By Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
Fresh from completing a task force report about Downtown, the Jacksonville Civic Council of CEOs is almost three meetings deep into its next project, a look at the City’s challenged finances.
Civic Council Executive Director Don Shea previewed the new task force in an interview Tuesday afternoon before he joined Civic Council member Ed Burr to talk about the Downtown report with IMPACTjax, the young professionals of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The Civic Council consists of about 50 private CEOs and civic leaders formed a little more than a year ago to focus on City issues not being strongly addressed by other groups.
Shea and Burr met with an estimated 100 members of IMPACTjax at the Skyline Café on the 42nd floor of the Bank of America Tower.
Shea said that a task force of about 10-11 people will meet for the third time Thursday as the “City Budget and Pension Analysis Task Force.”
Chaired by former JEA CEO Walt Bussells, the group will look not only at the City’s income statement but the balance sheet, which is a more revealing financial snapshot of an organization showing assets, liabilities and capital.
Civic Council members on the task force include Civic Council Chair Peter Rummell, former Mayor John Delaney, who is president of the University of North Florida, and Regions Financial Corp. North Florida Area Executive Marty Lanahan.
Bussells is the executive vice president and CFO of GreenPointe Holdings LLC. Burr is GreenPointe president and CEO.
As the City continues to face budget deficits and looming pension issues, the group intends to make recommendations to City leaders either before the May 17 general election, which will result in a new mayor and several new City Council members, or soon after.
“If we don’t take action tomorrow, it’ll bankrupt us in five or six years, maybe four,” said Shea.
He said the task force would develop a time line at the meeting Thursday.
“We’d rather get it right than get it fast,” he said. Shea said the report would be made before the next mayor takes office July 1.
Meanwhile, Burr, also founder of the chamber’s JaxBiz political affiliate, said Tuesday that JaxBiz would release an announcement today regarding its endorsement of a candidate for mayor.
JaxBiz endorsed Republican Audrey Moran in the March 22 first election, but she came in third behind runoff candidates Mike Hogan, a Republican, and Democrat Alvin Brown.
Burr would not say which of the two candidates, if either, that JaxBiz would endorse.
Asked which candidate he would endorse personally, Burr didn’t respond with a name. “I’m going to follow JaxBiz’s lead,” he said, “but I’m still contemplating my position. Time is running out.”
While the Civic Council is nonpartisan, its members can endorse individually. Rummell, a Republican, made headlines over the weekend by crossing party lines to endorse Brown and said he put $150,000 into the campaign that was matched by others.
Burr and Shea talked with IMPACTjax members and guests about the Civic Council’s Northbank Redevelopment Task Force Report calling for an indepen-dent Downtown Improvement Authority that would implement a Downtown master plan, including a new convention center.
The council calls for a seven-member appointed authority that would focus solely on developing Downtown and operate under its own budget.
IMPACTjax members offered questions and comments about the lack of housing, entertainment and business incentives that would attract more people to live, play and work Downtown. One member said while there was much to do Downtown, too few people were aware of that.
Shea said three threats to most downtowns include first, the government programs that led people from Downtown, such as the post-World War II efforts to grow the interstate highway system and home ownership programs for returning veterans to build in the suburbs.
He said that “miniaturization” is a second threat, meaning that new skyscrapers aren’t generally needed in downtowns now that technology is reducing the need for people and office space. Fewer big buildings mean lower downtown tax bases.
Third, he said that corporate cutbacks and restructurings changed the way business is done, including the “social participation” by CEOs who might be “just passing through” a community and not investing the focus that corporate leaders had made in the past.
Shea also said that a successful downtown today requires density of people, activity and leadership.
Burr said that Downtown Jacksonville needs the governance of an independent authority to provide focus on the area, explaining that the City’s 19 City Council members include three who represent parts of Downtown but none with a sole focus on it.
He also said the mayor must represent the entire city, not just Downtown.
He said that while there is a master plan for developing Downtown, “there is nobody empowered to implement that master plan.”
Asked about dealing with the homeless population Downtown, Burr said that a daytime homeless referral service, where people could make phone calls, use a computer and care for themselves was “going to get some process here.”
“I hope the next mayor will follow through on that,” he said.
Asked specifically about mayoral candidate Hogan, who hasn’t latched onto the Downtown Improvement Authority recommendation like Moran did, Shea emphasized that the Civic
Council “is officially nonpartisan” and he urged IMPACTJax members to vote.
Burr said the improvement of Downtown depending on everyone, not just the mayor.
“Regardless of who our next mayor is, we have to have the support of the citizens,” said Burr.
Burr, who chairs the chamber’s Downtown Revitalization Committee, also told the group that jobs might be coming Downtown.
“We’re now talking to prospects about moving Downtown,” he said. “We could have some great announcements in 90 days.”
He said after the meeting that the chamber was talking with a prospect from out of Downtown about moving to the center city and gave the news a 60-day time frame, declining to provide any details.
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