Two City Council Bills that will likely come up before the full City Council on January 13th have caught our attention here at Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County. The first one is bill 2008-1021. This bill appropriates $109,000 from the Special Council Contingency/PSG/Cultural Council account to pay for the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra’s rental of Jacoby Symphony Hall at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts for the 2008-09 orchestra season. So the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra cannot pay its rent. It provides a valuable service, right? Why not let the taxpayers help it out of its financial bind?
As Councilman Stephen Joost pointed out at a recent Finance Committee meeting, the number of people attending performances by the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra for the past budget year was 110,000+. If one more dollar had been charged per ticket, there would be no need to burden the Jacksonville taxpayer with this bill.
The second one is bill 2008-1055. This bill sets a graduated point system for evaluating the proximity of businesses seeking city government professional service contracts to Jacksonville. The pecking order for favoring contract candidates is businesses that have headquarters in Jacksonville followed by businesses with branch offices in Jacksonville followed by business with branch office elsewhere in Florida followed by business with no offices in Florida. So isn’t favoring local businesses who pay local taxes a good idea?
