by David Ball
Staff Writer
Mayor John Peyton said he hopes the Zeke Bryant Auditorium at Florida Community College at Jacksonville’s north campus can’t hold the number of people that show up there May 15.
That will indicate his anti-crime initiative has gotten what it needs for success — the input of Jacksonville residents.
“I want to reach beyond our normal spectators,” said Peyton. “The community involvement piece (needs) to be legitimate.”
Peyton formed his “Jacksonville Journey: Take A Step” initiative in December 2007 with 130 of Jacksonville’s most prominent business leaders, current and former City Council members and an entire public relations committee. After nearly five months of meetings, the group has a list of recommendations to combat murder and violent crime in the city, along with a price tag of $35 million to implement those steps.
May 15 marks the first time those recommendations will be brought to the public in a series of four meetings the City is calling “Solution Sessions.” However, there was some debate over how those meetings would be run.
Wednesday, Peyton met with former State Sen. Betty Holzendorf and retired Ambassador John Rood, both chairs of the Journey’s Steering Committee, to resolve those issues, the first of which was getting the public to attend.
“Have you been getting good feedback in participation for the public meetings?” asked Rood, who was in North Carolina and attended the meeting via teleconference.
“No I have not,” answered Holzendorf. “I haven’t gotten a lot of calls.”
Mayoral Communications Chief Susie Wiles said 123,000 flyers were sent out Monday to students at every public school in the county, and another 100,000 cards are being mailed to Citizens Advisory Planning Committees (CPAC) and other community groups. Two weeks ago, the meetings were also briefly noticed on all JEA bills.
“This is the most aggressive outreach we’ve ever done,” said Wiles, who was also tasked with looking into including Journey information with mailed sample ballots for the upcoming elections.
Holzendorf said she’d speak with several area churches, believing people are more likely to get involved if they hear it from their congregation and not through the mail or advertisements.
Another issue was how the meeting hosts would present the Journey recommendations to the public and how the public’s comments would be incorporated into the Journey steering committee’s final actions.
The Journey’s five subcommittees (along with funding and public relations subcommittees) produced several recommendations:
• Positive Youth Development: increase the number of mentors in Jacksonville, expand after school programs, expand summer camps and implement an intramural sports program.
• Education, Truancy, Dropout & Literacy: developing programs to lower the school suspension rate.
• Law Enforcement Deterrence: Add 101 additional patrol officers, 124 corrections officers and 38 civilian positions at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office over the next five years.
• Intervention & Rehabilitation: Create a juvenile assessment center and maintain intervention and prevention programs along with better programs to monitor and rehabilitate juvenile offenders.
• Neighborhood Safety & Stability: Create a permanent Jacksonville Journey task force assigned to non-policy issues and help identify and revive community assets.
Peyton said the community meetings should elicit reactions from the public and gauge what they would like to see prioritized. Holzendorf said the meetings were the Journey’s opportunity to present its list of priorities. Rood added that whatever is presented, it should be actions or programs that the City is actually going to implement.
“We can’t set false expectations,” said Rood, who added he expects the public to likely bring up issues that haven’t yet been addressed. “I feel we have a battle far greater than I ever imagined.”
The group agreed to present what programs are starting this summer and which others could be implemented quickly versus over the long term. The meeting handout will also include a perforated section that can be filled out with comments.
As for public input at the meetings, Wiles said the format would be similar to City Council meetings, where speakers have to register for three minutes of time. The meetings will also include City officials to field any questions about the new stormwater and garbage fees, although it will be separate from the Journey discussions.
The results of the meetings will be compiled by City staff and brought back to the full Journey Steering Committee, made up of chairs of the various subcommittees, on June 4. However, the final community meeting will occur one day later due to scheduling conflicts with all the Steering Committee members, said Wiles.
The Steering Committee is only advisory, and any final recommendations would have to go through the Mayor’s office and then the City Council for public hearings and voting.
The goal is to get programs approved and included in the upcoming budget cycle. Peyton said time is even more of the essence as he repeated statistics recently received from State Attorney Harry Shorstein showing violent crime changes from 2006 to 2007 for Florida’s six largest counties.
“We were up 21 percent in violent crime while the other counties were either flat or down,” said Peyton. “We don’t have an option on these things.”
The Jacksonville Journey “Solution Sessions” community meetings:
• May 15: FCCJ North Campus, Zeke Bryant Auditorium, 4501 Capper Road.
• May 22: Clanzel Brown Community Center, 4545 Moncrief Road.
• May 29: FCCJ South Campus, Wilson Center for the Arts, 11901 Beach Blvd.
• June 5: FCCJ Kent Campus, Main Auditorium, 3939 Roosevelt Blvd.
The Jacksonville Journey information and volunteer fair begins at 5:30 p.m. and committee presentations begin at 6:30 p.m. For more information call 630-CITY or visit www.coj.net.