by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Members of Mayor-elect John Peyton’s Administration and Finance subcommittee were told last week to clear 15 hours a week from demanding private-sector schedules to satisfy the transition committee’s request that subcommittee recommendations be received within 90 days.
The steering committee told all subcommittee members to expect to meet at least twice weekly for at least four hours when they volunteered to help the incoming administration. However, subcommittee chairman Jay Fant, executive vice president of First Guaranty Bank, said the committee should prepare to spend at least triple that time sifting through resumes and interviewing applicants for 10 vacancies, the most of any department.
“I don’t want this process to drag into October and I know the mayor-elect doesn’t either,” said Fant. “Given the unique task we’ve been asked to do, I know my personality is to get it done hard, hopefully within the 60-day time period the mayor-elect has designated.”
Fant said extending the process would be unfair to the incumbent department heads and division chiefs who were asked for their resignations following the election. All the incumbents have asked to be considered for the jobs with the incoming administration and will lead off the interviews.
Fant asked for the committee’s consensus about scheduling three meetings a week from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., but he nodded his head aggressively as he asked, leaving little doubt to the course the committee would take.
The transition committee told Fant to emphasize character when recommending personnel for the department’s jobs, which include $10,000-a-month positions such as information technology chief and finance director.
The committee will also recommend structural changes to further streamline a department that reduced from 42 days in 2002 to 30 days one year later the average processing time for building proposal requests.
Fire and Rescue subcommittee
The Peyton transition team began its search Friday for a new fire and rescue chief.
Fire and Rescue subcommittee chair Lynn Pappas said incumbents would be considered for the six departmental openings, including Ray Alfred’s job as director. However, Peyton said during the campaign that he would promote from within the department to replace Alfred.
According to a City audit, Alfred’s department met or exceeded performance quotas in emergency and fire response times, per capita injuries and deaths, and customer satisfaction. However, cardiologist Scott Baker, a committee member with first-hand department experience, said the rescue services had been “sorely neglected” over the previous three years.
Baker told Pappas that over 75 percent of calls to the department were rescue calls, yet rescue supervisors had been short-staffed. He has already heard comments from within the department asking for organizational changes.
Pappas said the committee would interview the incumbents in two weeks. The incumbents will be expected to provide an inside view of their department to a subcommittee with little experience in fire and rescue operations.
“We should steer clear of thinking that we know enough to take this department apart and put it back together,” said Pappas. “We only want to deal with the department’s structure where it’s very obvious improvements can be made.”
Next week, the committee will question several internal experts in an effort to grasp the intricate internal workings of a department charged with the City’s safety. Pappas said she welcomed Alfred’s input.
“This department is vital in the truest sense of the word,” she said. “It’s saving lives and protecting property from damage. We want to see if we can help further its operation and progress in those duties.”
JEDC subcommittee
The transition team’s Jacksonville Economic Development Commission subcommittee has only one applicant to head the commission for the Peyton administration. The mayor-elect instructed the subcommittee to make a decision on current executive director Kirk Wendland before reviewing the rest of the department, and it will interview Wendland at some point in the next weeks.
Although the subcommittee is under no pressure to recommend Wendland, the transition team did not accept online applications for his position and subcommittee chair Steve Halverson said during a Friday meeting that, if retained, Wendland’s opinions would be sought as the committee prepared a tight package of organizational recommendations for Peyton.
“We want a small number — three or four — of specific, executable recommendations to present to the mayor no later than the end of the summer,” said Halverson. The Haskell Company CEO targeted Aug. 15 as the delivery date.
In contrast to other subcommittees, which are looking to fill as many as 10 department head and division chief jobs, the JEDC committee is only considering the department’s head job. Halverson said recommendations to streamline the department would consume the bulk of committee time.
Some preliminary recommendations:
• CSX vice president Randy Evans said the committee should compare Jacksonville’s economic environment to cities of comparable size and resources.
• To ensure the department had not grown beyond its original intent, John Demps said the JEDC’s current structure should be compared to its legislative limits.
• Halverson said the subcommittee should interview companies that used the JEDC process to build downtown. He also wanted to know what difficulties businesses encountered in the city and recommended talking to companies that chose to develop elsewhere.