Mayor Alvin Brown’s economic development reform legislation is taking a timeout.
The two pieces of legislation comprising the first major reform of the City’s economic development structure in 15 years has been discussed at the City Council level since being introduced in late March.
Reform will be sidelined while both pieces of legislation are rewritten.
The Council Rules and Finance committees met jointly twice to review the legislation and criticized language, asked for rewrites of portions of the measures for clarity and sought answers that weren’t immediately available, resulting in a growing frustration among several Council members.
On Wednesday, the administration said it will submit substitutions of the legislation addressing those concerns.
“It’s an opportunity to work with City Council collaboratively and will make good bills even better,” said David DeCamp, Brown’s communications director.
DeCamp said the substitute measures would be written and filed “as soon as possible” but that there was no current timeline in place.
“We want to get it done as soon as possible, but more importantly we want to make sure it gets done right,” DeCamp said.
The policies within the legislation will remain the same.
Council Vice President Bill Bishop, chairman of the rules committee, has taken the lead in the joint committee meetings and said he learned of the planned substitutes Wednesday.
Scheduled meetings of the joint committee were canceled.
“The administration is finally coming to the realization this bill needs a cleanup,” Bishop said.
Bishop said he suggested that the legislation be withdrawn and resubmitted entirely, but the administration preferred offering substitute language.
Bishop said the two pieces of legislation would continue to be deferred until the redrafts were complete, submitted and reviewed by Council members.
He was open to the idea of continuing the joint committee meetings to review the new language and said the format “was a good way to do it.”
“I want a clean version, top to bottom,” Bishop said.
Bishop said the redrafts arriving to Council “were not going to be Monday,” referring to the Rules Committee’s regularly scheduled meeting. “It’s going to take time,” he said.
The first measure, 2012-212, transitions the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission into an Office of Economic Development and creates a Downtown Investment Authority.
The independent authority would handle Downtown economic development, while the office would focus on deals outside of Downtown throughout the county.
The second measure, 2012-213, would reduce the amount of time it takes to approve economic incentive deals.
Bishop said that ideally, the office and authority would be addressed under separate measures and be more clearly defined.
Although the administration has said there is no timetable, Bishop said there is a looming issue that will become Council’s first priority: the 2012-13 City budget.
If approved, a resolution introduced Tuesday would allow the mayor to submit his final budget to Council July 16. It is typically due July 15, but this year the date falls on a Sunday.
Bishop served on the Council Finance Committee that held budget reviews for several months last year and was adamant that Brown not reform government through the budget.
He maintains that view this year.
“There is not going to be reorganization and budget at the same time,” Bishop said.
He said the budget will be the priority, shifting reform to the side.
“The budget is hard work,” he said. “We’re going to be neck-deep in it.”
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