Downtown Turnaround

On Thursday, February 24, Downtown Vision, Inc. and the Downtown Residents Group hosted a city council candidate forum at the Museum of Science and History's Gooding Planetarium. The forum was moderated by Channel 4 meteorologist Rebecca Barry and focused on issues facing downtown development. Time restraints prevented candidates from going in-depth into any proposals, but the forum did provide a good opportunity to determine candidate stances on building up our cities urban core.

In attendance were candidates from city council districts seven and nine, and at-large districts four and five. Due to the short time span only districts located in the "core" downtown area were represented in the hour long forum. There were ten candidates in attendance:

1. Marc McCullough, Sr. - District 7
2. Warren Jones - District 9
3. Greg Anderson - At-Large Group 4
4. Juan Diaz - At-Large Group 4
5. Jim Robinson - At-Large Group 4
6. Fred Engness - At-Large Group 5
7. Sean Hall - At-Large Group 5
8. Robin Lumb - At-Large Group 5
9. Robin Rukab - At-Large Group 5
10. Michelle Tappouni - At-Large Group 5

Candidates Don Redman of district four and JOhn Gaffney of district seven were on the program, but did not attend. Redman cited "scheduling conflicts" and Gaffney was out sick.

Mike Hogan pandering to radical base

In a recent candidate forum at Mandarin's St. Joseph Catholic Church on Monday, February 21, mayoral candidate Mike Hogan said he would do anything to appeal Roe v. Wade but bomb an abortion clinic, but "it would cross [his] mind". It may have been a joke that he thought would go well in a church-related forum, but for me it was a tasteless one. For details on his full comment read the full Times Union article. Hogan classifies himself as a baptist and his website says that he is or has been a deacon, Sunday school teacher, department director, church officer and director at First Baptist Church of Jacksonville for the last 36 years. Baptists do not traditionally support the practice of abortion, and I respect that belief, but it would be despicable for any pastor or church leader to make light of such a violent and hateful act that Jesus - a devout pacifist - would never support. 

Scott's budget plan by agency

Scott's budget plan by agency

The newly elected Governor of Florida's budget is scrutinized agency by agency in this article by the Palm Beach Post. There are quite a few cuts in many agencies including education and veterans affairs. An interesting note is the increase in his own office. I would hope that Scott would lead by example, but maybe it is possible that the Governor's office needs more funding to provide effective oversight - especially if he tends to go toward a more networked model of governance and continue on the trend of contracting our government services to third parties.

Review the Palm Beach Post dataset and take a look for yourself. It will be interesting to see what kind of impacts will arise out of this here locally.

Five Drastic Steps To Revive Downtown Jacksonville | Metro Jacksonville

Five Drastic Steps To Revive Downtown Jacksonville | Metro Jacksonville

Metro Jacksonville is a great online resource about Urban development and planning issues with a local focus. They do a lot of comparisons with other cities, the talk about public transportation systems, and provide a lot of incite and possible solutions as to how we can address this city's issues.

They do have a liberal lean to them in their writing, so keep that in mind when reading. Overall though, I feel they remain fairly objective in their articles, and I highly recommend them.

This article talks about five steps we can take to solve the issues facing downtown Jacksonville. They are "drastic", as the title describes, and would be sure to draw up controversy in a political campaign. Give it a read, and if you feel so compelled, have your say in the comments below. lets start a discussion on how to fix downtown Action-ville.

Welcome to the fray.

Hello all,

My name is James Croft. I am a twenty-three year-old graduate student in the University of North Florida's Masters in Public Administration program. I am a registered democrat, a self-professed social liberal, fiscal conservative and somewhat intelligent person. I have my opinions like everyone else, and I endeavor to listen to the thoughts and opinions of others.

I'm starting this blog to provide an outlet for locals to write and express their viewpoints on local issues important to them, get the word out about events and causes and provide an alternative information source to our area. I did not start this blog to push my political beliefs and opinions onto others. That would be wrong. In fact I cordially invite anyone that wants to contribute to this blog to contact me. Whether you are Republican, Democrat, Independent, Socialist, Communist or what-have-you we all have a right to express our opinions.

If you are interested please contact me at JPCroftIII@gmail.com and we will set up a blogger account to get you started. This is a newborn operation, and I expect many changes in the future as the blog grows. I hope you will be a part of it.

Thanks,

James Croft