by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
For Jacksonville to reach its potential, it needs a community focus, leadership to see it through and considerable funding to make it happen.
Much of that will depend on the spring mayoral and City Council elections, but the key to successful development is citizen involvement, direction and approval.
That’s what three economic-development leaders say, anyway.
“The change is going to come from the private sector,” said Lad Daniels, president of the First Coast Manufacturers Association and a former City Council president.
Daniels joined Jacksonville Economic Development Commission Executive Director Ron Barton and Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Jerry Mallot at a Jacksonville Community Council Inc. study meeting Wednesday at City Hall.
It was the “Duval County Partner Meeting” of JCCI’s new study, “Recession, Recovery and Beyond.” About 70 people attended.
When asked about the need for another Better Jacksonville Plan, Barton and Daniels dominated the answers.
Both said yes, citing the capital investment needs of the area, including improvements at the Port of Jacksonville.
Under the leadership of former Mayor John Delaney, voters approved the Better Jacksonville Plan in 2000, calling for a half-cent sales tax to raise $2.25 billion for capital improvements.
Along with road and other improvements, the plan funded the new Main Library, Baseball Grounds, Arena and the Duval County Courthouse under construction.
Pressed to name a figure, Barton said another capital improvement program would cost about $2 billion over 15-20 years for port and road improvements.
“The community has to prioritize its objectives,” said Barton, stressing that he brings just one perspective.
The JCCI study began Oct. 20 in Jacksonville, followed by weekly meetings in Nassau, Baker, Clay, Flagler, St. Johns and Putnam counties, completing the regional circuit in Duval this week.
The study continues Jan. 5 with weekly meetings about specific topics at the Northeast Florida Regional Council offices in Southpoint, concluding in May.
Study Chair Elaine Brown, also a former council president and president of the Northeast Florida Regional Council, told participants Wednesday that the overriding call by people in the regional counties was for employment.
“It’s jobs. We need jobs. We found the same strain in every county,” she said.
The study comes as the area emerges from the severe nationwide recession that some call a depression and struggles with an unemployment rate that’s been stuck at more than 10 percent.
“We’ve never been through something like this before,” said Brown.
JCCI wants the study to position Northeast Florida for long-term economic growth, retaining existing jobs and quickly creating new jobs.
That’s where Barton, Daniels and Mallot come in.
Barton was first up Wednesday, outlining the area’s economic strengths: Transportation, logistics and the port; military and defense-contracting jobs; the medical and life sciences industries; financial services; and “continuing to have a vital Downtown.”
“Those are the fundamental elements to drive the economy and recovery,” said Barton.
Barton said that jobs created by the stable military and defense-contracting industries “will lead us out” of the recession.
He said that financial services jobs, which have been in flux nationwide during the economic meltdown, were net-gainers in Jacksonville.
Barton also said that the revitalization of Downtown is critical for the region. “You have to care about the urban core of Jacksonville because it is our employment center and it is our image,” he said.
He repeated what JCCI study participants have heard before, that Jacksonville and Duval County was a dominant state business center in the 1970s.
In the 40 years since, “we got lapped,” Barton said, by the population growth in Tampa, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, as well as Charlotte, N.C., a Southeast U.S. commerce center.
“We didn’t come out a winner,” he said. “I hate to use sports analogies, but I do. You’re not going to win if you don’t think you are going to win.”
Barton then shared points he’s been making to civic groups around town:
• Private leadership is critical to quality growth.
• Government is not the enemy, but it needs direction. “It manages to the lowest common denominator,” he said. “The community has to tell you where they want it to go.”
• Capital investment is critical, too. “This community is underinvested,” he said. Barton said the City has about $57 million a year left after other obligations to spend on capital projects, “an anemic and ridiculous number.”
• Public-private partnerships are going to be the only way to properly fund needed investments. “Public-private partnerships are going to be more prevalent, not less,” he said.
• Downtown must be supported, regardless of past mistakes such as the failed Shipyards redevelopment project. “If fear of failure is going to paralyze you, you’ll never get anywhere,” he said.
Mallot spoke next, focusing on Duval and saying the county accounts for half of the region’s population and 90 percent of all of the office and industrial buildings in the region.
Mallot, president of the chamber’s Cornerstone economic-development division, reminded participants of the region’s targeted industries: Headquarters; finance and insurance; information technology; life sciences; logistics; aviation and aerospace; and advanced manufacturing.
He also said that a third of the chamber’s 51 current serious prospects are headquartered outside of the United States.
“We are in a global market,” he said. International prospects “see us as a part of their global strategy.”
Mallot said the area also is part of a state “that has to be a player.”
Mallot said that Gov.-elect Rick Scott told area business executives last week that the state “has lost its edge significantly” and that the situation will change regarding the speed, regulations and incentives related to doing business.
Mallot also focused on the “critical partners” in the region, including the independent agencies and authorities, colleges and universities, WorkSource and the economic development commission.
Daniels closed out the presentations and renewed his call for investment in the port, calling it “the billion-dollar decision.”
Daniels has been advocating for public investment in improving the port, including its Mile Point navigational fix, dredging to handle larger ships and structural improvements.
“We better put our money where our mouth is” and “make the case” for public support, he said.
And “at one point, go to the voters and say, ‘fund this capital investment.’”
Daniels acknowledged that if the issue were taken to voters today, “it would fail miserably.”
But he also said the area’s manufacturers are advocating for a tax to provide cover for elected officials who know the political risks of asking voters to tax themselves.
Daniels said the manufacturers in the association are heavily focused on international markets. “We have to take advantage of the world they are operating in,” he said. “They have to be more involved in the community.”
Daniels cautioned the group that Florida’s economy is fundamentally changing.
At one time a fast-growing state dealing with growth issues, it’s now facing slow or negative growth dealing with pleas to “speed up,” he said.
Daniels, echoing Barton’s comments, said that the City’s major accomplishments, including city-county Consolidation in 1968, came through private citizens stepping forward.
“You have to get involved in political leadership,” he said.
All of it, he said, “is a question of leadership.”
During the question-and-answer time, a participant asked about the issues of the “last eight years,” referring to the two terms of Mayor John Peyton.
“It’s a different world than the Delaney years,” said Barton.
Delaney, now the president of the University of North Florida, served as mayor from 1995-2003. Peyton has served since 2003 and his second term is up next year.
Barton said the economy has been different, specifically the 2007-2009 recession and the failures and mergers in the banking and financial industries that
seriously affected business conditions.
“In defense of the last eight years, we were responding to a set of conditions that were dramatic,” he said, citing “a modern depression” and other factors.
He said he was making “no excuses, but recognize the extraordinary conditions that were different than the Delaney years.”
Barton also reminded the group that the mayor doesn’t act alone. The mayor, he said, is the City’s CEO while the City Council is the board of directors.
”This is a council conversation as well,” he said.
“We can’t be divisive.”
Asked if the area struggled with a negative self-image, Barton and Mallot said not so much anymore.
Mallot said the area’s self-image rose “from the day we got the Jaguars ... and peaked at the Super Bowl,” a period from 1993-2005.
“It’s not that we don’t believe in ourselves,” said Barton. “We don’t have a focus.”
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