While she says consolidation has generally worked, the chairwoman of a task force reviewing the city-county form of government says the evolution of a "one size fits all" mentality for problem-solving is an issue.
The Beaches are different than Baldwin. Mandarin isn't the same as Springfield. San Marco isn't just like the Northside.
"We are very different, from one part of our large city to another," said City Council member Lori Boyer, who leads the 30-person task force. "The disconnect neighborhoods feel … they feel they are underserved."
She says Downtown and the urban core have lost their voice over time and have had challenges. With consolidation covering all of Duval County, demands throughout increased and fewer resources were available.
She shared some of what she has learned in the first three months of review to the League of Women Voters on Wednesday.
The problems, she said, are really the only ones so far found to come directly from consolidation. Others have been implementation problems.
Such as "creeping deconsolidation" that has taken place over the years in city departments, independent authorities and constitutional officer offices. Services the city once provided are steadily being picked up in-house.
Examples include the Jacksonville Transportation Authority having about a $1 million legal services budget instead of using the city's General Counsel's Office and the JEA having its own human resources and information technology departments.
While maybe not directly tied to consolidation, Boyer said since the group has met she has realized the detrimental effect that a loss of institutional knowledge has had. It's been caused by election turnover from term limits, a stream of mayoral appointees instead of retained civil service employees and the decision to eliminate deputy directors in departments.
The latter was through Mayor Alvin Brown's government reorganization. Boyer was in favor but said she's changed her mind after seeing what their loss has meant to that knowledge base.
"I would totally be opposed to that today," she told the group.
She said afterward that possible ways to put a structure in place could include extended, hiring a city manager that remains beyond council and mayoral terms, and expanding civil service employees.
Boyer said despite the challenges, the city's problems would "only be worse" without consolidation because it increased the population and expanded the tax base.
It also helped curb a "perfect storm" of problems at the time, which included public official corruption and schools being disaccredited.
The 30-member task force in the coming weeks will start to transition from hearing presentations to breaking up into subcommittees to address the list of issues found, Boyer said. There likely will be four subcommittees with up to eight members each, but overarching themes for each won't be determined until the issues start to be assigned.
Boyer said her goal is to have any recommendations for consolidation changes by the end of April. Those recommendations could require changes the council, Legislature or even voters will have to make.
And, public input is still needed.
A survey seeking opinions of consolidation is available on the task force's coj.net Web page. Additionally, there are boxes at City Hall and other venues where people can anonymously participate.
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