by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
To the best of Council President Elaine Brown’s memory, Monday’s meeting between several members of the Jacksonville City Council and the St. Johns County Commission may be a first. The meeting is the brainchild of Brown who approached the Commission about the meeting several weeks ago.
“About six weeks ago I went to St. Johns County to address their Commission,” said Brown. “I wanted to sit down with them with members of our Council and talk about the issues that affect both counties.”
Brown said the St. Johns County Commission was very receptive to the idea and, on Monday at the Northeast Florida Regional Council office, Brown, Sharon Copeland, Lad Daniels, Art Graham, Kevin Hyde, Suzanne Jenkins, Glorious Johnson and Art Shad will meet with the Commission to engage in preliminary talks about growth management and solutions amicable to both counties.
Brown said the first-time meeting has been on her agenda for a long time after realizing the two counties are truly starting to share growth and the potential problems that can accompany that growth. For example, a big development on the Duval County border comes under the jurisdiction of Jacksonville. However, between schools and transportation issues, it may actually have more of an effect on St. Johns County.
“The houses within the development may be in Duval County, but the closest schools may be in St. Johns County, and vice versa,” she said. “Then, you have developments like Nocatee which will be in both counties.”
Brown admits that it may sound daunting to convince both counties to allow students to attend the closest school rather than their district school. But, she’s hoping that by creating a good rapport between each county’s elected officials, such jurisdictional hurdles will be easier to clear.
“I believe that elected officials pulling together for the better of the public is part of our mission,” said Brown. “If you can get people to the same table it can be mutually beneficial.”
Brown sees an initial five-year plan being adopted. Within that plan are schools, transportation, residential development and the sharing of information such as who has pulled building permits and what kind of permits were pulled and approved. Armed with that kind of shared knowledge, Brown said it’s not unreasonable for Duval and St. Johns County to form a long-lasting partnership in which the counties share not just ideas on practical growth management, but physically share in the infrastructure that is vitally important to the success of the growth and its peripheral consequences.
Due to term limits, Brown will not be eligible to serve on Council after June 2007. However, she plans to see this partnership through and start working on forming either formal or informal pacts with other surrounding counties.
“My vision is to first work with St. Johns County, then Clay and then Nassau,” she said. “Obviously, St. Johns County is a good starting point with JTB, the World Golf Village and increasing traffic issues on U.S. 1. There is so much out there to address.”