Recently, Jacksonville City Council Members Suzanne Jenkins and Elaine Brown held a meeting to discuss downtown parking.  While some topics on the agenda included meter times and smart meters, it turned into a bit of an airing of grievances (anyone see that Seinfeld episode about the fictional holiday "Festivus").  This was bound to happen, since this is something that downtown business owners are quite passionate about.

The say the early bird catches the worm. With the recent news about the Landing deal, lets just hope the opportunity hasn’t passed us by and that we see redevelopment happen sooner, rather than later..

On March 21st of this year, the Mayor’s office held a press conference, with much TV  camera-loving fanfare and hoopla, to announce that he and Toney Sleiman had finally reached agreement, whereby Sleiman would be able to purchase the east parking lot from the city. 

This announcement came two months after Peyton had told Sleiman the deal was dead (Peyton had grandeur ideas of playgrounds and merry-go-rounds downtown instead).  Apparently this change of heart from Peyton came about because of the rumored threat of multiple lawsuits (forget doing the right thing).  In any case, it was good news because it meant not only could Sleiman build a new building on the east lot, but Cameron Kuhn could go ahead with building River Watch City Centre next to the Humana building.  

The next Jacksonville Mayoral election is Mike Weinstein's to lose.  The way we see it, there are four key things Weinstein needs to focus on to win in April

1) Jenkins    2) Friendliness    3) Grassroots    4) Peyton's Record

1) First things first.  Weinstein needs to shore up support now from any potential opponents who would take votes away from him on election day.  Battling an incumbent is never easy for the challenger, but it is almost impossible if he has other serious candidates nipping at his heels.  One possible opponent that continues to be mentioned is outgoing City Councilwoman Suzanne Jenkins.  We understand that Weinstein actually has approached Jenkins to see if something could be worked out (as in giving her a cabinet-level position?), but that meeting was rumored to consist of Weinstein's proposal having an air of "take it or leave it".  If this is true, this is definitely not the way to go about these things.

We have said before that the passage of Ordinance Number 2006-176 (remember, the one where public dollars were given to 1st Timothy Baptist Church) was wrong on many levels.  This is the issue that the city just can't stop talking about.  But very few are doing anything about it, other than voicing their opinions.  We at Metro Jacksonville feel it is time for something to be done.  An official state investigation just might do the trick.Here is your chance to let the State Attorney General know how you feel.