A joint City Council committee decided Wednesday that Council should name four of the nine members of Mayor Alvin Brown’s proposed Downtown Investment Authority.
The authority is part of Brown’s proposed legislation to reorganize the City’s economic development efforts.
The amendment was approved 8-0.
In proposed ordinance 2012-364, Brown wanted to name all nine members, with Council approval of the nominations.
The Rules and Finance committees have been meeting jointly to discuss the proposed legislation.
“It’s not unusual for City Council to have some input on the appointments. I don’t think any mayor should have all nine in this,” said Council member Matt Schellenberg, a member of the Rules Committee.
“I might suggest that the City Council takes the initiative, since we’re moving a lot faster than the mayor in making appointments, that maybe we should take five or six of those and have the Council appoint those members,” Schellenberg said.
“I think it’s important for us to have some strong input in this process,” he said.
The mayor’s Council liaison, Jessica Deal, saw Schellenberg’s comments as an unfair swipe at the administration.
“We have no problem working with Council, but I think six and three, when the administration is the one to bring this bill forward, is unfair,” she said.
“We are willing to divide up how the Council appoints some and the mayor appoints some, but the blanket comment relating to the mayor moving slow on making appointments is just not accurate,” said Deal.
The legislation would reorganize the 15-year-old Jacksonville Economic Development Commission into an Office of Economic Development within the mayor’s office and also create a Downtown Investment Authority.
Proposed ordinance 2012-364 would establish that authority. One of the duties of its board would be to manage Downtown tax increment finances.
Council member John Crescimbeni, who will move from vice chair of the Rules committee to chair of the Finance committee in the next Council term, which starts July 1, offered a compromise.
While Crescimbeni said he had “no problem with the mayor making all of the appointments,” he offered the amendment to allow the mayor to make five appointments and the Council to make four, all subject to Council approval.
The ordinance states that all nine board members must be residents of Duval County. At least two of the board members would have a residence or interest in a business that operates in the Downtown Northbank Community Redevelopment Area and two from the Downtown Southbank CRA.
Schellenberg suggested that backgrounds might include living Downtown, owning residential or commercial property Downtown, being a retailer, having experience in commercial real estate, having banking and finance experience, being a lawyer, or having business management experience.
The amendment includes that six of the board members would be from those categories.
Florida Statutes define a community redevelopment area as “a slum area, a blighted area, or an area in which there is a shortage of housing that is affordable to residents of low or moderate income, including the elderly, or a coastal and tourist area that is deteriorating and economically distressed due to outdated building density patterns, inadequate transportation and parking facilities, faulty lot layout or inadequate street layout, or a combination thereof which the governing body designates as appropriate for community redevelopment. For community redevelopment agencies created after July 1, 2006, a community redevelopment area may not consist of more than 80 percent of a municipality.”
The committees will hold their next joint meeting at 5 p.m. June 27.
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