Unable to resolve a dispute over city utility department budgets, City Council sued the City Commission.
The suit asked Circuit Judge Roger Waybright to force the commission to comply with budget ordinances concerning the electric and water departments.
The lawsuit was based on legal technicalities, but actually was over finances and whether the council would be forced to raise taxes.
It was noted that more than 40 years had passed since the last time the council sued the commission.
The contention between the two local legislative bodies over Electric Department revenue started with a 1965 legislative act which amended the City Charter.
The amendment prohibited the council from appropriating more than 30 percent of the gross revenue of the city-owned electric plant for city general fund purposes. It was known as the 70-30 law.
The legislators enacted the amendment at the request of the City Commission and over the objection of council in an effort to provide for the creation of a reserve in the electric department for capital improvements and future expansion.
Under longstanding city budgetary practice, the general fund was used to pay expenses, such as employee insurance and pension costs for all city departments, including the utilities.
Using that system didn’t make much difference until the 70-30 law went into effect. That’s when council took the view there was a significant difference in charging electric department operating costs to the general fund.
George Dandelake, council fiscal advisor, offered an explanation:
Based on a $50 million gross electric department budget and under the 70-30 law, council could not transfer more than $15 million from the department surplus to the general fund.
However, if council had to give back $1.25 million to $1.5 million to cover expenses of the two utility departments, council would net only about $13.5 million.
“Whatever we get less (than before), we’ll have to make up in added millage,” said Dandelake.
Prior to the amendment, council had effective control of the electric department surplus and could force the commission to appropriate the surplus to the general fund, and thus avoid a tax increase.
However, Utilities Commissioner J. Dillon Kennedy and some of his colleagues convinced legislators that electric department reserves were being abused and that no “rainy day” funds were being saved to meet capital expansions.
To offset what it felt was a net loss of revenue, council passed ordinances requiring the commission to itemize certain expenses in the respective budgets of the utilities instead of in the general fund budget, as was the practice before the 70-30 law. That would result in council getting what it felt was the full 30 percent share of electric revenue.
In addition, Dandelake said, because all the costs were not reflected in the electric department budget, the school board, the Beaches municipalities buying wholesale power from the city and other consumers had the impression the electric department was making “exorbitant” profits.
He said if the costs of the department were properly charged against operations, it would show the electric department was not making unduly high profits.
After the ordinances were enacted, they were promptly vetoed by Mayor Lou Ritter. Council overrode the veto.
The commission, meanwhile, obtained an opinion from City Attorney William Madison that the ordinances violated sections of the City Charter and were invalid.
“The City Council has no personal quarrel with the City Commission,” said council President W.O. Mattox. “But we believe it is good management, good fiscal practice and good accounting and budgetary practice for each of those departments to show all their costs of operation, The taxpayers, who are the real owners of these utilities, are entitled to know the facts.”
• Joseph Fordyce of Ocala decided not to become the first president of the proposed Duval-Nassau junior college.
“I have reluctantly reached the decision that I must decline the offer for appointment as president of the Duval-Nassau junior college. Letter follows,” he said in a brief telegram to Duval School Superintendent Ish Brant.
A copy of the telegram was sent to Fred Kent, chair of the Duval-Nassau Junior College Advisory Committee. Kent was out of the country and the telegram was sent to his office in the Florida National Bank Building.
“I plan to ask the junior college advisory committee to meet as soon as possible to consider further the question of the junior college presidency,” Brant said in a statement an hour after he received the telegram from Fordyce.
The two-year college was scheduled to open in September 1966.
The Jacksonville Junior Chamber of Commerce Better Schools Committee, which supported Fordyce’s appointment, also issued a statement charging the candidate’s decision to decline was “due largely to the unfortunate political atmosphere created by the actions of the superintendent of public instruction (Brant).”
“Certainly, no qualified educator will be interested in this position as long as these conditions exist,” said Jake Godbold, junior chamber president.
• An observance marking the 25th anniversary of Jacksonville Naval Air Station was being planned for Oct. 15. The celebration would include a formal dinner sponsored by the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce and a two-day open house at the base where the public could view Navy aircraft in action.
B.N. Nimnicht, chair of the chamber’s Armed Services Committee, said the dinner was scheduled Oct. 15 at the Robert Meyer Hotel. Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, commander in chief, Atlantic and Pacific Fleet and supreme commander, Atlantic, was invited to be the guest speaker.
• Circuit Judge Albert Graessle Jr. set 9 a.m. Nov. 22 for the trial of John Stanford, charged with murdering a waitress at a Normandy Boulevard tavern.
Stanford, 34, was charged with first-degree murder in the multiple stabbing of 33-year-old Donna Mack.
County detectives said the victim was stabbed repeatedly with a knife about noon April 14 at the Windward Tavern at 8757 Normandy Blvd. An autopsy showed she died of wounds to her heart, both lungs and aorta.
Stanford’s attorney, Major B. Harding, brought Stanford’s sanity into question.
After appointing two psychiatrists to examine the defendant and hearing their testimony, Graessle on Sept. 22 entered an order adjudging Stanford presently sane and thus capable of offering a rational defense of the charge.
The judge did not, however, rule on the question of Stanford’s sanity at the time of the murder, since the issue raised by Harding as a defense would be a matter for the jury to decide.
• United Fund 1965 campaign Chair J.H. McCormack Jr. announced NBC radio and television personality Frank Blair would be the featured speaker at the organization’s kickoff luncheon Oct. 7 at the Civic Auditorium.
The United Fund goal was set at $1,730,386 — highest in the 42-year history of the campaign.
More than 50 local firms would host the event along with making corporate contributions.
Rotary, Meninak and Kiwanis clubs also would participate and planned to attend the luncheon in lieu of their usual weekly meetings.
• Jose Iturbi, pianist and conductor, would be guest artist for the Oct. 26 opening concert of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra’s 17th season.
He would be the first of five guest artists invited for the season, according to a schedule announced by Hugh Abernethy, president of the Jacksonville Symphony Association.
The orchestra, under the direction of John Canarina, would play seven concerts, five with guest artists and the others with choral works, Abernethy said.
Other guest soloists were Richard Tucker, leading tenor of the Metropolitan Opera; pianist Malcolm Frager; violinist Edith Peinemann; and cellist Leonard Rose.
“Each year the symphony tries to expand its musical horizons and we feel this series will do just that,” said Abernethy.