by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
New wireless Internet zones and donated computer equipment will make Northside neighborhoods more literate and more attractive to business and housing developers Mayor John Peyton said Friday.
A two–year–old partnership between the City and private industry would soon deliver about 500 used computers and 450 monitors to the Northside, Peyton told a crowd of about 40 gathered at the Fairway Oaks Administration Building off 45th Street West
Additionally, the mayor announced that residents of the Arlington Manor, Fairway Oaks and Westconnett neighborhoods will be provided free wireless Internet access. The new Wireless Internet Zones join already established zones in Durkeeville and Gateway.
The wireless access, Peyton said, provided considerable incentive to businesses looking to locate and to housing developers. Easy Internet access, he said, would increase the marketability of area homes.
“This is a significant incentive, a very nice perk for these neighborhoods to sell,” said Peyton. “This is designed to encourage people to live in a community with free Internet access.”
Improved access to the so–called information superhighway would create a more competitive workforce within the neighborhoods, Peyton said. It could be a significant asset in the mayor’s ongoing fight against Duval County’s 47 percent illiteracy rate.
“All this information available will act as a catalyst for the desire of these children to read,” he said. “It creates a spark of why reading is important. This is all good and dandy.”
The WIZ program began in 2001. With former mayor John Delaney and former Council member Alberta Hipps driving the initiative, the City partnered with public and private donors to supply some of Jacksonville’s poorer neighborhoods with information technology and training. Council vice president Elaine Brown said the goal was to allow the neighborhoods to compete in a knowledge–based economy.
“If you don’t have Internet access today you are being left out; you are being left behind,” said Brown.
The program accepts donations of computers and monitors, as well as grants and direct funding. Donors and partners include CSX, Duval County Public Schools, FCCJ, the Griggs Agency, HabiJax, Humana, Jack’s Recycling and Salvage, Jacksonville Port Authority, JEA, Jacksonville Housing Authority, Landstar, the St. Joe Company, Watson Realty and WorkSource.
The City spent $175,000 on the program last year. The money created an administrative framework that allowed participants to work effectively together, according to Peyton spokesperson Heather Murphy.
Peyton said he would like to see the program expand throughout Jacksonville’s neighborhoods and throughout the City’s resources. A partnership is already underway to provide every new HabiJax home with wireless Internet access by 2004