Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It was a different era of history, culture and politics but there are often parallels between the kind of stories that made headlines then and today. As interesting as the differences may be, so are the similarities. These are some of the top stories from this week in 1962. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library's periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• City Council adopted an $85,365,530 budget for 1962-63 after a battle in which an amendment to give some City employees a $7.50 per month raise was defeated.
Although the budget was the largest in the City's history, it called for an ad valorem tax rate of 19.4 mills, the same as the previous year. The flat property tax rate was based on an increase in anticipated revenues.
The budget included $33,388,000 in general fund expenditures and capital improvements of $2,544,000. The budgets for the Electric Department and Water Department were $43,630,000 and $2,993,000, respectively.
The fiscal plan as presented by the Council's Budget & Finance Committee included raises of $18 monthly for 275 police officers.
The four Council members who were not on the committee, and made up the council's minority faction, introduced an amendment to the proposed budget which would have provided a $7.50 monthly raise to 2,800 City employees.
After two 30-minute recesses and a session of charges, countercharges and name calling, the amendment was defeated with the five members of the budget committee, who also made up the majority faction, voting it down.
Those members included committee chairman Lemuel Sharp, Council President Brad Tredinnick, Cecil Lowe, James Peeler and James Marr.
Council member John Lanahan, spokesman for the minority group that included Council members Ralph Walter, W.O. Mattox Jr. and Clyde Cannon, referred to the amendment as a minority report.
Lanahan said when the planned raises for police officers came to light, he was in favor of the increase but thought other City employees also were entitled to salary increases.
Tredinnick called the amendment, which was not seen by the majority group until the Council met to vote on the budget, "the most ridiculous thing ever perpetrated on the people of Jacksonville."
W.T. Hill, president of the 1,700-member Jacksonville City Employees Union, said that in two meetings with the Budget Committee, he made it clear he was not seeking a pay raise for City employees.
Hill said it was mutually agreed that the $25 across-the-board raise granted in the 1961-62 budget was satisfactory and no further raises were anticipated or expected at that time.
"But to my knowledge, the union has never opposed a raise for any City employee," Hill said.
• Arguments concerning the validity and sufficiency of public school integration plans for three Florida counties, including Duval, went on for more than five hours before U.S. District Judge Bryan Simpson.
The proposals for Duval, Hillsborough and Volusia counties had many points in common, but two elements drew opposition from lawyers from the NAACP.
Freedom of choice provisions in all three plans were termed by the attorneys as "built-in schemes to preserve racial segregation." The freedom of choice would permit any student of any race to attend the school nearest his residence or elect to attend a school farther that might have a preponderance of students of his own race.
The NAACP lawyers also attacked the proposal within all three plans for a "stair step" integration format which would begin with the first grade, then continue with one higher grade each year until the entire county school system was on a biracial basis.
The NAACP, represented by Constance Motley and Earl M. Johnson, contended there was no reason for the year-by-year integration of the school grades.
"Integration has taken place in practically every other facet of Florida's civic affairs – its restaurants, airports, bus stations and stores. This year-by-year school integration, coming now some nine years after the Supreme Court ordered it, is not proceeding with the 'prompt and reasonable start' called for by the courts," Johnson said.
Arguing for court acceptance of the Duval County plan were attorneys Fred H. Kent and Davisson F. Dunlap, who contended that none of the many appellate and U.S. Supreme Court rulings on school integration had laid down any ban on giving students a free choice on schools they could attend. They argued that any forced integration or denial of a free choice would be a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Kent charged the NAACP's attorneys were asking the court to order enforced integration, not desegregation.
"There is a difference. The law does not require involuntary integration. It merely forbids discrimination in the assignment of pupils to schools on the basis of race or color. Our freedom of choice plan applies equally to white and colored children," he said.
Simpson did not indicate when he would rule on the proposals.
• Ten more U.S Navy and Marine Corps pilots assigned to Light Photographic Squadron 62 at Cecil Field Naval Air Station were awarded Distinguished Flying Cross awards for their low-level reconnaissance flights over Cuba.
The Marine pilots were from Cherry Point, N.C., and had been assigned to the squadron since October when the Cuban missile crisis had developed.
Six pilots from the squadron previously were awarded DFCs and VFP-62 was recognized with the Navy Unit Commendation presented by President John F. Kennedy, making it the most honored active duty squadron in the Navy.
• Emergency food and water supplies sufficient to meet the needs of 532 people were stocked at City Hall along East Bay Street by the Duval County Civil Defense Council.
City Hall was the 15th building designated as a fallout shelter to be stocked with emergency rations. About 500,000 pounds of food and water were stockpiled in shelters in Duval County.
• Jewell A. Davis was elected president of the Baptist Hospital of Jacksonville, the founding board of Baptist Memorial Hospital. He succeeded T.A. Lanford, who had served for two years.
Davis had served as a member of the board since it was organized in 1948 to establish Baptist Memorial Hospital.
• The Jacksonville Tourist and Convention Bureau changed its name to the "Jacksonville Convention and Visitors Bureau" and elected John P. Ingle Jr. as its president.
Ingle had served as vice president for a year and was director of community relations for Eastern Airlines.
Outgoing president Cooper Cubbedge said the word "tourist" had come to have an undesirable connotation and that people coming into the state for long or short stays preferred to be called visitors rather than tourists.
In his annual report, bureau Vice President George Tobi said Jacksonville in 1962 was completing the best convention year in the city's history. He said more than 250 meetings of various sizes were held during the year, bringing more than 90,000 delegates to the area.
"A peculiar thing about the convention business is that you have to wait your turn. We can't expect to get most of the conventions we had this year back in 1963," Tobi said.
To offset the expectation, he said the bureau was working to attract new business, including conventions that had never been to Jacksonville or had not been in years and regional and statewide meetings.
• Hubert G. Mehaffey was elected president of the Meninak Club at the group's annual meeting at the Mayflower Hotel.
A member of the club since 1953, some of his civic affiliations included treasurer of the board of trustees of Baptist Home for Children; director of United Cerebral Palsy of Jacksonville; and director of the West Jacksonville Area Council of the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce.
Mehaffey, executive vice president of Eelback Milling Co. of Florida Inc., succeeded Irwin W. Woods.