by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
At its first meeting of 2011, the City Council Finance Committee breezed through its 29-item agenda in less than 10 minutes, and that included approving a piece of legislation sought by the U.S. Navy to maintain its pilot training programs.
The committee sent to the full council Ordinance 2010-867 to appropriate from and authorize agreement with Enterprise Florida Inc. to target willing sellers of land use easements around Outlying Field Whitehouse in western Duval County near Cecil Commerce Center.
The funds will be used to purchase easements to ensure the runway will continue to be isolated from development so that the Navy can continue to use the facility to train pilots to land on aircraft carriers at night.
The committee also approved an ordinance that would appropriate $133,000 from Enterprise Florida with an additional $33,000 in-kind contribution from the City’s Military Affairs Office in the form of staff services. The funds would be used to advocate for military missions and economic development through the hiring of lobbyists and consultants.
In a third item of military-related legislation, the committee approved appropriating $200,000 from Enterprise Florida to fund repairs to Somers Road, the only access to the Navy’s fuel tank farm at Naval Station Mayport.
Harrison Conyers from the City’s Military Affairs Office said before the meeting the three ordinances “represent half a million dollars coming back to Jacksonville from the state.”
The committee also approved appropriation of $100,000 from the state’s Residential Construction Mitigation Program and a like amount from the Community Development Block Grant Program to retrofit and strengthen seven homes of low-to-moderate income residents to lessen potential damage from high-wind storms.
On the other end of the financial scale, the committee approved appropriating $2,000 contributed by Jacksonville University to fund the cleaning of the “Lyrical Light” public art sculpture at the Times-Union Center. The funds are expected to cover the cost of cleaning the art glass and stainless steel installation four times at two-year intervals.
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