Good morning.

Let's call this meeting to order of the 26-27 Council year.

It is 1136 a.m.

Uh please forgive me for being just a bit behind schedule, had another meeting across the street that ran over, but I am so glad to be here for this meeting of the Waterways Commission.

We call this meeting in order and let us do roll call.

We'll start on my left.

If everyone could go around, I know we do have quorum, but if you could go around and state your name in the organization you're with, uh we'll start to my left.

Andrew Freden, Waterways Commission.

Rockman Johnson, City Council, District 10, Waterways Chair.

Mike District 2.

Mike Barker, Waterways Commission.

Waterway Commissioner.

Jim Sweeber Waterways Coordinator.

Environmental Protection Board.

Thank you.

We had a little problem last meeting with our mics.

If everyone could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

One nation under God.

Liberty and Justice.

Thank you.

And if there is a uh if I could get uh if you've obviously this is my first meeting, so I have not had a chance to.

Well, I've looked over the minutes and I did look at the video, but I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes for the last meeting.

It's been moved and seconded to approve the minutes of the last meeting.

All in favor, please respond by saying aye.

All opposed.

The ayes have it, and the minutes are approved.

Right.

Before we go into the I do want to um move Shannon, am I in the proper posture if I could move the report up a little bit?

I know that's under new business before Dr.

Pinto, or does Dr.

Pento need to go first based on uh the report that needs to be given?

Um you're at liberty to um announce changes in uh the agenda order, and I do not see Dr.

Pento here yet.

Good.

So that's a good thing.

All right, so we will we will skip that.

Uh I know that report is coming, and by mandate of this commission, uh, we do need to make sure that report is there, so I look forward to that.

Um, what I want to do is just spend a moment uh, because I did prepare some remarks because of the importance of what the Water's way waterways commission is and what at least I believe uh we can do.

So uh I'd like to again welcome you all to this first meeting.

And uh as I was trying to figure out and beginning to move forward into what this would be, what iteration this would be.

Um I thought about a quote I heard from Tony Morrison.

It said, All water has a perfect memory.

And that's a powerful idea.

You know, she was a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, and uh she said water remembers the communities that grew beside it, the commerce that carried it, the storms that it survived, the children who discovered the world along its banks, and the generation who depends upon water.

Uh when these waters remember us, what I hope they remember is that we served them in a good way.

Uh I want to I want them to remember a commission that thought deeply, acted courageously, measured honestly, and left Jacksonville's waterways stronger because we, the people that are seated here today, have been entrusted with their care.

I'm deeply honored to convene this meeting, and I start with a fundamental conviction that without water, there is no Jacksonville.

Uh the St.

John's, of course, flows through the heart of our city.

The Trout and Rebalt rivers carry the stories of our northern community, and the Ortiga and Cedar Rivers shape the neighborhoods on the west.

Of course, McCoy's Creek and Moncreef Creeks remind us that the waterways flow through the very heart of urban Jacksonville.

And of course, there's Sisters Creek, Pablo Creek, Pottsburg Creek, Jewlington Creek, and the Intracoastal, and the countless tributaries that complete this extraordinary system that's found nowhere else in the world but a city like Jacksonville.

Now there are different waters, different neighborhoods, different histories, different stories.

But at the end of the day, what we all know is there is one Jacksonville.

And our strategic direction organizes the work around four, and I call them currents.

You'll see that in the strategic direction report and those four currents, and you see what I did there with currents.

The river as an economic engine, the river as civic identity, the river as a classroom, and what I believe is the most important, the river as our legacy, because that's what it is.

Now, as we measure the progress, uh, some of the benchmarks that I hope we will be able to achieve during this council year is to engage at least 500 of our neighbors to get them more involved in understanding our waterways and how they can be of help to preserving what we have here in Jacksonville.

Uh I want to engage at least 250 learners or students experiencing the waterways as classrooms for science and history, stewardship, innovation, and citizenship.