OFFICE OF THE CITY COUNCIL

 

CHERYL L. BROWN                                                                                                                     117 WEST DUVAL STREET, SUITE 425

            DIRECTOR                                                                                                                                                                                                 4TH FLOOR, CITY HALL

   OFFICE (904) 630-1452                                                                                                                                                                                  JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA  32202

     FAX (904) 630-2906                                                                                                                                                                                                              

  E-MAIL: CLBROWN@coj.net

 

JOINT RULES/FINANCE/TEU COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

ON 2012-730, 2013-118, 2013-179 and 2013-241


June 19, 2013

9:00 a.m.

 

Location:  City Council Chamber, City Hall – St. James Building; 117 West Duval Street,

    

In attendance:

Rules: Council Members Yarborough (Chair), Holt, Boyer, Crescimbeni, Love, Lumb and Jones (arr. 9:16)

Finance: Council Members Crescimbeni (Chair), Anderson, Boyer, Gulliford, Gaffney, Yarborough and Joost (arr. 9:16)

TEU: Council Members Anderson (Chair), Love, Holt, Lumb, Schellenberg, and Brown (arr. 9:31)

 

Also:  Council Members Bishop, Daniels and Carter; Peggy Sidman, Juliana Rowland and Lawsikia Hodges – Office of General Counsel; Kirk Sherman, Janice Billy and Heather Reber – Council Auditor’s Office; Carol Owens – Legislative Services Division; Jeff Clements – Council Research Division; Lin White and John Jones – Public Works Department; Chris Hand and Michelle Barth – Mayor’s Office; Jerry Holland, Robert Phillips and Justin Gicalone – Supervisor of Elections office

 

Meeting Convened:  9:06 a.m.

 

Council Member Crescimbeni convened the meeting and asked President Bishop to make introductory remarks.  Mr. Bishop told the committee this is an extremely important issue that he hopes can be resolved by the end of this month.  He urged the committees to pick one proposal to bring to the full Council for action at its next meeting.

 

The three committees each voted to recommend withdrawal of 2012-730 (appropriating funds for design and construction of a new Supervisor of Elections facility in LaVilla).

 

Heather Reber of the Council Auditor’s Office distributed a comparison of the three pending lease proposals covering lease rates and other financial considerations.

 

Representatives of three lease proposals made presentations to the committees: Frank Reinstein on behalf of Southgate Plaza, Ginny Myrick on behalf of One Imeson, and Ryan Grindler on behalf of Terranova/Gateway Center.

 

Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland stated that he wanted the lease for any location to have provisions to help ensure the perception of neutrality of the Supervisor’s office, including a prohibition against leasing other space in the building or shopping center for use as a political campaign headquarters and a prohibition against campaign activity on the property.  State law prohibits campaign activity within 100 feet of the door of a polling place, but private property owners may ban such activity anywhere on their property.  John Pappas of the Public Works Department explained how the department arrived at its preliminary estimate of build-out costs for the various buildings.  Several council members expressed dissatisfaction with the administration’s failure to take ownership of this issue, to evaluate alternative locations, and to propose the best possible site to the Council for consideration.

 

Mayor’s Chief of Staff Chris Hand respectfully disagreed with comments made earlier that the City administration had somehow failed to undertake an adequate process to arrive at a suitable facility for the Supervisor of Elections.  He stated that issuance of an RFP is not a normal process for soliciting lease proposals, and in any event an RFP process is no longer appropriate because so many parties have now staked out positions in favor of one or another of the various proposals.  Mr. Hand committed to the joint committees that the administration will analyze all the proposals and will make a recommendation to the Council via introduction of an ordinance by the July 23rd council meeting.  The committees discussed whether or not to withdraw all the pending ordinances while awaiting the Mayor’s new proposal. The committees began the process of voting to withdraw the bills on a committee-by-committee basis.  When a vote to withdraw 2013-241 failed passage in the TEU Committee by a vote of 3-1 (failing to attain the 4 votes necessary to report a bill out of committee), the previous votes by the Rules and Finance Committees to withdraw the bill were reconsidered and the bills were all deferred.

 

The committees discussed holding another joint meeting next week, but scheduling may be difficult with several council members unavailable on Monday and several meetings already scheduled for Tuesday before the Council meeting.

 

 

Meeting adjourned: 12:49 p.m.

 

 

Minutes:  Jeff Clements, Council Research

                6.19.13   Posted 5:00 p.m.

Tapes:      Joint R/F/TEU Committee meeting – LSD

                 6.19.13