The Neighborhoods, Community Services, Public Health and Safety Committee met Monday, September 14, 2026, convening at 1:04 p.m. and adjourning at 4:20 p.m. in Council Chamber, City Hall, Jacksonville. Five members were present (Chair Chris Miller, Vice Chair Tyrona Clark-Murray, Jimmy Peluso, Ron Salem, and Mone' Holder); Matt Carlucci was excused and Kevin Carrico was absent/unexcused. The committee considered more than 40 agenda items, including an electric-bicycle ordinance, a JSO artificial-intelligence grant, social-service and public-safety appropriations, affordable-housing land donations, and a JEA bond authorization.
Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry for the late start. We had a couple of technical things going on here. I think we're good now. Um welcome to the September 14th Neighborhoods Community Services Public Health and Safety Committee meeting. We'll start with introductions over with Mr. Delaney, please. Good afternoon, Bill Delaney with the mayor's office. Brandon Russell, Council Research. Mary Stepopoulos, Office of General Counsel. Heather Reber, Council Auditor's Office. On a holder, City Council at large group one. Good afternoon, Taiwan of Clark Murray, District Nine. Good afternoon, Chris Miller at large group five. Ron Salem, group two at large. Good afternoon, Jimmy Peluso, District Council. District 7. Michael Bylan, District 6. Last but not least, good afternoon, Rockman Johnson, District 14, the West Side. All right. Thank you, everyone. Do we have any uh I'm sorry? I heard a couple more comments here, so I want to make sure we didn't miss something from someone. Okay, thank you. Um before we get started, I just wanted to uh ask Ms. Stepopoulos to make a couple comments about uh excused absences, unexcused absences on the front end. Um we have today uh for the meeting, we have one excused, which is council member Carlucci, and the other unexcused council member Carico, uh, but it's based on which one came in first on the front end. So um I just if you would miss Stefopoulos. Yes, of course. Um, through the chair to the committee. So rule 2.202 is what it addresses attendance at committee meetings of the council, and it provides that um you can have one council member excused from a regular meeting of a standing committee meeting, with the exception that you can have additional absences that are authorized for things, three specific things. There's an exception for medical issue of the council member or an immediate family member, military service, and a third one that was recently added for when a council member has an obligation to their outside employer that they cannot reschedule, they can miss up to four committee meetings total in a council year. And with respect to the uh neighborhoods committee, the chair announced at the beginning of the year that he would take the excusal requests and then he would just rather than deliberating as to who would get the excusal, it's just first come, first served. So in this instance, we had two council members that submitted excusal requests. None of them were for one of the three categories that I recently met that I just mentioned, and so the first in time was Mr. Carlucci, and so he's an excused absence, and the second one is an unexcused absence. Where that really affects the committee today is because you have one excused absence, your quorum requirement is five, and therefore no one can leave the dais during the pendency of the meeting unless the chair wants to take a brief recess to allow a member to step away. So that's where this rule really comes into play as far as um the committee today. Any questions on that? Yeah, yes, Dr. Johnson, you're recognized. I know I'm not on the committee, but I appreciate you indulging me, Mr. Chair, through the chair to Miss Stepopoulos. Could the chair, and I'm just procedurally, could the chair excuse the absence during the meeting, or does the excused absence have to occur prior to the gaveling of the meeting? Uh, through the chair to council member Johnson. So with respect to the reason for the absence, that would be part of what it would have to be considered by the chair. And I believe this chair didn't address at the beginning of the meeting at the beginning of the year how he was going to handle late arrivals, early departures. And I don't think that's the case here because the two members who weren't here are not going to be present for the duration of the meeting. If a member had to excuse themselves from the meeting today, during the meeting, if it didn't fall within one of the three categories for exceptions to the rule, then it would be an unexcused absence from the meeting. But if council member, I'm just making it up.