by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Ask and you shall receive.
That sums up the response from the first week of the City Council’s e-mail address, [email protected]. In its first week online, the address garnered more than 260 e-mails from citizens and more than 800 ideas on ways to balance the City’s 2009-10 budget.
“The best thing that has come out of this financial crisis is how the community has become engaged in the most important part of City government which is how to pay for it,” said Council President Richard Clark as he reviewed the collection of early responses. The suggestions are related to virtually every aspect of City government including almost every department, the independent authorities and constitutional officers. Of the 30 categories that make up the response topics only five received no comments in the first week: the Medical Examiner’s Office, Public Defender’s Office, State Attorney’s Office, Jacksonville Housing Authority and capital improvements.
The suggestions run the gamut from reducing pension costs to saving money on utilities by putting City offices on a four-day, 10-hour-per-day work schedule. Another suggestion is to create a citywide “50-50” drawing each week with half of the money collected going to the winner and the other half into the City’s general fund.
The suggestions from the public will be included in the record when the Council’s Finance Committee begins its budget hearings Thursday at 8:30 a.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall. Additional hearings are scheduled every week through Sept. 9 followed by two special Council meetings on the budget Sept. 17 and Sept. 29, the absolute deadline for the Council to approve the 2009-10 City budget.
Source: City Council Research Department
To read all of the more than 800 suggestions submitted in the first week click here to download a PDF document.
To submit a suggestion, e-mail to [email protected].
Anything sent to the coj.net e-mail address becomes part of the public record, so Clark also directed that a way for citizens to contribute to the process anonymously be made available. Toward that end a decidedly low-tech, old-school method is also in place. It’s a suggestion box located just outside Clark’s office in the Council suite, but that doesn’t mean suggestions must be delivered to that location. Suggestions can be dropped off at the reception desk or mailed to the Council without a return address to ensure privacy.
Clark wanted to offer all levels of access in the hope that City employees would be encouraged to contribute their ideas on how to streamline government and therefore the budget. He also wanted to take advantage of input from the most qualified subject matter experts.
“No one knows more about how City departments work than the people who work in those departments every day,” he said. “Anonymity is something some people really want in this environment.”
Council Secretary and Director Cheryl Brown took Clark’s mandates for the public access to the budget process and directed the Council’s research department to conduct the information gathering and categorization. The public’s suggestions are included in the record in their entirety with no filtering or censoring.
“The Council is the depository of the public record and we read every suggestion. We have to give people the ability to stay in the shade but they are allowed — even if it’s anonymously — to be part of the public record. That’s why we have the box,” said Brown.
While some suggestions are very succinct, Clark was impressed by the submissions that are longer. He hopes every citizen of Jacksonville understands that their input is valued by the Council.
“It’s great when someone has taken the time to sit down for 10 or 15 minutes and really share their ideas. That’s important because people need to realize they are the shareholders in the mother of all public companies,” he said.
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