from staff
Richard Clark was elected to City Council is 2005 during a special election to replace Jerry Holland, who stepped down from his Dist. 3 seat to run for Supervisor of Elections. Clark was re-elected in 2007 and served as Council vice president under Ronnie Fussell. June 24 he was sworn in as Council president and Jack Webb was sworn in as Council vice president.
Clark is president of Supreme Janitorial Service, a family owned and operated business since 1973. He is a graduate of Nease High and the University of Florida. Clark is married and has two kids.
Monday, Clark sat down with the editorial staff of the Daily Record to talk about the proposed 2009-10 budget, the proposed millage rate increase and his other plans as Council president.
Did serving as Council vice president prepare you for being Council president?
No, I called (immediate past Council president) Ronnie (Fussell) about 24 hours in and said, ‘You didn’t say it was going to be like this.’ He just chuckled. Every Council president has an issue — Trail Ridge, (former State Attorney) Harry Shorstein, Cecil Field — everybody has something that comes up unexpectedly.
This (the budget) is yours?
It is today. The Charter Revision Commission down the road. There are a lot of independent people on that commission and some interesting things will come out of Charter Revision; there always are.
What’s the best advice (Immediate Past City Council President) Fussell gave you when you took over?
You know, the best advice he gave me, he gave it to me because we’re similar in many ways, and once we make a decision we like to stick with that decision and go down the road. The best advice was don’t ever stop listening to people ... sit down, listen, because people have very good ideas. Don’t be scared to change your mind. If you need to add, move, change things then add, move, change things. It’s OK.
You’ve been out and about within the community to listen to the public on the issues, which is one of the things you talked about accomplishing when you became City Council president. What are people saying and what are you learning?
I have learned that it doesn’t matter where you have them, people from all over the city and folks that don’t even live here are coming in. We had folks come from as far away as Fleming Island come to the Deerwood meeting. Everyone’s concerned about it. What I’ve heard is a general consensus from everybody: ‘Don’t raise the millage rate.’ The discussion then split from there. You had a group straight out of the nonprofits that said if it gets to a point where you have to raise the millage rate to keep these services, then do so, it’s OK. On the other hand, the other argument is, if you get to a point where you have to cut those services to not increase the millage rate, that’s where the discussion is. It should never have been pitted that way, pitched that way ... it’s not an us vs. them argument. I think we need to look at government as a whole, find a more holistic solution, not one segment that we fund that is a small segment of our budget. There is a better discussion to be had on where to cut and how to cut it.
You’re president of Supreme Janitorial, City Council president, you are still representing your own constituents and you have always been heavily involved with your family. How do you find time for it all and just how tough has it been to balance?
The last few weeks, there hasn’t been all that much balance. The City has completely overwhelmed all of my business time. My family time, my time with my children ... they don’t get to see me as much. By the time I get home, they’re already in bed. I did get to make the City Championships (his son’s). It’s tough right now, it’s going to be tough for a little while. But, I knew what the deal was. I saw Ronnie (Fussell) work... I would come up on a random day, on a Thursday of an off week, and Ronnie would be in his office. So I understood, I got a really good hint watching Ronnie what kind of time it would take.
What are some of the other things you’d like to focus on after the budget is passed and is enacted Oct. 1?
This is as engaged as the city (as a whole) has ever been in the budget process. As soon as this budget cycle is over, we need to start a new conversation. We have barely scratched this. What do we expect out of government? What do we want to be as a city? How are we going to fund that? This is a big picture discussion that has to be had. We need to keep the citizens engaged and that’s much more difficult. If we look at just the millage rate increase, what is the real fix? Do you set aside millage for just the police and fire pension? We are building a Courthouse — for better or for worse — and there’s no money set aside for air conditioning or janitorial. There are roads in the Better Jacksonville Plan that will have to be stripped and resurfaced before the debt on the BJP is paid off.
During his term as president, Ronnie Fussell created the Seaport Airport Special Committee to help encourage growth in those areas. How are you going to help improve government?
We are keeping the Seaport-Airport Special Committee going. The Port and Cecil (Field) are really the two engines right now that are doing any real significant hiring of any shape, form or fashion.
The one thing that I learned about Jacksonville while I was in Paris, the decision makers at Beoing, Lockheed and AirBus, and all of the big parts manufacturers and all of the service industries are all former pilots that have either flown into Cecil Field, served at Cecil Field or knew of Cecil Field. That didn’t know what we have there and they didn’t know about our employee base and all those things we bring with us.
We are going to land the company that brings 50, 100 or 200 jobs. It’s just a matter of time. We will land one, two, three of the behemoths. It will radically change the way it works out there.
One issue likely to come up during the charter revision process is making the Ethics Commission an independent agency. How do you feel about that possibility?
I think there is a lot of validity in the inspector general model. I don’t really like our model today. I think we need to do away with how we are doing it today. I think we need a different model that is an appointed person. The model that I like is the inspector general model. The district attorney, public defender, sheriff, mayor and the Council all get together and go through the process and pick somebody.
That person is wholly independent. There is a bunch of different ways to fund that person’s salary, so that it does not come out of the general fund and the City Council cannot hold funding over that person’s head.
So that person can work cleanly away from City Hall, the mayor...that person needs to be able to, for example, go after the sheriff if the sheriff does something wrong and look at what the issue is. They need to be able to walk into (State Attorney Angela Corey’s) office and say, ‘one of your people did this.’ And they need to be able to look at it, the same with City Council or anybody else.
I don’t particularly like our model today. It needs to change.
It doesn’t need to be a gotcha system. I don’t think that is the way to change the culture of ethics. I think the way to change a culture is to be able to walk into somebody’s office and say, ‘look you didn’t mess up here, but let me tell you how slippery a slope this is.’ And you sit down and work through the issue.
During his budget presentation, Mayor John Peyton described the kind of city he wants to live in. Then he talked about the things that will be cut if his proposed millage rate increase isn’t approved by Council. Is it fair to put that onus on Council?
It’s our responsibility to find places to cut. He can suggest things just like any other citizen. We haven’t cut fire stations. We haven’t cut services. Nobody has said. My worry is that the beating of the drum of cutting the arts and social services becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t think that’s our goal.
In my opinion, this is an opportunity to fix things we would otherwise not fix and have discussions we otherwise wouldn’t have. I see our City Council making decisions for the betterment of Jacksonville for the long haul. We need to get to the place where government is as transparent and accountable and lean and efficient as government can be.
If the millage rate increase is approved, this Council will be known as the Council that raised property taxes. If it’s not approved, this Council will be known as the Council that didn’t fund certain things. Does City Council become the bad guy no matter what?
We got elected to make decisions, no matter what the decision. There have been plenty of 10-9 votes and they are never easy. We all knew this coming in. If you don’t like it, don’t run.
Is there enough time for Council to examine the proposed tax increase, its effects, the budget and weigh the opinions of its constituents before Sept. 30?
If we wanted to have this (budget) discussion, it should have started in December. It takes longer than six weeks. We have 18 other bright individuals on Council. They can read the budget, analyze it and find places to cut. You can’t expect them to read it, contemplate the budget and the tax increase and how it will affect their constituents in six weeks. That’s one reason I will not support the TRIM (Truth in Millage) increase on the 28th.
As Council president, do you think your ‘no’ vote carries more clout?
I hope so, but my colleagues can make up their own minds. That’s what they are supposed to do. People call and write and e-mail and I am listening. I am hearing they are hurting. Husbands and wives have lost their jobs. This is different from last year. More people have lost their jobs. The economy is worse, not better.
It has been proposed to consolidate elections and hold the City ballot on the same day as state elections. Would you support that move?
That discussion has been going on for years. It has come down to a 10-9 vote a couple of times. Even though we won’t save a penny this year it (moving election day) will save us $3 million next year. It’s worth having the discussion but I have no idea where we’re going to land.
But there are 10,000 other things we have to look at to balance this budget and (moving election day) is not a balance-budgeting item. Why not put it on the ballot. If you’re talking about voting and how people want to vote, people are intelligent and they can decide things like that. When you’re talking about changing election cycles and raising property taxes – those are thing that in a representative democracy you vote on. The bigger things you have to sit down and have a discussion with the public. You don’t just at will change elections and change boundaries.
What was it like to choose which of your colleagues would serve on the standing committees?
I never gave it enough credit. Every Council president before me said the most difficult thing I would do was look at the committees. Some of it is allowing other people to lead that haven’t had the opportunity. We’re also in a transition year but there’s only one person who is terming out who’s chairing a committee. I had to make sure the newer people got into leadership roles.
The Council as a whole is a pretty like-minded group. They differ in the constituencies and backgrounds but from what I’ve seen, after I set the chairs and vice chairs populating the committees was pretty easy.
What do you do to get away from it all?
I spend time with my family, at baseball and at the beach.