It's a meeting to discuss uh Councilman Oil and his priorities in his eighth of eight years.

Um, leader on council and immeasurable, wonderful impact on our city.

Countywide, but on its event rate, rock, council, appreciate it.

So uh really appreciate that.

You do have one year left.

Um, if I have any way that I can help get the answer, so that's sure.

Love to be able to do it.

So uh with that, the only thing on the agenda to Mr.

Nooney's point is let's talk about your priorities.

Well, you're on council.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Uh it's refreshing to have these kind of conversations early on in the process.

I know you've got a challenging year ahead of you, bridging.

Bridging is a common word I think you're going to hear frequently probably have already.

Uh, and I'm uh very much uh want to be in a position to support you in that context.

So uh well, obviously, like any council member, I have active interest in serving on the committees you think where I can be most impactful.

Uh I won't hold you to any of that uh neighborhoods continues to be one of my favorites, only from the vantage point is that's kind of where we plow the field, as you well know.

Yep.

I served as uh on it for a number of years, chair to one year, and I think it really does set the table for the balance of the committee.

So uh but other than that, uh wherever uh you want to put me.

Ironically, uh there are two focus uh as it relates to my district specifically, and I know you've seen a couple of emails from my uh folks with a particular person in concern about the mandarin sidewalks.

To make it clear for the record, obviously that's a JTA project, not a city uh project, and it's based upon uh sound work that was done 10 years ago, requiring uh calling for the extension of the sidewalks and go.

So we're moving forward with that project.

The other that I am uh working on, and it's kind of below the radar too, is as you probably call the strategic funding a couple years ago was able to secure 156,000 dollars for the hiring of a consultant to see if it's possible for us to stand up what I'm now calling the mandate area map or mandate area preservation project.

Uh and the idea to see can we create a free a self-sustaining freestanding entity that uh facilitates and coalesces the voices of the community on a variety of issues from preservation and beautification and so forth.

Like, uh very similar to uh Springfield RAP uh and San Marco Preservation Society.

Uh quite quite honestly and quite ironically to some extent, I think the whole issue and the concern by a relatively small segment of our community, but very vocal regarding the extension of the sidewalks.

Had a resource like that been in place for me to take the idea to them before actively championing them for it, would have been very helpful to me then, but be that as may.

Yeah, we are not seeing a lot of development in Mandarin these days, uh very little infill, so you don't see us showing up in the LUZ very much.

Uh so I don't know that I have a great uh uh responsibility there to be focused on that.

I did want to take a minute uh to talk a little bit about uh Bill 137, uh, and that was the attendance bill.

And there's a couple of things that are curved balls to that.

Number one, with respect to I'm hopeful that uh you will task your committee chairs to take to heart what that ordinance now calls for, in terms of raising the bar in terms of accountability and responsibility of our colleagues.

Yep.

Do you say as as being the you call me the rock or whatever I was?

That's really important to me that we kind of raise the standard and expectations of the council members.

Interestingly enough, uh, in this very room, as a matter of fact, when we had this confirmation, there was a lot of talking about people who walk on votes.

Yeah, uh, there is already in the council rules, and I will warn you about this, that state very specifically, no member present at at any meeting of the council shall absent himself or herself from the meeting without permission from the chair for prior notice given.

Uh I think I would respectfully suggest that you uh task your chairs to make that very clear to their membership.

Otherwise, if we don't, uh, I'm working with Michelle on introducing a bill that speaks to the definition of present.

Uh, and right now in the conversations we had on this, and I know this is a little far afoot, but uh well, present meetings within arm reach of the the voting machine.

No, in my mind, presence is you're in the room.

You walked out to go to the green room to duck a vote, quite honestly, or duck uh public comment.

Not that they wouldn't want to hear from Mr.

Nuny, but uh that was certainly would be the case.

So if we uh as part of your instructions, as we traditionally do at the beginning of the year as to how you know you want your council committee chairs to conduct themselves and yourself, uh to hold them accountable to make sure that they hold their committee members accountable in terms of reporting, requesting, you know, uh absences, et cetera, based upon the parameters that we agreed upon in the council rule at 137.

That really was the what I wanted to kind of focus on a little bit.

I look at my seven years on the council's legacy, I would see that as a legacy that I've helped try to bring a little bit more, a little more professionalism to the board to the council.

Thank you for that.

And you know, you bring up a really good point because to some degree it's disrespectful to your colleagues when you walk because your colleagues are thinking about how they want to vote on something and they might be trying to count votes or listen to what people say, and then suddenly if the votes disappear and it's a 50% or two-thirds, you could change everything, it could change the dramatically change the outcome of a specific bill.

I think why it exists.

It's not the least, they're also their constituents as well.

Exactly.

Not living up to their responsibility.

You got elected, you put yourself in a position to be elected, make those difficult decisions rightly or wrongly, and the consequences being personal or professional, however, you still need to make them.

Exactly.

And uh accountability, I think is something I w I'd like to see is continue to improve upon.

Yep.

Noted fantastic input.

I appreciate it.

And no one else brought those issues to light yet.

Um and those are important ones for you.

They have been particularly in the last year.

Sure, sure.

Uh and you know, if as the year progresses, I think I've been able to demonstrate that I can be effective as a special committee chair if you have something comes along, a model that I've created both uh with the working groups for the uh JSO primary facility, CQLI, I think is a model we should continue to use and it involves allows us to involve more council members in uh in that process.

And I would encourage you, as you no doubt you will do, is as much diversity as possible in terms of opinion.

Yep.

Not necessarily left or right, R or D, white or black, just your diversity of opinion on your committees, and I think that's gonna be something all of us are gonna be looking at to see how that goes.

And I think it advanced your credibility as the council president.

That's just my two cents.

Noted.

Thank you very much.

Well, I appreciate it.

And thanks for your support.

Thanks for saying you're looking to support me because it is gonna be a tough year.

I think all 19 of us are gonna feel it this year, um, given the referendum and the uncertainty to what might happen to residential or tax collections.

I do appreciate uh and I've had a conversation with Philip Peterson about this early on as we talked about his appointment.

Uh maybe it's because I'm rolling off this next year after this next year.

Uh I I don't want to I hate to think of the we can't hoard enough money to make the difference in this coming year.

And I suspect as I shared with my votarians this morning, we are gonna see a ton of things go below the line until November.

That's that's uh we're gonna take a look at the budget, figure out I expect uh obviously uh a flat budget or level budget from the mayor's office, and then for us to make the difficult decisions of what goes below the line until we know what November brings.

Absolutely.

That's you you um anticipated what I was gonna say because we've already I've already had this discussion with the mayor's office with Mr.

Weinstein and and the mayor herself, and um one thing that the uncertainty from November has done is is kind of unified um the sense of of purpose and mission for the administration and and the council, and that is we know that we have to be the only way to be responsible in budgeting is to take a fine-tooth comb to that budget and take things that are non-core that are kind of wish a wish list and put those below the line, anticipating you know, in in the ahead of a decision in the November recording.

And using the model that uh Philip came up with, and when you take the hundred and forty million dollars that's in the nonprofit side, yeah, you can't call that I get that's not core business per se, but at the same time taking a look at some of that and saying, well, if we don't do that, we better put more over there in public safety.

Yeah, because we're gonna have to make up the difference somehow because it's gonna create uh uh a void.

So we need to be sensitive as to how unfortunately the state legislature decided to use a hatchet we need to use a scalpel, yeah, right in the process of redoing.

And of course, in the next in this upcoming budget year, October 126 to September 27, we won't feel the fact of that yet.

According to the auditors, we're gonna feel it in October 127.

Um, but it would be irresponsible of us to not do anything to leave the next council with a 200 million dollar hit that they gotta do in the first year because that's apparently the number, right?

And and we can't let I mean I wouldn't do that as a president, and there's no way you would do that as a responsible council member, even though you won't be on council next year.

I'll have to live with it if I'm re-elected, um, but you won't because you're termed out.

Absolutely.

I and I appreciate that, and and thankful in some respects.

Yes, but uh that's gonna be a difficult place to be.

We've been very blessed during my time on the council that we've not had COVID in many respects was a financially was a godsend.

Uh it poured hundreds and thousands of millions of federal dollars into our community that we had to even that we had to wean ourselves from.

Yeah, and and breaking that habit, this is gonna take us to the next level.

Absolutely.

I think we need to be open to the fact that there may need to be some competition where that's an increase in millage or other fees.

I told folks this morning, I don't think the solid waste, that's a non-starter.

We just did a big number on that.

We can't afford to do that one again.

But at some point in time we need to be realistic to say, you know, how much do we want to compromise the services?

And the other thing I just want to add, if I can as we talk about this as we're in this conversation, I am very concerned about those non-home ownership.

I mean, that number is fifty, uh, forty-two, forty-three percent.

And we're one of the highest in the state in terms of have uh a non-ownership, homeownership, and uh and they're gonna be paying the brunt of some of this as a result.

So we need to be sensitive to that as well.

Very much so.

All right, I'm done.

Good.

Me too.

Um then I think we're near the end.

Um before we conclude, we will do three minutes.

We're the only one who's put in a request.

I don't know if you filled in a comment card, but you don't have to, Mr.

Nooney.

You got three minutes.

I'll time you right here.

I hope you're gonna do nothing but praise Councilman Boylan and his seven years on council.

Even though I did on more of a resolution, you did.

You did.

All right.

Well, my name's John Nooney, 8356 Baskum Road, Jacksonville, Florida 3216.

And you know, thank you for allowing public comment, you know, with this noticed meeting.

And, you know, uh the more open meetings, the better.

And uh what I want to share with all of you, and you know, when you talk about home ownership, this is the true commission.

This was June 4th, you know, just five days ago, but right here, all surplus city property be contributed to private developers, all the true commissioner earned encourages the Jacksonville City Council to enact legislation to implement this goal, and that's massive.

And I was at a CPAC meeting last night.

But anyway, what I wanna do, and Councilman Boylan, I hope you'll get on board with a pardon.

You know, I still need that for you know from J U.

It's real.

Um, but council president elect how you, this I can't emphasize enough what you're gonna do and what you've done, you know, with uh JAA and you know br bring in jobs and and aviation, it is without a doubt, it's gonna just open up the entire state of Florida.

And what I want to share with you, and you know, this is St.

John's County, the Board of County Commissioners, so it's just at their meeting.

Here's the Northeast Florida Regional Council, seven counties.

So it's just at their meeting.

And when it comes to looking and generating revenue, just remember this: the three properties that are on the potential fine land acquisition list, will be a revenue generator.

And I hopefully it'll be for Duval County.

But if not, it will be for St.

John's, Clay, Nassau, the adjoining counties.

I've only got one minute left.

But that but I I'm just, nothing is gonna pain me more, is when I go to St.

Johns County, and uh the legislation 2025 0522, that's the electric vehicle charging stations.

That's that is um Ford.

There's over 104 dealerships.

You're looking at, and tonight, you know, uh you're gonna uh I'll be talking about it.

You know, you got you've created three trust funds, one for parks, one for veterans.

The next one's gonna be for filmmakers.

We're making a movie.

It's if you have a shirt, you're in the movie.

There's gonna be a special consideration for the gavel, the travel gavel, and of course we got our hats.

You know, it's a spin-off, you know, with the Kennemaro, FWC, you know, the fish.

Okay, ten seconds.

Listen, all the best, because Duval County, and uh I am just pumped with the leadership that's coming on board.

Thank you for listening.

Perfect, thank you, sir.

All right, and with that, unless you have any further comments, all right.

Thank you, sir, for joining me for this meeting, and we're adjourned.