by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
The Downtown Council of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce held its first meeting of the new year Friday. The group’s membership includes Downtown business people and urban core advocates and one of the announcements at the meeting was that the “advocacy” part of the program will be a prime objective for the organization this year.
Joe Snowberger, chair of the council’s Downtown Enhancement and Events Committee, said the group has a 15-year reputation for sponsoring events and for volunteering at events sponsored by other Downtown advocacy organizations and the goal for 2010 is to add to that reputation. He has met with Downtown Vision, Inc., the mayor’s office and other organizations to gather suggestions and begin planning a series of events that will bring more people and more vibrancy Downtown.
“Enhancement is the Downtown Council’s primary mission outside of developing business-to-business relationships,” said Snowberger.
Some things under consideration include bringing back the Friday afternoon happy hour networking mixers at Hemming Plaza and weekend tours of Downtown landmarks.
Snowberger also said one of the committee’s initiatives will be to support Downtown venues. Toward that goal, it’s hosting a networking event open to the public Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at The Sinclair at 521 W. Forsyth St.
The council invites a speaker to each of its meetings and last week’s guest was former Sheriff Nat Glover, who is now the special advisor to University of North Florida President John Delaney. He is also Jacksonville’s “Ambassador to Higher Education.”
Through “The Jacksonville Commitment” students who might otherwise not be able to afford college tuition can receive financial assistance. If a student qualifies for a full Pell Grant and qualifies for admission to UNF the college will supplement the funds needed for the student’s education.
“The more kids we can keep in school, the better,” said Glover. “Education helps make our community safe.”
Glover also said he supports job programs for ex-offenders.
“When a person commits a crime, society has a tendency to want to extract its pound of flesh and it does. When that person gets out of prison and wants to redeem himself, he often can’t get a job. That’s like double jeopardy because many of those people end up back in prison and it costs $30,000 a year to keep someone in prison. It doesn’t make sense fiscally and it’s not the right thing to do. We have to end the cycle,” said Glover.
When asked his opinion of the current issues surrounding the Police and Fire Pension Fund, Glover first qualified himself as a trustee of the fund then said, “Firefighters and police officers have high-risk jobs. When they go to work, they don’t know if they are coming home. Their benefits should be commensurate with that.
“How did we get in the position we’re in? The City took some pension funding holidays it shouldn’t have, but we’ll figure out how to fix it. That’s what this community has always done,” said Glover.
The Downtown Council meets the first and third Friday of each month at 7:30 a.m. at Currents Riverview Bistro at the Aetna Building on the Southbank. Anyone who owns a business, works Downtown or would like to get involved in helping enhance the Downtown experience is welcome to attend. The guest speaker at the Feb. 5 meeting will be Skip Cramer, executive director of the Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. who will present the organization’s 2010 Quality of Life Report.
For more information visit www.downtowncouncil.org.
Former Sheriff and Special Advisor to the President at the University of North Florida Nat Glover and Jepp Walter, president of the Downtown Council.
356-2466