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Jacksonville Civic Council

Jacksonville Civic Council to assess possible JEA sale

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The Jacksonville Civic Council, a bipartisan organization of local business and nonprofit CEOs, will assess the pluses and minuses of the possible sale of the city’s electric and water utility.

With renewed interest in the potential sale of JEA, or other options, the Civic Council membership has voted to help do the important work necessary to fully understand the impact of such a sale on our city’s finances and its citizens. A thriving Jacksonville community creates opportunities for its residents and businesses, and we will commit the time and resources to contribute a fact-based analysis and recommendation to the city-wide conversation about JEA. Doing so in a thoughtful, pragmatic way will require time, transparency, due diligence and stakeholder engagement, and we are committed to delivering a well-considered analysis.

Our newly-created Public Finance Task Force has now appointed a Special Committee, led by longtime Jacksonville business leaders Bobby Stein and Michael Ward, to focus on this important issue. The Special Committee will engage subject matter experts, our elected leaders, and community stakeholders to fully understand the scope, scale, and impact of any potential action. We look forward to sharing our results and participating further in this important conversation for Jacksonville in the coming months.

Jacksonville Civic Council Executive Committee
Douglas Baer
John Baker, II
Ed Burr
Gary Chartrand
Tim Cost, Chairman
Daniel Edelman
Matt Kane
Kelly Madden
Eric Mann
Cindy Stover
Susan Wiles

About the Jacksonville Civic Council
The mission of the Jacksonville Civic Council is to promote a fiscally responsible, economically vibrant, thriving community that offers opportunity for all its residents. Our members accomplish this mission by supporting a safe and healthy city, great schools, a dynamic economy featuring a varied base of growth industries, a high standard of operational excellence at all levels of government and an exceptional quality of life including a strong downtown and thriving arts, culture, recreation and sports institutions.

Jacksonville Civic Council urges City Council approval of Mayor’s pension proposals

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The Jacksonville Civic Council today urged the Jacksonville City Council to approve Mayor Lenny Curry’s collective bargaining agreements, presented to the City Council yesterday afternoon as an important step toward comprehensive pension reform.
“Mayor Curry’s defined contribution plan is a crucial step toward addressing Jacksonville’s enormous unfunded pension liability,” said JCC Chairman Ed Burr, “and we urge our City Council members to support it. The Mayor’s plan will unlock the sales tax revenue approved by a wide margin by voters last August and provide both immediate and long-term benefits to new employees, including portability and greater control of their retirement assets.”
“Since our initial engagement with this issue,” Burr continued, “the Civic Council has consistently advocated for a solution that addresses the city’s unmanageable pension deficit while providing fair and competitive compensation to our valued first responders. Mayor Curry’s pension reform proposals meet those conditions and we congratulate the Mayor and his team and ask City Council members to support the proposals and put our city on the road to financial sustainability at last.”
Burr went on, “we believe that the long-term shift to a defined contribution plan with a dedicated source of revenue to pay down the city’s rapidly-growing unfunded pension liability is the best option and it is no exaggeration to say that this burgeoning debt is the greatest threat to our community’s future.”
JCC’s mission is to promote a fiscally responsible, economically vibrant, thriving community that offers opportunity for all its residents.

Jacksonville Civic Council Leader Featured Speaker at UNF Leadership Speakers Bureau

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The University of North Florida’s Taylor Leadership Institute will host its spring Leadership Speakers Bureau event, “Leading through Consensus Building,” featuring Jacksonville Civic Council (JCC) leader Jeanne Miller 6 p.m. Thursday, March 2, at Osprey Commons, Building 16, Talon Room, Fourth Floor.

Jeanne Miller
Jeanne Miller

An experienced executive and attorney, Miller has more than 20 years’ experience leading organizations and moving big ideas and projects forward. Since 2013, she has been exercising those skills as JCC president and CEO, a business advocacy organization that works with leaders of Northeast Florida’s largest companies to promote solutions to the region’s most complex business and public policy challenges.
In her presentation, Miller will engage participants on the challenging practice of consensus building, providing unique insight into this collaborative process. Sharing valuable advice on what is needed to facilitate this dynamic and cooperative approach to problem solving, she will inevitably draw upon her unique experience leading the JCC, an organization that has had great success in harnessing the collective knowledge, experience and influence of a wide range of local business and civic leaders to positively shape First Coast public policy.
“As the issues of our society become more complex and controversial, developing the ability to bridge that gap between different groups and ideas becomes all the more essential for today’s emerging leaders,” said Alison Noonan, outreach coordinator for UNF’s Taylor Leadership Institute. “When working among diverse groups with often conflicting interests, the ability to find common ground and identify mutually beneficial solutions is a valuable skill that, when developed, has the potential to benefit UNF students in countless ways.”
Participants are invited to attend a reception, catered by Chartwells, immediately following the presentation. This event is free and open to the public. Parking will be available in Parking Lot 9, in front of the UNF Annex, Building 6.
To register, visit the website. For more information, contact Korie Hilliard, Taylor Leadership Institute events planning coordinator, at [email protected].
The Leadership Speakers Bureau offers attendees a unique, face-to-face experience with leadership-centric speakers with esteemed backgrounds, motivating stories and illuminating question-and-answer segments about leadership.
UNF, a nationally ranked university located on an environmentally beautiful campus, offers students who are dedicated to enriching the lives of others the opportunity to build their own futures through a well-rounded education.