and white collar businesses will choose that city.
No business wants to join a city with high crime, an under educated workforce, and daunting fiscal challenges. They understand that they will have higher costs, lower productivity efficiencies, and will become the “cash cow” after the lucrative tax breaks sunset.
For a city to have lower crime rates, there must be a strong focus on the reduction of criminal elements: both reactive and preventative. In my opinion, Sheriff John Rutherford and State Attorney Angela Corey have sent a strong message that “crime doesn’t pay in Jacksonville”. This dynamic duo have worked together for the past seventeen months and the results are evident- even in an economic downturn.
While the city and it’s leadership understands that “Prevention” is vital to perpetuating low crime rates- I think the city has become extravagantly benevolent in it’s approach. For example; the propensity to take poor children, put them in new buildings, and “show the parents how they should live” is counter-productive. This sets the bar too high for some of the mothers. Mothers who quite school when they birthed the children that the city now fosters. “Anyone can get into a clean new place and look good until it begins to disintegrate”. This is an exercise in “over-compensation”.
Instead the city should use existing facilities, clean them up; keep them clean, and teach the children and young parents that it isn’t the possessions that create pride and self respect, but that the possessions are a by-product of those qualities. Give these young families an example of something that’s reasonably attainable. Give them something that will help them from the inside out.
Any parent who affords the fostering of their child should be considered a ward of the city. That means drug tests, home inspections, and employment are mandatory to accessing those services. The goal of the benevolence is to lower crime rates and improve the quality of citizenry in Jacksonville: THEN the corporations will look to our city with approval: even without the tax breaks.
City employees should realize that the piggy bank has a hole in the bottom of it. The money has been spent- and because they too are voters, they are just as responsible for that fact as well as their neighbors and the politicians who spent the money that was to finance their retirements. Because they are just as responsible, they are also responsible to bare some of the ramifications. Instead of retiring and collecting benefits after twenty years of service, they should be willing to wait until they are of retirement age like everyone else. I personally don’t know of any corporation that pays vested retirement benefits to their employees before retirement age. Nor do I know of any corporations who retire a person, rehire that person, then pay them double benefits when they retire the second time. Again, Benjamin Franklin noted: “Poverty wants some things, Luxury many things, Avarice all things”. Enough is as good as a feast, and one retirement from the city is “Enough”.
Jacksonville residents have the greatest responsibility. No longer can they vote for the person who will drain the kitty into their neighborhood. They must look at the fiscal results of their representatives- and award them with another term, or bring them back to the neighborhoods as former representatives based on their ability to balance the City Budget. One vote counts, and that vote comes with the responsibility to cast it intelligently.
Jacksonville has many strengths, and many weaknesses. We have copious amounts of natural and human resources that could make her bold and successful. But she needs a new direction. A direction that balances industry with leisure, circumspection with ideology, and frugality with pride. We are in need of a new direction, and new leadership.
We can no longer afford the luxury of pretense. Until we:
- improve our fiscal situation,
-decrease the percentage of those taking instead of giving,
-improve the results of our schools,
-and balance our assets with our resources;
this will be the city of “missed opportunities”.
Our Mayor, our Leadership, and the unions that work with them can either drain the well dry, or work to make her the most financially stable place to live in America.
The issue isn’t the parks, it’s not the amenities: but rather the safety and well-being of those who are value-added to the community: those who pay the taxes that are being squandered. Only after these issues are satisfied should Jacksonville look for ways to increase her benevolent activities , and her aesthetics.
When we accomplish these goals, the Fire and Police Retirement funds won’t be a problem.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Good morning Jim: I just discovered your site, and I must say I really enjoyed the blogs on the 3rd and on COJ. Firstly, I feel it would have been a better article on ” Transparency ” if you had hit the nail on the head and told the reader the underlying facts of the story. Having in the past been an editor/writer and a member of the International Association of Business Communicators, I might stress that your story as writen might be perceived as ” libelous” without the rest of the facts. The article on “COJ” was very interesting, however ” Quality of Life” ( golf, tennis, the beaches, dining,club, etc.) is in fact one the very reasons companies choose Jacksonville ( that and a handout from the city). The real issue in the budgetary problems the City now faces is ” fat.” Appointed officials ( and their admin.assts.), unneeded creation of infrastructure on several levels, misprioritization of needs, favoritism, the good old boy network and the Mayor’s private agenda are but a few of our budget problems. City goverment has but one true function…to protect and serve…then carry forward the ” Will of the People”, and until that is preceived by our leadership…the future of this once great city looks bleak !
Big Jim,
I wrote what I wrote using terms that expressed appearances and personal opinions: I was careful to avoid liable language. First out an abundance of caution, but more importantly because I wanted to be fair to Mr. Nwasike.
I didn’t reveal the details because there is an ongoing investigation. My position is that Mr. Nwasike should offer a reasonable explanation, or drop out of the race. If his explantion is credible, then give it and move on.
If I were the stockholder of a corporation that picked a city to build in because of tennis courts instead of viable employees, I’d want to address that issue as poor leadership.
I shared this on another page, but I thought you would like to read it too!
City Council President Jack Webb (R) has given the reins of power over to liberal democrats. How you ask?
The Jacksonville City Council has 19 members.
14 are Republicans.
There are 6 Standing Committees. Standing Committees mean that they are always on going, and that is where the core work of all the City Council happens.
1. Finance Committee
2. Rules Committee
3. Land Use & Zoning Committee
4. Public Health & Safety Committee
5. Recreation & Community Development Committee
6. Transportation, Energy & Utilities Committee
The City Council President chooses who is on what committee, and who are the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of which committee.
The three most powerful Committees in City Hall are:
1. Finance Committee
2. Rules Committee
3. Land Use & Zoning Committee
All three are Liberal Democrats.
In the order listed above are:
Warren Jones (D)
E. Denise Lee (D)
John Crescimbeni (D)
This means that City Council President Jack Webb (R) is responsible for giving away the reins of power to the minority party, and people who are known Liberals. God Help us!