Mayor Lenny Curry’s proposed budget includes money to hire nearly 150 more officers and firefighters.
Curry made his pitch to City Council on Monday morning.
“The police force was gutted; gutted in previous years,” Curry said.
His proposed budget includes funding for 100 more Jacksonville sheriff’s officers and 42 more firefighters.
Newly elected City Council president Anna Brosche signaled her support for the move.
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“We’re simply moving ourselves back to the high point, when we were making an impact on crime,” Brosche said.
Curry also wants to spend $24.5 million on replacing vehicles for both JSO and the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department.
Curry’s $50 million Safer Neighborhoods Investment Plan would include new equipment and capital for both departments, including a backup 911 call facility.
He said the primary 911 facility would remain downtown, and the backup would be built next to a new fire station at Cecil Field.
Curry said a big part of public safety is supporting children and teenagers most likely to fall through the cracks.
That’s why he said he wants to reform the Jacksonville Children’s Commission and Jacksonville Journey, accusing people of slipping projects not related to children into the organizations.
Curry would not give a straight answer when Action News Jax asked whether he felt the organizations are being properly managed.
“Let me say, like any organization that’s been around a long time, look, there’s history there, there’s good work that’s been done there that continues to be done,” Curry said. “I’m here to speak about the future, and that is we are going to reform in a way that the Jacksonville Journey and the Jacksonville Children’s Commission have a very specific focus.”
Curry said specific reforms for the two organizations will be presented in the weeks ahead.
His proposed budget for the two organizations is $36.4 million, but he said some dollars have been moved out of Jacksonville Journey and into other departments within the city budget.
The mayor’s budget includes dollars for downtown development, including the funding to knock down two downtown landmarks: the old City Hall and the former county courthouse.
“We see it every day because our place of business is, like, right here,” said Osiris Settles, whose girlfriend’s gallery is right across the street from the old city hall.
Settles said he had mixed feelings about the prospect of the building getting demolished to make way for private investment.
“There’s so much history there,” Settles said.
“This is about demonstrating that we are action-oriented. That we’re not going to sit and talk about, ‘What are we going to do about this? What are we going to do about that?’ We’re going to knock it down and we’re going to prepare it for private investment,” Curry said.
The mayor’s proposal also includes $1 million for downtown landscaping and lighting, $600,000 to renovate the interior of Snyder Memorial Church and $8 million to finish replacing the Liberty Street Bridge, which collapsed in 2015.
“When you have old, dilapidated buildings that we sit here and talk about for years and years and years, what does that say to the investment community? It says the city’s not serious. This says we’re serious,” Curry said
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Curry’s budget proposal also makes clear that the city is serious about drowning prevention.
His Safer Neighborhoods Investment Plan includes the mayor’s Splash Squad, which will retrofit five community pools for $1 million.
Seven pools will be available for year-round drowning prevention lessons for young people.
Curry said 12,000 young people could take those lessons over a three-year period.
He also budgeted $228,000 for additional lifeguard services at Huguenot and Hanna parks, and $30,000 to increase wages for city lifeguards.
Across the city, his proposal includes $12 million for road resurfacing and $20 million for sidewalk repairs.
He also budgeted $10 million for the city’s stormwater capital improvement program and $4.5 million for the solid waste capital improvement program.
City Council will now review the mayor’s proposal and, if approved, it will take effect in October.
Cox Media Group
