by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
To Mayor John Peyton’s obvious surprise, not one person in the lunch crowd of 70 wanted to ask the question he came prepared to answer.
So he brought it up himself.
“We can talk about the courthouse, if you want,” he told the Jacksonville chapter of the Federal Bar Association Tuesday. “This project is becoming folklore . . . the stuff of fireside chats.
The $211 million budget for the Duval County Courthouse has been “blown,” not by lavish expense but by the cost of land, said Peyton.
“The government didn’t forecast properly how much that land costs,” he said.
Despite complaints about the total $232 million price tag, Peyton said, building costs have dropped, from an original estimate of $169 million to $167 million.
At $150 a square-foot, “It is hard to build a house for that, let alone a courthouse,” he said. “It will be one of the cheapest courthouses in the state of Florida.”
The new Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, he said, cost $185 a square-foot.
“This courthouse is important to the community,” said Peyton. “It concerns me, the disdain people have for this branch of government. The building will be expandable . . . safe, and it has dignity. It’s going to be a quality building.”
Despite insistence by City Council that the total not exceed $211 million, Peyton said, “I’m looking forward to Council continuing to move forward. I’m tired of talking about it. I don’t think it’s a good use of your tax dollars having the mayor’s office and City Council tied up on this week after week after week.
“It’s been debated long enough. It’s time to move forward, and that’s what we plan to do.”
Peyton spent the bulk of his talk reviewing the “six guiding principles” for spending nearly $900 million in the City budget.
“First and foremost,” he said, is economic development.
“I absolutely maintain that the thing that will make Jacksonville better is growing the economy, raising per capita income, putting things in place that will make us a business-friendly city,” he said.
His concern, he added, is to find ways to do more for less, “increase service and decrease cost.”
Next on the list is public safety, “the core business of government.”
“We want to position Jacksonville as the safest city in America,” said Peyton.
In the coming weeks and months, he said, more information will be released about “our efforts to build a community that is better at forecasting, predicting, anticipating catastrophic-type events. We need to do what can we do to make sure Jacksonville is the most aware community.”
Early literacy has become a “passion” for Peyton, who insisted there can be no real economic growth when a “staggering” 47 percent of the county population is “functionally illiterate.”
Without the proper skills to build on, people have a “very, very hard time ever catching up and becoming competitive in a knowledge-based economy.”
Quality of life is another guiding principle, balancing economic expansion “without diminishing the way we live.”
The administration’s goal is to eliminate substandard housing in the city, “and we think it’s doable in 12 to 15 years,” said Peyton.
The sixth guiding principle is streamlining government, “finding ways we can do more, managing tax dollars wisely,” he said. “We’re moving resources around to make sure we keep the tax base low or even cut taxes.”
The only question Peyton was asked from the audience was what he thought of the plans for upgrading the Landing.
While that property is an “important amenity,” he said, “I think the key to downtown is housing. “We’ve got to get the critical mass of people living there, making the night life something that’s comparable to the day life.”
Owner Toney Sleiman has made an “ambitious proposal” that is going to require “a great deal of scrutiny,” said Peyton. “I haven’t physically seen the numbers yet, but I can promise you I’m looking out for the taxpayer, and I’m going to do what I think will yield the best return to the taxpayer.”