JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — An effort to make city records more accessible has inadvertently resulted in a multi-week period where records will be much less accessible.
Anyone checking the City of Jacksonville’s website lately may have noticed that access to old and newly filed bills, meeting agendas, and more are no longer available.
The City of Jacksonville’s website usually posts all legislation, past and present, in an easily searchable database, but if you visit the site today, you’ll be greeted with this message saying, “This page has been removed while we work to bring it into compliance with ADA requirements”.
“For us here in 2026 it’s like, you know, we wake up and bam we’re back in 1992,” said First Amendment Attorney Alison Steele.
Steele said despite the temporary period of inaccessibility, the City of Jacksonville is likely not in violation of Florida’s strong open records laws.
<Alison Steele (5:18-5:31) First Amendment Attorney>
“Like we’re all going to experience the Microsoft update on a daily basis for the next month and a half. That’s always going to happen,” said Steele. “So long as people proceed reasonably, nobody is violating the law.”
We reached out to the city asking how members of the public will be able to continue accessing legislation, agendas, and other records during this period.
We were told residents can email CouncilPIO@coj.net to request copies of any bills.
If you don’t have a bill number, keywords can be provided to help narrow down the search.
Once the upgrade is complete, the city says the website will include new features like screen reader technology to help the visually impaired access records online.
Steele said while it may cause a lot of headaches in the short term, there was a time when these online tools didn’t exist at all, and people managed to make it work.
“It’s much more cumbersome, it’s much less efficient, but it can be done,” said Steele. ”And if everyone proceeds with goodwill and, you know, some honest back and forth and probably even a little bit of humor about the situation, you may find that it’s going to work out.”
While the goal is to finish the upgrades and relaunch the portal by June 3rd, Action News Jax has been told it is possible the system upgrades could be completed ahead of schedule.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
