by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Entering his second year in office, Mayor John Peyton says his focus will remain on fiscal responsibility.
The former Gate executive came to City Hall promising to bring business efficiency to public service. Looking back on his first 12 months, Peyton sees the changes he’s made starting to pay dividends.
“I’ve made it a priority to be a good steward of the tax dollar,” he said during a Thursday interview. “The things we’ve done, and some of the things we haven’t done, the decisions have always been sensitive to the value of the taxpayer’s money.”
By that standard, Peyton even counts as a success his struggles with the new Duval County Courthouse’s runaway budget. News coverage of the building’s fluctuating budget — from $211 million to near $300 million back to $232 million — has dogged Peyton on an almost weekly basis since shortly after he took office last July 1 despite the fact that the cost had already ballooned by the time he took office. Peyton has now guaranteed the building will be built for $232 million. Now, when Peyton looks back on the headlines, he sees a triumph.
“We reined in the courthouse,” he said. “We took back a project that was out of control.”
Along with the courthouse, Peyton has changed the way the City invests and how it replaces its vehicles. Last month he ordered an overhaul of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission. All these changes have been made, he says, to spend less and get more. He says he sees opportunities “everywhere” to streamline further.
“We’re going to continue to scrub the City’s finances, looking for ways to increase services while we decrease spending.”
Peyton says downtown housing is the City’s best investment for the coming years. The City will continue to encourage housing within the Central Business District. Housing, he believes, will drive retail and entertainment. Peyton aspires to the time when downtown’s nightlife resembles the crowded sidewalks and streets of the daytime.
Peyton stresses measurement as an important aspect of the corporate approach to government. Measuring results, he’s said, is the only way to know what works and what doesn’t. From that perspective, it might be surprising that Peyton’s upcoming budget includes what he calls, “a major commitment,” to children’s literacy.
Peyton acknowledges that he’ll have left City Hall by the time the City sees a substantial return on that money. But he says a commitment to education is crucial the City’s economic health.
“It’s a long-term commitment and the results are going to be difficult to measure for a long time. It might be 10–15 years from now before we see the benefits,” said Peyton. “But, in a knowledge-based economy, this City can’t be competitive without it.”