by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Mayor John Peyton said Thursday that City money directed toward Jacksonville Area Legal Aid was a good investment for the City, but he thinks the taxpayer is shouldering too much of the burden.
JALA provides legal services to Jacksonville’s poor. The City pays about a third of JALA’s $3.8 million budget, largely through grants. Following his keynote address at a JALA fund raising breakfast, Peyton called on the Jacksonville Bar Association’s near 2,000 members to step up their support of the organization.
“Only about 10 percent of the legal community here contributes to Jacksonville Area Legal Aid,” said Peyton. “If you compare that to cities like Memphis, which has 60 percent participation, that level is painfully low. I challenge the Bar to find more support.”
In addition to the annual million-plus in grant money and filing fees steered toward JALA, the City has spent about $700,000 over the past two years to fund the organization’s Predatory Lending program. The unit defends borrowers who get into trouble with high-interest loans they can’t afford.
That money was well spent, said Peyton. Jacksonville’s concentration of predatory lenders ranks among the highest in the nation, he said. However, with a tight budget year approaching, Peyton said JALA will have to justify its need for continued funding.
“With the budget that we’re faced with, every organization has to demonstrate its relevance,” he said.
JALA also must do a better job of reaching out to the Bar, said Peyton.
“Support from the Bar is extraordinarily low, but that’s not entirely the Bar’s fault,” said Peyton. “Are they (JALA) building a case for their relevance to the Bar members?”
JALA’s administration has made that same point previously. Development Director Christa Figgins said JALA was preparing to launch a campaign to market itself to the Jacksonville legal community.
At Thursday’s Breakfast of Champions, Executive Director Michael Figgins announced the 10-4 campaign. The campaign seeks to raise Bar participation to 40 percent over the next four years. “10-4” is radio communications slang for “message received.”
During his address, Peyton touched on some other issues of interest to the legal community. Plans for a new criminal courthouse are moving ahead, he said. Design work will likely continue for the next year, he said.
The issue has been a touchy one between the Bar and City Hall and Peyton broached the subject with some humor.
“I do have an update on the Courthouse,” he said. “We are going to build one.”
The line drew a few laughs. But Peyton said he’s taking City Hall’s promise seriously to build the Courthouse. Original plans envisioned a civil and criminal courthouse complex built on seven acres in LaVilla. But the project’s ballooning budget, driven in part by rising construction material costs, forced Peyton to go back to the drawing board.
The current plan calls for a criminal complex to be built first on the LaVilla land. Civil cases would continue at the current County Courthouse on Bay Street until funds are available to move to LaVilla.