Follow and endorse these principles, then watch urban Jacksonville bloom.

Disclaimer:  We regret that some of our viewers are having trouble distinguishing a purely informational article from a factual-based opinion.  For those viewers, we'd like to take the opportunity to make it clear that this particular article is of the "Opinion" variety.   Now let us begin...

With all the recent rhetoric from the mayor's office about how much the quality of life will be diminished if the state legislators cut our property taxes, the mayor has yet to cut the job of anyone significant from his own staff.

Downtown Jacksonville’s most damaging menaces may not be who you think.  When you think about people holding Downtown back, you may think of the homeless, you may think about the speculators trying to buy downtown one historic building at a time just to sit on them, or you might think of the city administration itself.  However, there is another group that is arguably more dangerous to downtown then all of these individuals (yes, even more dangerous than the Mayor’s Office).  Who is this group of individuals looking to expose their evil to downtown?

What are we?  What is Jacksonville?  Are we the epitome of the Deep South?  Or are we a forgotten, yet finally coming-along part of Florida?  Are we still more like South Georgia than anything else?  Do backwater politicians hold us back?  Are we progressing as a city with all our natural assets should be?  Questions such as these are on our minds as we come out of the latest Jacksonville elections.

We had near record-low voter turn out.  Why is that?  Could it be that we have lost complete faith in our city's leaders?  Who really is leading our city anyway?  Do we have true leaders, or are we just floundering while cities all around us enjoy prosperity and advancement? What the hell is going on Jacksonville?

We seek to find answers to these and many other disturbing questions as we look at who makes our city go round.  Who are these people?  We should be aware of them, or perhaps even BEWARE them.

THE 26...

Today, in the Business section of the Florida Time-Union, the effect of several downtown advocacy groups (MetroJacksonville included) was discussed.

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/021907/bus_7953815.shtml

This was a decent article, just a couple of comments.

1. Bart Weitz, the Executive director for the Miller Center at UF, is apparently still living in the 1980s. There are several examples of grassroots organizations helping to successfully revitalize their neighborhoods and in a majority of major cities, downtown retail has been coming back, during the last decade.

During the final months of Mayor John Delaney’s administration, the city announced plans for the Bay Street Town Center, four blocks on Bay Street that would be enhanced with better lighting, wider sidewalks with pavers, and hopefully many small businesses to make the area a destination for both Jacksonville residents and visitors.  Nearly four years later, the sidewalks have been redone on one side of the street (completing half of the plan is par for the course for a Jacksonville capital project) but private entrepreneurs have been slow to follow, and many of the storefronts still sit vacant.