by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The mayor’s Jacksonville Economic Development Commission subcommittee will recommend to the transition team that a tangle of subsidiary boards be changed to a committee structure to create a streamlined commission more attentive to the needs of small businesses.
The subcommittee will forward four recommendations to the transition team with the intent to create a more responsive, efficient commission. In addition to revamping the boards, the subcommittee will suggest clear guidelines for incentive applications, a City development budget and an independent study of Jacksonville’s job climate. The subcommittee reached consensus on the four points Wednesday morning after two months of meetings.
Former mayor John Delaney created the JEDC in 1996. The commission was designed to serve as the City’s sole community redevelopment agency. At its inception, the City placed eight advisory, research and marketing boards under the JEDC. That structure, according to subcommittee chair Steve Halverson led would-be developers through a repetitive and sometimes contradictory maze of project reviews and recommendations.
“When I first saw the structure I thought it was a lot of saddle with the horse,” said Halverson, CEO of The Haskell Company. “It can be a daunting structure; it’s not how I’d organize a company.”
Halverson said the boards still were structured like independent authorities. He said restructuring them as committees reporting to JEDC board members would create better coordination. Whether or not all the boards survive the new structure will be up to Mayor John Peyton.
To accommodate the committees, the subcommittee will recommend the JEDC board be increased to nine people. Currently five of the seven board seats are filled. The change would require a legislative change as the JEDC’s charter specifies seven members.
According to the recommendations the Downtown Development Authority will survive intact. However the subcommittee urged Peyton to distinguish the DDA’s role from the JEDC. City building incentives currently require both agencies’ approval. The subcommittee envisions the DDA as downtown’s master developer, enforcing guidelines for downtown development.
The DDA would still approve large-scale projects, but smaller projects that clearly conform to DDA specifications would go directly to the JEDC. Both JEDC executive director Kirk Wendland and DDA managing director Al Battle told the subcommittee that they supported the change.