History and purpose revealed at Charter Review meeting
07/17/2009 by Joe Wilhelm Jr. Staff Writer Plenty of ideas for a better government in Jacksonville were offered to the Charter Revision Commission Thursday morning. The group of 15 citizen volunteers, of which 13 were present at the meeting, is charged with reviewing the City’s Charter and the rules for how government operates. The Commission invited one of the area’s authorities on consolidated government and representatives from the City’s independent agencies to provide information on their fields. The Commission also asked how the City government could serve them better. Former General Counsel Jim Rinaman was asked to give a presentation on the history of consolidated government.“I want to congratulate all of you in volunteering to do this very arduous job, arduous in the sense that there are a lot of complicated problems and a lot of them are not easily solved,” said Rinaman. “I think we’ve had a Charter Revision Commission every 10 years, but I think the first two were more meaningful than the two or three that followed partly because there wasn’t that much that needed to be done. Now, we’ve gone a long time without any major changes.” Rinaman warned the Commission about taking on matters that should be left to the City’s representative form of government. “Be careful about pursuing issues that could be better handled by the City Council or the mayor,” said Rinaman. “Don’t be tempted to cure a problem that should be cured by ordinance by City Council. There may be a time when that needs to be changed and then we have to go and change the charter.” Along with the history lesson, Rinaman presented some ideas for changes to the City Charter. These ideas included revising the Council districts to bring more equality to the districts. “Some of them are well over 100,000 people and some of them are less than 75,000,” said Rinaman. Another issue was staggered term limits. The mayor and Council are elected to four-year terms and are limited to two consecutive terms by law. “The problem you run into when you try to stagger terms is that someone is going to have a short term and someone else is going to have a long term,” said Rinaman. The Duval County Tourist Development Council (TDC) was another issue of contention for Rinaman. The TDC is the governing body that oversees the collection and distribution of the local-option tourist development tax — also called a “bed tax” — authorized to counties by Florida Statutes. The TDC is comprised of nine members appointed by Council: the Council president chairs the TDC; two elected officials from the City of Jacksonville, the Beaches cities and Baldwin; three representatives of the industries subject to the tourist development tax; and three other persons involved in the tourism industry and tourism promotion. Rinaman explained that all executive and administrative functions should be performed by the mayor and all legislative and budgetary functions be handled by the Council, according to the City’s Charter. “It’s very clear that (Council control of the TDC) shouldn’t have happened,” said Rinaman. “The point is that it ought to be cleaned up.” After explaining the function and relationship JEA has with the City, Jim Dickenson, managing director/CEO of JEA, expressed the agency’s desire to be able to handle its own labor negotiations. “We would love to see the JEA board be the final legislative body to decide on labor negotiations,” said Dickenson. “The City Council performs that function at this time.” Both Rick Ferrin, executive director of the Jacksonville Port Authority, and Ernestine Moody-Robinson, interim executive director of the Jacksonville Aviation Authority, gave presentations, but didn’t have any requests for possible changes in the charter. Both were pleased with the Seaport-Airport Special Committee created by immediate-past Council President Ronnie Fussell, which is focused on finding funding sources to encourage economic development at the City’s seaport and airports. The next meeting of the Charter Revision Commission is July 28 at 9 a.m. at City Hall. jwilhelm@baileypub.com 356-2466
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