I do not understand why City Council is so hell bent on repealing the Law of Supply and Demand.  Throughout history, governments around the world have tried this and they have failed every time.  The closest to succeed were the Communist governments of the Soviet Union and China, but they only managed to drive their free economies underground where supply and demand flourished.  Eventually, even these governments realized the folly of their efforts and returned to at least a partial capitalist free market system.  Now our city government is trying to perpetrate the same foolishness that those governments did.  And this is not their first attempt: It was tried with 2005-091, the seafood Bill, again a couple of years ago with the Local Preferences bill and this past year with the Residency Requirements bill.   All of these bills were ultimately withdrawn.

The Law of Supply and Demand cannot be repealed  because it was not legislated into existence.  The Law of Supply and Demand is manifested by the actions of people who produce, trade and consume goods.   Passage of 2010-856 will be nothing more than a disruption of a working market system, causing higher prices, reduced production, reduced trade and reduced consumption, none of which, does one want in a down economy.  Think about it.

I call on this City Council to abandon this legislation and then advise those constituents who initiated this movement that they are now free to compete.

Joe Andrews
Candidate for City Council, District 12

When you read the above excerpt from Mayor John Peyton’s speech, you get the sense that Peyton has a rather ambitious view of his role as Mayor.  Rather than running an efficient government that provides an essential but limited set of services to local taxpayers, Peyton instead want to be the savior of Jacksonville dispensing  job opportunities and improved quality of life to everyone like Santa Claus on Christmas day.  While this may seem noble to many, you have to question whether Peyton has the godlike powers to make this happen.  Cities are complex social organizations that defy top down control by politicians no matter how sincere or self confident they may be.  The reason that free markets work is that they do not presume that one person or even a committee of people have the knowledge and available tools to manage the complex web of personal and economic relationships that take place within Jacksonville.  Free markets rely on the decentralized decision making by entrepreneurs trying to discover what their customers need and then meeting that need before their competitors beat them to the punch.

Recently, the Jacksonville Charter Revision Commission proposed that the mayor develop a four year strategic plan that includes a “vision statement, mission statement, financial plan, goals and measurements for annual performance reviews”.   While strategic planning is important for any organization including city government, we need to be careful to identify what the goal of this foray into strategic planning should be and should not be.  It should not be a strategic plan for Jacksonville.  Instead, it should be a strategic plan for Jacksonville city government.  There is a difference.  The former assumes a godlike remolding of a city of 800,000+ people while the latter is more realistic in its desire to do just a few essential things and do them well.

A savior mentality seems to be inherent within the politician psyche.  Efficiently provide a limited set of services that the free market finds difficult to duplicate is way too mundane for politicians like Peyton.  It is more fun for Peyton to throw around taxpayer money in a vain attempt to transform Jacksonville into his vision of what he thinks that it should be regardless of whether Jacksonville residents want to go along for the ride.  My advice to Mayor Peyton is to get the city budget under control without another tax increase, reform the city pension system and leave the quality of life issue to the private sector which is more responsive to its customers than governments tend to be.