Mayor Alvin Brown’s reform plan has not emerged this week from any of the three City Council committees considering it, further jeopardizing his request for full Council approval next week.
The Council Finance Committee met Tuesday morning and adopted a Rules Committee substitute that was considered and deferred on Monday.
That bill included amendments to move the City’s Planning and Development Department from the newly proposed Economic Development Commission, where Brown wanted it, and instead put it into the Chief Services Division.
It also eliminated the title “commissioners” throughout the legislation, which administration officials have continued to fight.
Brown appeared Tuesday before the Finance Committee before the discussion
to thank committee members for their work and urge them to pass the legislation on for a full Council vote Dec. 13, the deadline he has requested.
The wording and intent of several parts of the legislation were also points of contention among members, including a part relating to the housing authority potentially gaining the power to distribute federal development block grants.
Council member Denise Lee, who is not a committee member but joined the discussion, said that would be a wrong move because the grant funds are used in needy neighborhoods and “will be held hostage” by the authority because it is a political body.
Kevin Hyde, Brown’s chief administrative officer, said there was no intent for such a change and the part would be rewritten.
“There will be division there,” Hyde said.
Time ran out on the committee after several technical changes and overall discussion and the motion was made to wrap all the changes into one Finance Committee substitute bill and defer the measure until its next meeting in January.
Later in the day, the Council Recreation, Community Development, Public Health and Safety Committee took its turn discussing the legislation, but also ran out of time after more technical changes and discussion.
Instead of deferring, committee Chairman Bill Gulliford postponed action and called for a special meeting from 3-5 p.m. Thursday to discuss the larger issues within the bill.
That discussion will include the recommendations of a study group that Gulliford initiated. Comprising mostly past administration officials, the five-member group, consisting of Sam Mousa, Derek Igou, Wyman Duggan, Steve Diebenow and Ron Mallett, met several times the past few weeks.
The group voiced concerns about the Parking Facilities and Enforcement Division being moved under economic development and called for the Jacksonville Public Library director to be appointed and confirmed by Council for consistency with other positions.
It also recommended that the title “commissioner” be replaced with another term, which has been done.
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