by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
More than 70 participants in the new Jacksonville Community Council Inc. study gathered Wednesday to launch the latest project, “Recession Recovery and Beyond.”
The group meets this week in Nassau County.
The study, which concludes in May, encompasses the seven counties of Northeast Florida and the group will meet once in each county before completing its work during meetings at the Northeast Florida Regional Council in Jacksonville.
The Daily Record reported about the kickoff meeting on Thursday. Here are more insights and quotes from the event.
• New word from JCCI Executive Director Skip Cramer: “Co-ompetition,” a combination of cooperation and competition. Cramer said he heard it from the recent city leadership trip to Indianapolis.
• Keynote speaker Peter Rummell, chair of the Jacksonville Civic Council, referred to a population growth comparison of the Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Charlotte city/county areas from 1970-2010. Jacksonville has grown by 62 percent while the others averaged 175 percent. “I don’t know what that means,” he said. “There’s something structural. You can’t attribute that to bad luck. You can’t attribute that to one bad mayor. Forty years is a trend.”
• Rummell also used a term starting to surface among city leaders: “We’re at an inflection point.”
• Rummell, a seasoned real estate developer and former chair of The St. Joe Co., also advised the group to do its research. “A lesson you learn in real estate development is never, never, never invent when you can steal,” he said, referring to using ideas and solutions from other sources rather than wasting time starting from scratch. “Most problems are not unique.”
• The Jacksonville Civic Council of about 50 community and business leaders is focusing on several areas of concern and interest, including the importance of keeping the Jacksonville Jaguars in town. “I would hate like hell to be one of the few cities in the country to lose the NFL,” he said.
• JCCI perennial study participant Marvin Reese, during the summary period of lessons learned during the meeting, observed that “we’re probably the only people, in this room, who want change” in the City. There are others in town who want change, he said, surmising that the “change they want is to go back 60 years.”
The group is scheduled to meet from 3-5 p.m. Tuesday at the Betty P. Cook Nassau Campus of Florida State College at Jacksonville in Yulee.
For information about the study, visit www.jcci.org.
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