by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
City Council’s focus in the next year may become “narrowing the digital divide,” leading to the day when every student has access to a computer and the Internet.
“I feel that education through technology is the drum that we should be marching to,” Council vice president Elaine Brown told the Jacksonville Bankruptcy Bar Association. “I foresee 50 children sitting in a room, all working on a computer, on that lesson of the day at their own pace.
“What the teacher has at the end of the day is where Johnny and Susie stand with the rest of the class and where they need extra help.”
Brown also told the association that two of the issues that got her interested in politics are still around: transportation and downtown development.
Early on, she served on the executive committee of the Chamber of Commerce and chaired the Jacksonville & the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“One of the (transportation) issues was to get bus service out to where Amtrak comes in,” she said. “But trains and buses don’t run on time, so it got to be one of those lose-lose propositions.”
That doesn’t mean the problem should be ignored because it’s tough to solve, she said.
“The whole thing, to me, became a challenge to get people to work and back home,” said Brown.
The answer would be the development of a “multimodal transportation hub,” featuring light rail, the Skyway, and shuttles to and from the airport. The system would create “a seamless area” in which people would park at certain spots and disperse throughout the city.
The most important accomplishment in the seven years she served on the Downtown Development Authority was passage of the Downtown Master Plan. Brown asked the DDA on Wednesday to “readdress” the plan, now that five years have passed since Council approved it.
“There are master plans on shelves all over the city, gathering dust,” she told the Bankruptcy Bar. “It needs to be readdressed to see where we are, to actually plan for how the growth of Jacksonville is going to come about.”
Providing incentives for downtown improvements are often questioned but will return the investment manyfold, said Brown, one of five at-large members of Council.
Approving money for sites such as The Plaza at Berkman and 11 E. “seeded the projects to expand for the people living down there and to bring more business to the city,” she said. “You’re going to see, from the Main Street Bridge to Alltel (Stadium), that area is really going to become the entertainment district of Jacksonville.”
Facade grants are being made available to clean up the outer shells of buildings. Low-interest loans are being approved to develop the inside. Many buildings that have fallen on hard times will become thriving businesses — nightclubs, restaurants, dry cleaners and grocers.
“It’s kind of like the chicken and the egg,” said Brown. “You can get people to live down here, but if they get in their car to go away for every little service and to find entertainment, you’re kind of defeating the purpose.
“The issues dovetail. Get people down here and give them something to do and a place to go.”
Meeting education needs, though, may prove to be the greatest challenge, she said. But it would provide the greatest return.
Many, if not most, students now have computers in their homes. But a large number do not.
The Children’s Commission is working on a program that would “shrink the digital divide by putting a computer in every child’s home,” said Brown. “We can do this as a city, and make sure the indigent have a computer and have access to the Internet.
“You all are the key to make sure we get those computers. We’re asking corporations to make sure, when they upgrade, to give us a chance to get (the older computers).
“We are competing globally. We’ve got to put this as a primary factor in teaching our children.”