The title of this post is from the song Downtown sung by Petula Clark in the mid 1960s.  The song was inspired by composer-arranger Tony Hatch’s visit to New York City in which he extols the vibrant atmosphere of Broadway and Times Square.  Having been to New York City, I would agree with this characterization of Manhattan.  With its museums, nightspots and Central Park, New York City truly is the city that does not sleep!

If you read the recent Florida Times Union series on downtown Jacksonville, you get a sense that Jacksonville’s political leaders really want to transfer some of that vibrancy to Jacksonville’s city core.  According to the Florida Times Union, downtown Jacksonville is essentially dead in the weeknights and weekends and is short on residents and workers. What city leaders envision is a walkable downtown full of shops, restaurants, condominiums and lots of people frequenting and living in them. As usual, this vision requires tax money and city government planning.

Before we go flying off the cliff in our enthusiasm to keep moving forward with this vision, let us pause for a second and ask why we need a vibrant downtown.  Even if we agree that the downtown area should be different from what it currently is, is it possible for realize this new vision for downtown? How should we realize this vision? How much taxpayer money are we willing to sink into downtown to realize this vision?
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A fee does the city no good if it doesn’t get paid. That is the issue with the stormwater and garbage fees. According to the Florida Times Union, 17% of the stormwater and garbage fees have not been paid to the city even though it appears to be more like 30% lately.  The city would like to reduce this statistic to 5% by adding the fees to your property tax bill.  When that happens, failure to pay the fees could get a lien placed on your property.   With this motivational trick, the mayor is hoping to persuade Jacksonville residents to pay the unpopular fees.

The up side of putting the fees on the property tax bill is cost savings.  The cost savings projected by the Central Operations department is about $737,000 per year. In a tough budget year, that is not exactly chump change.  Billing customers is a major expense for businesses which explains why so many businesses like e-mailed billing notices and automatic debits which reduce this cost.

On the other hand, the down side is that the fees become more entrenched as they become easier to collect.  Many of us were not happy with the fees mainly because they rolled back the property tax relief provided to us by the Florida Legislature in 2007 and which we taxpayers approved in 2008.  Personally and I speak only for myself and not for Concerned Taxpayers, I have no problems with the fees in and of themselves and I actually like the idea of diversifying the city’s revenue base.

However, my problem with the fees is that the political establishment in Jacksonville was not willing to give up its obsession with spending other people’s money even when the Jacksonville taxpayer was clearly being overtaxed.  Sometimes, the money is spent on indispensable services like police and fire suppression.  Other times, it is spent on government charity and corporate welfare which I believe the taxpayer should not be forced to fund.  Until Jacksonville city government restricts its responsibilities to the core functions of government (police, fire suppression, parks, etc) and not whatever pet project some City Council member or Mayor fancies at the moment, I will reject any tax increase that makes hard earned taxpayer money available to politicians to play with.  That is especially true in hard times when a failure to pay the fees could lead to the loss of your home.

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As pointed out by Abel Harding in a recent Florida Times Union blog entry, Florida and Jacksonville taxpayers are on the hook for $918,000 in incentive money given in 2006 to commercial lender CIT Group Inc which is now in the 5th largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.  There is no word on whether the Jacksonville taxpayer will get any return on its “investment”, i.e. jobs promised in return for the incentive money, even though this seems unlikely now. Wouldn’t we have more fun if the government would simply throw all our money in a pit and set it on fire so that we could at least roast marshmallows over the flames and sing “Kumbaya” together?

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We have another “emergency” bill probably coming up for a vote at the Jacksonville City Council meeting this Tuesday. The bill is 2009-467 and its purpose is to appropriate $168,078 for the installation of a new batting cage and picnic pavilion at Wingate Park in Jacksonville Beach.  Apparently, the “emergency” is that the contractor specified in the bill (Jaguar Builders of Jax, Inc.) is working at a location close to the park.  On account of this lucky break, the contractor avoids the competitive bidding process and the usual construction bond requirement. It would be very unfortunate that after the City Council made the right decision by rejecting the no bid Trail Ridge contract that they would so quickly abandon the competitive bidding process on such flimsy grounds. The bill is sponsored by the incoming City Council President Richard Clark. Hopefully, this is not a sign of the City Council’s future under his leadership.

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As usual, the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission (JEDC) is prostating itself in front of another business that is moving jobs to Jacksonville.  Whertec Inc. is planning a move to the Westside of Jacksonville and the JEDC already has its checkbook open to the tune of $48,600 (yes, we taxpayers fund the bank account on which the checks are written!). Is it just me or does it seem like every business decision these days starts with “What kind of government grant can we get to finance our business expansion?”

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Two years ago, the Peyton administration and Jacksonville City Council decided that we Duval County taxpayers did not deserve the property tax relief promised to us by the Florida Legislature and imposed three new taxes on us. Now, the stormwater and garbage tax bill has hit us for the second time. This bill is twice as large as the last one.

Please join us in our effort to repeal these new taxes before it is too late.

On June 9th at 4 PM, let’s gather outside of City Hall prior to the City Council meeting and call for the repeal of these taxes!

Once the City Council meeting starts, you can tell City Council that the fees need to go during the public comment portion of the meeting. We need as many people to show up as possible. If we do not stop this tax now, it will become more difficult to remove in the future and will become a burden for generations to come in Jacksonville!

We seek nothing less than the immediate and permanent repeal of the ordinances authorizing the new fees:

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The following letter to the editor written by Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County board member Victor Wilhelm was printed in Sunday’s Florida Times Union.

Wrong direction

Shame on state Rep. Mike Weinstein for supporting a bill that allows a supermajority of the City Council to pass a sales tax increase without a vote of the people.

This usurps the home rule of families and their community. The intent of only allowing a sales tax increase by referendum for consolidated governments is to protect the outlying communities from the excesses of the urban core. This preserved home rule for communities like Mandarin or Baldwin.

Now 13 people on City Council can decide on the merits of a sales tax increase when it previously required the consent of a majority of the entire county.

Residents in Duval County are quite capable of deciding what services we wish to pay for. Duval County residents voted for over a $2 billion tax increase for the Better Jacksonville Plan.

Political power with respect to the relationship of individuals to government is a zero sum game. By changing the law to allow 13 people on City Council to decide versus over 700,000 individuals, Weinstein has shifted the balance of power in the wrong direction.

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PRESS RELEASE
From: Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County, Inc.
John Winkler, President and legal counsel
(904) 384-9918 www.jaxtaxpayers.org
April 26, 2009 Jacksonville, Florida

The legality of Mayor Peyton’s efforts to give Waste Management a $750 million City contract without competitive bids was challenged in a lawsuit by a local citizen’s group late Friday. The Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County, on behalf of all local residents, are requesting a court ruling on whether the Mayor’s proposal for the Trail Ridge landfill can even legally be considered by City Council. John Winkler, President of the CTDC, said his group is unaffiliated with any potential landfill operator. “Our sole purpose is to insure that the City follows the spirit and letter of its own laws on giving out large contracts, ” said Winkler. “City Council must determine both who will run the landfill and how much it will cost the residents for the next thirty years or more. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are at stake, and the process has to be transparent, fair, and free of corporate intimidation of either the public or public officials.”

Winkler explains that the suit asks the court to declare that a vote by City Council to waive the city competitive bidding rules is illegal, as would be entering into the restated contract on Trail Ridge. The CTDC maintains the Mayor’s request to City Council violates local law because the overriding public purpose of the Procurement Code and the contracts it covers make it clear that landfill operations must be bid. The proposed “restated” contract is also unlawful because it contains provisions which could force the City to sell the entire 977 acre Trail Ridge site, together with the newly-purchased City “dirt mine,” to Waste Management without following the City ordinance on land sales.

“The citizens must guarantee City Council is not intimidated by Waste Management’s threats of litigation, amplified by the Mayor, into approving execution of an illegal ‘no-bid’ contract on the landfill,” Winkler reiterated. “Moreover, even a legal contract that could force the City into selling its only landfill site to a private company is irresponsible. The people of Duval County are unwilling to take that risk.”

See filed court documents below.

Complaint For Declaratory And Supplemental Relief

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2 Part 1

Exhibit 2 Part 2

Exhibit 3

Exhibit 4

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Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County board member Phil Laibe made the following comments about the April 9th City Council hearing on the proposed Trail Ridge contract.  His comments are his own and do not reflect the opinions of Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County.

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So you want to know how to justify putting the taxpayer on the hook for $200,000 ($125,000 loan and $75,000 grant) to a business to expand its truck washing facilities?  Tell everyone that it reduces crime!

Yes, it’s true!  According to the City Council analysis of bill 2009-185, more than half of the 18 new full time jobs created by this expansion will be available to assist the re-entry of felons back into society.  Jacksonville businesses apparently have caught on to the fact that if you want to get money from the city government, it helps to have a crime prevention angle going for you.  It is not only absurd to use economic development money to do crime reduction, but also expensive since we are spending over $11,000 per job.

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