by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
Mayor John Peyton wanted to talk about his budget, not about the needs of non-profits, the arts community or small businesses.
Given that minefield, he managed Friday to tiptoe through it and get his message across: please ask your City Council member to keep an open mind through the budget process.
Peyton, asked to speak at the Chamber’s Downtown Council, obviously didn’t know what was in store. Prior to his address, the Council leadership had arranged for three people to make what was billed as “two or three minute presentations” to tell the mayor of the needs of their areas of interest.
The two or there turned out to be eight or nine before Peyton finally got the podium.
He managed to accomplish both a response to the speakers and a plea for his own needs.
“Everybody’s happy with me now because I haven’t made any decisions yet,” he said. “I made notes and I’ll respond to each speaker. No one has to tell me that non-profits aren’t important, because I’ve chaired two non-profit boards. I’ve chaired the symphony, so I have a good feel for the arts. And I’m a businessman.”
He then got to his own mission: “The Council has 60 days to work over the budget and I hope you’ll ask your Council members to consider it with an open mind.
“There are changes in the ways things have been done, and change doesn’t always come easy in government. We are not working to grow government, but to make it more efficient.
“We will continue a low tax base. I feel that facilitates business growth. Look at California. Isn’t it ironic that the state with the highest taxes also has the biggest deficit?”
His visit drew the largest Downtown Council crowd in at least six years — there were 125 seated and standing in the River City Brewing Company’s upstairs meeting room — and he repeated the campaign pledge of running government like a business.
“As a businessman [he was an executive in the family-owned Gate companies,] I always wanted to have a business that was a monopoly and that could borrow money tax exempt,” he said. “Well, I’m there — that’s government.”
Other comments:
• On downtown: “We’re on the verge of greatness there and we need to go full throttle.” Pointing out that his budget included $3 million for downtown, he added, “This is not the time to back down.”
• On parks: “The [former mayor John] Delaney Administration left us a wonderful thing: the largest park system in the country. Now, it’s our mission to make it the best as well as the largest.”
• On financing needs: “Banks only lend money to people who have it.”
• On his youthful appearance: “I’ll look my age by the time I finish this job.”
When his speech finished, he discovered that he needed to stick around for one more item of business even though the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission’s Kirk Wendland and Dan McCarthy were waiting to take him to a meeting on military issues.
That meeting had to wait another 10 minutes as Downtown Vision, Inc. staffer Joe Snowberger read a “proclamation” making the downtown rooster “the mayor of the City Hall Annex Yard.”