by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
City Council met Wednesday morning to brainstorm its priority issues for the 2002-03 budget. By ordinance, Council president Matt Carlucci must meet with Mayor John Delaney by Jan. 31 to identify 10 top policy objectives for the coming year’s budget.
As part of the budget workshop, Council members arrived at preliminary priorities in a rather unscientific method. Five large easels were set up representing five different categories. Each council member, in permanent marker on each easel, wrote their top priorities in each category that could be addressed in quantifiable and measurable terms. Once the ideas were written, each Council member was given 14 red dot stickers to vote for issues they felt are most pressing for the coming budget year.
Consultant Bruce Barcelo of Barcelo & Company facilitated the meeting and will prioritize each issue by category and number of votes and deliver a formal report to Carlucci, who will then evaluate the priorities.
“Before I send [the final report] to the mayor’s office, I’ll distribute it to the Council members to make sure they are in agreement with what I send,” said Carlucci.
While the final list is still tentative, some of the items receiving the most votes in each of the five categories are as follows:
Support for families, neighborhoods and schools
• Fund more positions in the Department of Parks and Recreation to run programs in Jacksonville parks.
• Continue Jacksonville’s commitment to building new fire stations and continue renovations on existing fire stations.
• Coordinate and increase funding for affordable housing initiatives.
• Explore health care options for low-income families and indigents.
Improve and protect the natural environment
• Continue to provide more access to the St. Johns River and its tributaries through boat ramps and other facilities.
Provide for economic development
• Develop preservation projects for ecotourism.
• Expand the convention center complex.
• Establish criteria to implement a downtown entertainment and services district and eliminate zoning conflicts.
Effectively manage growth
• Update the survey on county-wide dirt roads and access roads and provide a long range plan.
Total Quality Government
• Explore alternatives to the City’s current cable television contract.
• Enhance security to community and public places.
Some items are continuing problems for City Council, such as the cable television contract, currently held by AT&T Broadband.
“I think we’ve gone through a lot of looking at what we can do,” said Council member Alberta Hipps. “I think we’ve got to think out of the box even more.”
Hipps did not rule out the City assuming the role of cable provider.
“I think we should really explore just how we can,” she said.
Some issues had foundered in relative obscurity. Council member Jerry Holland raised the point that many of the county’s roads remain unpaved. The item, incidentally, received the most votes.
“There are a lot of dirt roads that are public roads, but required to be privately maintained,” said Holland. “They are, a lot of times, in low income areas. They can’t afford to do special [tax] assessments, [which would require street residents to pay for paving]. I just tried to do a special assessment and a third of the neighbors said, ‘Hey, I’ll lose my home if I do a special assessment.’ They probably couldn’t afford a special assessment to pay for the road. Another two-thirds said they’re tired of going down a dirt road.
“At some point, like we’re doing the septic tanks, I think it’s just a better image for Jacksonville if we, over a long period of time, slowly eliminate our dirt roads. Also, we want to make sure we prevent new dirt roads.”
Carlucci was reluctant to point to items that would probably make it to the final list of 10 but alluded to some of the more pressing issues in the coming year.
“I think cable competition is important,” he said. “I’m not exactly sure how that fits in the budgetary process, but that’s an important one. I think parks maintenance is going to be important. I’m pretty much in agreement with the ones that got the most dots. The fire stations — that’s important. I thought it was a good exercise.”