Jacksonville's Future Needs Your Support

[Metro Jacksonville]

Jacksonville's Future Needs Your Support



Where will you be on Monday, March 11, 2013 at 4:00pm when the Jacksonville City Council discussions placing a three year moratorium on the mobility fee to subsidize new development at your expense? If you're a struggling taxpayer who's had enough, City Hall will be a great place to visit. We don't claim to be Miss Cleo, but we have a feeling those who desire to increase their profit margins at your expense will be out the support the paid lobbyist that have been working behind closed doors on their behalf.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-mar-jacksonvilles-future-needs-your-support

[Spence]

Thank you for bringing the needed information to the fore and shedding light on the details as to exactly WHY each and every one of us who happen to care about improving where we live should make every effort to be in attendance March 11, 4pm, City Hall at St.James building on Hemming Park!

This moratorium is NOT helping to make our city a better, safer place to live, work, or play!
There is always a cost to conducting business, and there exists NO proof that the Mobility Plan is discouraging good healthy growth.

LET THE MOBILITY PLAN FUNCTION FOR AT LEAST 5-10 YEARS BEFORE RE-VISITING ANY IDEA OF A MORATORIUM.

[JeffreyS]

So with the new jobs numbers out we can see that the construction added 48,000 jobs in Febuary about double what they did in January. This is an industry recovering on its own right now we don't have to race to the bottom and give away the farm here in Jacksonville.  We are in a very advantageous situation with 7-Eleven happening to timeout a no compete clause so they are radically expanding in our area.  We do not need to waste this growth. For a couple of good old boys with their hands out.

[thelakelander]

There's really no reason for us to give away the house.  The economy appears to be coming back.

U.S. added 236,000 jobs in February, crushing analysts expectations

full article: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2013/03/08/us-added-236000-jobs-in-february.html

[bill]

Except for this,

The state's "labor-force participation rate" — the percentage of working-age Floridians in a job or looking for one — has slipped from 64.2 percent in 2007 to 61.1 percent in 2010 and 60.2 percent in December 2012. Florida's average labor-force participation rate for all of 2012 was 60.4 percent, the lowest annual level since 1985.

The declining rate is important because it artificially amplifies progress on unemployment. With fewer people in the labor pool, it is mathematically easier to drive down the jobless rate. In Florida's case, the impact is significant, said Rollins College economist William Seyfried.

The unemployment rate fell from a high of 11.4 percent in February 2010 to 8 percent in December 2012. But if the labor-force participation rate had remained constant, December's jobless rate would have been more than 2 percentage points higher, Seyfried said

[tufsu1]

There's really no reason for us to give away the house.  The economy appears to be coming back.

I liked the stats posted yesterday for our area....I would use those as direct ammunition to the NEFBA argument

[thelakelander]

^What stats were those, tufsu1?

[JeffreyS]

Check out second from the top this is the market segment we have to pay extra taxes to subsidize???

[thelakelander]

Except for this,

The state's "labor-force participation rate" — the percentage of working-age Floridians in a job or looking for one — has slipped from 64.2 percent in 2007 to 61.1 percent in 2010 and 60.2 percent in December 2012. Florida's average labor-force participation rate for all of 2012 was 60.4 percent, the lowest annual level since 1985.

The declining rate is important because it artificially amplifies progress on unemployment. With fewer people in the labor pool, it is mathematically easier to drive down the jobless rate. In Florida's case, the impact is significant, said Rollins College economist William Seyfried.

The unemployment rate fell from a high of 11.4 percent in February 2010 to 8 percent in December 2012. But if the labor-force participation rate had remained constant, December's jobless rate would have been more than 2 percentage points higher, Seyfried said

This requires more explanation. Why are people dropping out of the labor pool?  What are they doing to survive and keep the lights on? Is a certain percentage going into small business for themselves? Is a certain percentage retooling their education to move into industries where job growth is predicted? Or are they moving to Hemming Plaza or under a bridge? Just wondering. In my case, I went into business for myself.

[JeffreyS]

^In Florida it means they are retiring. Even if the jobs numbers aren't as good as they look certainly the construction segment seems to be almost booming. I like to look at the raw number of jobs added as opposed to rate. Remember Mitt Romeny's bold prediction on jobs was 12 million or 250k per month. It certainly looks as if Obama's second term will see those numbers and raise.

[tufsu1]

^What stats were those, tufsu1?

the ones you posted yesterday in another thread

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/472000/roger-bull/2013-03-07/building-permits-continue-upswing

[thelakelander]

Thanks for the reminder. More single family home building permits have been issued this year (so far) than any since 2008.

All four counties showed increases. The totals for Jan./Feb. 2013 and Jan./Feb. 2012:

Clay - 150, 64

Duval - 262, 151

Nassau - 50, 32

St. Johns - 379, 266

[urbanlibertarian]

^In Florida it means they are retiring. Even if the jobs numbers aren't as good as they look certainly the construction segment seems to be almost booming. I like to look at the raw number of jobs added as opposed to rate. Remember Mitt Romeny's bold prediction on jobs was 12 million or 250k per month. It certainly looks as if Obama's second term will see those numbers and raise.

I would say that retirements are up nationwide.  I saw an article (Federal Times, I think) that OPM has a huge backlog of pending federal retirements due to an unusually high number initiated in February.

[bill]

The participation rate for the nation has not been this low for this long since the 1970s.

[JeffreyS]

There was a backlog of people waiting to retire when the market crashed. Now that the market has literally gone through the roof we are clearing the backlog. Thus lowering the participation rate.