by David Chapman
Staff Writer
An ordinance to appropriate $500,000 in City money to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida Inc. for intersection improvements at the entrance to its Deerwood Campus property passed City Council Finance Committee Tuesday.
It passed 6-1 after nearly an hour of discussion. Council member John Crescimbeni voted against it.
The $1.2 million project is described as a public-private partnership between the City and Blue Cross, with the health care company contributing the remaining $700,000 and covering any project overruns.
Proponents of the measure said such intersection improvements were of benefit to the general Southside area through traffic relief, but Crescimbeni voiced reservations about the project.
He said the project is not competitively bid and is not an intersection on the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office list of dangerous intersections needing attention.
“If the name of the company was different, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about this today,” said Crescimbeni.
“This is politics, pure and simple, and I just can’t support. I think if we’re really serious about safety, we have a whole list of intersections that we ought to be talking about. This one isn’t on the list,” he said.
Council member Don Redman is not a member of the Finance Committee but attended the meeting as the district representative and urged his colleagues to support the measure to assist the overall area.
Crescimbeni then questioned whether Blue Cross had plans to expand its campus, and if so, would the intersection improvements end up negating any of the fair share payments that would be owed for such an expansion. Blue Cross attorney Brenda Ezell said there were no current plans for expansion.
Crescimbeni discussed an amendment for Blue Cross to reimburse the City up to $500,000 should Blue Cross expand and if the expansion would have incurred fair share fees without the intersection in place.
Council member Ray Holt offered the amendment with a three-year period to ensure there was no intent to avoid a potential fair share situation.
Committee members weighed in on the measure.
Council member Kevin Hyde said the term “expansion” needed to be narrowly defined in such an amendment as a fair share trigger because Council wants to see job creation.
Council member Michael Corrigan said he couldn’t support the amendment and didn’t want to discourage a local employer from potentially expanding in the future.
Ezell objected to the amendment on behalf of Blue Cross and said such improvements would be beneficial to all current and potential future property owners in that area.
Crescimbeni said such an amendment would protect taxpayers.
After more discussion, Holt withdrew the amendment and said he wanted to schedule a meeting with Blue Cross before the full Council votes on the measure. Finance Chair Warren Jones asked that such a meeting be publicly noticed.
Finance members then passed a Rules Committee amendment and voted on the measure.
In other news from the Tuesday’s finance meeting:
• Speaking of fair share agreements, an ordinance proposed several months ago by Council President Jack Webb to establish a temporary moratorium on such impact fees was withdrawn.
• Also withdrawn was a contentious ordinance that would have appropriated $629,000 from the Art in Public Places account to provide art for the new Duval County Courthouse.
• On the docket for some time, an amended measure was approved to establish a $50 additional court cost for certain felonies, misdemeanors and traffic violations with the funds going to Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.
• Also circulating through committee, an ordinance on how an Office of Ethics, Compliance and Oversight was selected was approved as a substitute. The substitute would allow the commission to hire its own director instead of allowing the mayor to choose the director, to allow similar rights given to other City commissions.
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