An ordinance was introduced in City Council that would reduce the salary of the council’s special attorney to no more than $7,200 a year and eliminate the attorney’s expense account.
Incumbent Special Attorney Harry Fozzard, who had just finished his 10th year as council’s lawyer, drew a salary of $8,400 with an expense account up to $4,350 before his annual contract with the city expired Oct. 11.
Some council members had voiced support for electing Hudson Oliff to the post.
When nominations to appoint the special attorney for 1968 were made at a council meeting Oct. 10, four members voted for Oliff, two for Fozzard and two did not vote. The ninth member of the council was not present at the meeting.
A proposal by council member Mary Singleton to abolish the position died on a 3-5 vote.
Singleton said she did not feel council needed its own lawyer because the city employed attorneys who advised on legal matters.
The ordinance regarding the salary limitation was approved 7-2 on its first reading. It would have two more readings before it could become law.
The Prudential Insurance Co. announced in Jacksonville that the first investment under the life insurance industry’s $1 billion national urban improvement pledge would be made in Duval County.
William Rivers, executive general manager of mortgage investments in Prudential’s South Central Home office headquartered in Jacksonville, said the company had approved a mortgage loan of $1.75 million for a 200-unit, low-income housing project in Washington Heights.
The complex already was under construction at Moncrief and Cleveland roads and would qualify for the new federal rent supplement program.
On Sept. 13, President Lyndon Johnson and representatives of the life insurance industry announced that 350 of the nation’s insurance companies would participate, in proportion to their assets, in providing $1 billion in mortgage money to help eliminate city slums. The largest contribution — about $200 million — would be made by Prudential.
Formation of a 15-member local crime prevention commission was being advocated by Public Defender Ed Austin.
He made the proposal at a meeting of the Beaches Rotary Club at Le Chateau restaurant in Atlantic Beach.
Austin did not say who he thought should be appointed to the commission, or what its specific duties should be, but he urged public agencies in Jacksonville to support the plan.
“We can save 90 cents on the dollar we spend on apprehending criminals, defending them, housing, feeding and rehabilitating them,” he said.
Austin listed national crime statistics that showed most crimes were committed by males between the ages of 15 and 24 and that crime statistics were predictable.
“If they can be predicted, they can be prevented,” he said.
The City Commission, anticipating the need for all available revenue when city-county consolidated government went into effect in 1968, rescinded a previous action that granted a 2 percent discount in electric rates.
The discount would have been general and apply to residential and commercial accounts alike. It was anticipated that by rescinding the discount, Electric Department revenues would increase in 1968 from about $44.1 million to $45.1 million.
Mayor Hans Tanzler said four of the five commissioners believed it would be “financially too risky at this point” to allow the proposed reduction.