After the previous 12 months brought him a new wife, an at-times nasty campaign and a new job as the City’s top executive, Mayor John Peyton said his first 100 days in office have been a comparative breeze.
“It’s better to be mayor than to run for mayor, that’s for sure,” said Peyton.
Not that his first three months haven’t been busy.
Immediately after taking office, Peyton had to sell a reportedly skeptical City Council on a tax cut and the City investment overhaul that would finance it. He had to carry the banner for his predecessor’s $230 million Duval County Courthouse project, defending it to the Council and to the media as if it were his own. As Peyton has sought to put his staff in place, he’s had to balance the opinions and demands of the business community, non–profit organizations, firefighters, policeman, lobbyists, animal lovers and long–lost friends turned job seekers, incorporating all of their views into the City’s outlook.
Peyton welcomes the input. He said he wants a ground-level view of the City. It was that desire that pushed him to visit every firehouse during the campaign.
Peyton met recently with Daily Record staff writer Bradley Parsons to discuss his first 100 days in office. Before answering questions, Peyton had a few of his own: “How do you like Jacksonville? Where do you live? What’s it like to live there?”
Question: What has been your focus so far?
Answer: One of my first priorities is to keep intact all the assets that have brought business here. Quality of life is one of our greatest resources. Other than cost of living; quality of life is right up there. Hands down I think we have most communities beat. We’ve got the largest park system in America, one of the most beautiful oceans, one of the most dramatic rivers; we’ve bought a lot of land to be preserved. We’ve managed our resources well. We’ve managed our transportation — relative to other cities our size — pretty well. And we’re continuing to invest our Better Jacksonville resources to improve our infrastructure.”
Q: How do you run government like a business?
A: I have to talk about the team we’ve built here. We have a great team and if you look at the mix of people on this floor, we have a portion of folks from the private sector that have brought a lot of fresh perspectives and have been exposed to what it means to be in a competitive environment, which I think is important. Then you have people here that understand the inner workings of government. People who know what levers to push depending on what results you want. That mixture is making for a verygoodcombination.
Our staff is performing at a very high level. Most of them are choosing to take a pay cut to be here and they’re here because they care about the community and they have great talents to offer.
My No. 1 goal here is to create a business-friendly environment. I want to be the most business-friendly city in America. I want anyone who wants to start or grow a business to be able to do it with ease in Jacksonville.To create that environment you have to keep your taxes low.
Our budget reflected a slow down in the growth of government spending. That’s important. If you’re going to keep taxes low you have to make sure you’re lean; that every dollar is working for you.
One of the challenges government has is that it doesn’t have a competitor per se. That is a tough environment for efficiency. When there’s someone out there doing things better, cheaper, faster; it forces you to be better, cheaper and faster, because if you do not adapt, your viability is at risk. In government, regardless of our decisions, the tax dollars roll in as a matter of law. Because of that we have to be particularly disciplined and function as though we do have a competitor.
Q: What tough choices have you had to make?
A: Clearly, there are needs in the public safety arena, and we’ve invested there. We’ve put 30 new [police] officers on the street, we’re replacing old fire trucks older than 1990, we’re rebuilding one fire station and refurbishing 11 others. But there’s always an opportunity to do more. In government, the needs are very great and the funds are very limited. You have to make hard decisions and you have to make the decisions that bring you the best return on investment.”
Q: What do you think of your media coverage?
A: Financial disclosure, the Sunshine Law [Florida public records law], lack of privacy, public ridicule are barriers [to talented people becoming involved] in public service no doubt. I had to go through this arduous task evaluating: What are they going to say about me? How am I going to handle it? And, more importantly, How will my family handle it? My experience is, once you get in office, the media tries to be fair. I think my coverage has been fairly balanced.
The courthouse issue has received a lot of attention and there’s a lot more to be told than has been covered. I don’t know that I’ve been put in a bad light but I think the project has. This is going to be with us for 50 or 75 years, we want to do it right. Is it what we wanted to pay for it? No. Have there been other public projects that have come in over budget? Yes. Most people that build a house will come in over budget. I can’t tell you many projects where I come from, the private sector, that ever came in on budget.
We’ve been very fortunate that the Better Jacksonville Plan, as a whole, has done very well on budget. This is the largest, most complex of any of the Better Jacksonville projects; by its nature it is becoming more challenging than others. That project, because of its complexity, it’s been hard for the media to grasp all the aspects of it, and I think that’s been one of the biggest challenges.”