City Council - Apr 14, 2026

good evening everybody if we could find our seats we are now calling this meeting to order welcome everyone it is five o'clock and we are started all right thank you everybody for settling down it's tuesday april 14th welcome to the city of jacksonville city council meeting i'm glad you're all here today we got a packed house it looks like a lot of great things going on so we're very happy to see you all this floor leader take it from here thank you mr president our first order of business is the invocation and pledge of allegiance please recognize our council chaplain council member kenemar all right chaplain amaro thank you mr president mr floor leader tonight's invocation will be delivered by chaplain donner zimmerman a proud native floridian born in miami who moved to jacksonville when she was 14 which she considers her home she went to bishop kenny high and received her bachelor's and master's degrees from unf she worked for the state of florida health and human services department and later at lutheran social services there in 1992 she started aids care and education the first professionally provided service in the community for those with hiv aids it is still in operation after retiring she did chaplaincy at baptist hospital during the height of the covet pandemic where she was honored to stand in place of family to hold the hands of the patients as they left this earth now she attends and spends her time as a member of buckman bridge unitarian universalist church on the worship team and the pastoral care program please receive chaplain donna zimmerman for tonight's invocation thank you ken let us take a moment of quiet reflection to center ourselves god of many names and mystery beyond all our naming you the members of our city council come together from various traditions and with different beliefs to ground yourselves in the shared purpose of creating a city that can flourish and a community where everyone can thrive may you be guided by wisdom justice and compassion in my unitarian universalist faith we have core values that inform and define our approach to each other and to the world we believe that every person has inherent worth and dignity and deserves the right to be heard and the opportunity to succeed i urge you to approach your decisions and use your resources to build strong and inclusive communities working to dismantle barriers created by systems of power and privilege as you begin the business of this meeting i ask that you listen to one another with open hearts truly hearing the diverse experiences and needs of all residents especially those whose voices are marginalized and seldom heard build consensus through respect and understanding may you have the courage to make decisions with integrity always keeping the best interest of your constituents at the heart of your work let your work today help build a more just equitable and peaceful world for all may it be so i pledge allegiance if you have no announcements mr president it is time for roll call all right roll call 19 present next up is the approval of the minutes for the regular council meeting of march 24th i move the approval i've got a motion second on the approval of the minutes all in favor of approving the minutes signify by saying aye aye any opposed say nay the minutes are approved mr president we have nine communications for the mayor's office and others would you like them read or filed with legislative services uh dr johnson is going to read them all today or we're going to file them file them we will file them mr president we have two presentations tonight the first is by council member boylan commending dr arthur buster browning jr for his decades of dedication to the practice of medicine and community service while mr boylan approaches the podium mr teal please read the resolution resolution 2026 162 born and raised in atlanta arthur buster browning jr was a scholar athlete and active in his church buster browning attended mercer university and wake forest university where he played football and was a member of the alpha epsilon delta pre-med honor society and then he graduated from the medical college of georgia dr browning made his home in jacksonville in 1974 completing his residency in family practice at baptist medical center where he served until his retirement in 2023 dr browning's love for golf began in his childhood and continues to this day he has actively supported the players championship for years becoming known as dr tpc where he volunteered with the first aid team when the tournament was at the greater jacksonville open was named the official doctor for the pga tour in 1983 and was selected as chairman of the senior tournament in 1989 dr browning has played an integral role with first t of north florida which integrates golf lessons with life skills to help youth build inner strength self-confidence and resilience on first t's 25th anniversary the chapter honored dr browning for his continuing active commitment with its community game changer award dr browning has consistently dedicated his time to supporting student athletic programs at the university of north florida serving three times as president of the osprey club executive board establishing a scholarship fund for student athletes he received the 20 2007 ncaa division one athletic directors volunteer of the year award he was elected to the unf athletics hall of fame and honored with the naming of the arthur buster browning athletic and training center dr browning's life of public service also includes 30 years as the medical director for cypress village senior living facility membership and leadership for the rotary club of deerwood and fundraising and organizing for the american heart association north florida chapter the ability to heal and comfort the sick is a gift and dr browning has devoted his life to the highest ideals of the medical profession dr browning has treated thousands of patients over the years and he exemplifies an unsung leader unselfishly striving to contribute to the lives of everyone he meets practicing empathy and sharing his joy in a manner that encourages others to want to follow his lead now therefore be it resolved by the council of the city of jacksonville the city council hereby commends dr arthur buster browning jr for his decades of public service the council extends appreciation to dr browning for his altruism and for all he has done to take care of his patients and to make our city better as a physician and a community leader mr president fellow colleagues long honored along with vice president holland to recognize that as you listen to that resolution it says it all this man truly has been a community servant and to expound upon that i'm going to cede to our dear friend and former council member glad daniels all right thank you michael nick thank you guys for this mr president and council members i've got about a 40 minute speech here that i'm going to bring down to about three minutes you want to read it in the records but thank you for the resolution that y'all just passed on behalf of dr arthur w browning jr md we know him as buster and that's how we'll refer to him for the rest of the evening mr president first of all i'd like to thank you for being a community volunteer for several years you volunteered to be the patriots outpost at the tpc patriots outpost is that venue that we celebrate and honor our military servicemen and thank you for that and for the rest of you councilmen each one of you serves this community in a number of ways far beyond your political commitment we appreciate all you've done we appreciate all you continue to do both at the time of your service on this council before and what you'll do after you leave this office it's nice to have this honor presented tonight and to recognize what y'all have done because you have a double appreciation for buster and what he's done in this community you've walked the walk and we thank you for that a doctor's doctor we all know what that means it means that they've been recognized by their peers as having exceptional talent a patient's doctor someone who looks for the entire patient not just his medical needs but his total needs and looks after the welfare of that patient and the patient's family tonight we're going to talk to you about a community physician a community physician is one who lives unselfishly to make his community safer and more healthy and not more healthy in the sense of medical terms but other terms he treats the community and its human needs he heals us he presides over healing divides and he unites us and a common cause and all of this is wrapped in this sense of joy and love of life and that's what muster browning is muster your resolution talks about a number of things that you've done in the community and i won't go over all of them because the resolution is pretty inclusive but it's interesting to me at first he of north florida existed for over 25 years you're the first chairman and you're a multi-year chairman and that organization exists to instill values in young inner city youth and along the way teaches them a little bit of golf you announce athletics you continue to be a sustainer through your scholarships to student athletes and i think it's amazing to me that as a volunteer you get to have a building named after you without having to pay for it and it's nice to have you in the hall of fame buster players championship some of us have known buster since he first started volunteering in 1976 i think that says a lot for my age it also says a lot for buster's age you've been tournament doctor you took care of patients your patients the fans and players you you elevated that to take care of both national and international players over a number of years you were chairman of the tournament and it's nice to note that the players championship is given 125 million dollars in charity dollars since he's been here in this community it's nice to see the number of redcoats that are here tonight buster they're here to celebrate you and it's well deserved cypress village resident physician there for over 30 years if you go out there and ask what they think of buster they have no idea who dr browning is they knew who buster is and they will tell you that his care and concern for them as individuals is beyond measure we would add some of us that have known buster for a long time we would add two things first of all his dedication to family married to debbie for over 53 years they have children and grandchildren and it's an incredible commitment to family values and family dedication and the second thing that we would add would be his strong faith and his strong faith is best exemplified in his music he has a wonderful voice loves to sing and play jacksonville is blessed with many unsung heroes who daily make our life better and make it better and richer for each of our citizens today we thank you for recognizing one of those unsung heroes dr arthur w browning junior md buster buster i promise i will not be that long debbie and i were talking about what you would say the first thing i would say is when i came to do my residency here we were blessed to decide to stay here jacksonville has been a blessing to us as a couple and no man does any kind of fundraising without your wife saying okay what are we going to do this time my motto and fundraising for this city has always been one thing if you don't have fun raising the funds don't do it and we've always found that to work unf first t whatever we did the most important thing i'll tell you about jacksonville is when i came here from atlanta i realized that we had one of the best medical communities i've ever seen as an intern and resident and today i feel the same way you can get as good a quality care here as you can anywhere and a lot of it is because of what you all do in this city to make things happen thank you for all my friends for being here i'm proud to be a red coat i have my red town and i thank you for this honor thank you very much all right certainly want to thank council member boyland and council member howland for presenting that legislation for all of us for supporting it and also to acknowledge those past chairmen that are all here anytime you can get a dozen of the red coats in the same room it must be a special occasion so we also have our current our current chairman kevin ice cold copeland right there in the back congratulations sir on getting your red jacket this year and we'll turn it back over the floor leader thank you mr president our next presentation is by council member joe carlucci celebrating the san marco preservation society on the occasion of its 50th anniversary mr teal may you please read the resolution resolution 2026 198 in 1925 jacksonville real estate developer tell fair stockton established the san marco neighborhood an 80 acre community influenced by the city beautiful movement with its winding streets planted medians and use of parks and larger lots the neighborhood quickly became famous for its distinctive mediterranean revival architecture its old riverfront mansions and for san marco square a vibrant commercial area with a multi-level fountain at its center inspired by the piazza san marco in venice italy in 1975 local residents and business owners came together to lead a revitalization of san marco square by addressing its aging fountain and to begin formulating a long-term improvement plan for the future of the neighborhood these initial revitalization efforts led to the official incorporation of the san marco preservation society on march 19th 1976 since its official incorporation the san marco preservation society has worked tirelessly for five decades to mobilize civic leaders businesses and citizens to lead beautification efforts restore and protect historic landmarks promote civic engagement and establish smart growth principles that preserve the distinct character of the san marco neighborhood while enhancing its economic vitality and quality of life among its many accomplishments the san marco preservation society spearheaded the renovation and restoration of the south jacksonville city hall in 2003 a building constructed in 1915 that serves as one of the few remaining visual reminders of the city of the south jacksonville an effort that earned recognition from the florida trust for historic preservation in 2009 and now serves as a permanent headquarters for this society now therefore be it resolved by the council of the city of jacksonville the city council hereby celebrates the 50th anniversary of the san marco preservation society and the dedicated efforts of each member throughout its history in its mission to preserve protect and renew the century-old neighborhood of san marco as an area of historical and architectural significance for future generations all right thank you so much for that and thank you mr president and colleagues uh for your support on this earlier i'll be short but i am honored to present this large milestone to san marco preservation society for their 50th anniversary it would take me all night to go through the list of accomplishments that this organization has had and made our community better but they have been a strong advocate in preserving the character of san marco which we all know and love and it's definitely not by accident it's by design in fact our neighborhood action plan is called san marco by design so everything that is thought of and implemented in san marco is just that by design and that is a true testament to what it has become over the past 50 years having this organization be at the forefront of that so to my friends at snps uh thank you for always being a voice to the community you selfishly you really do make my job easier when people come and ask about what should happen in san marco usually the first response is well have you talked to san marco preservation have you talked to san marco merchant um so you guys are truly the amazing gatekeeper to keeping the character preserved in san marco so i appreciate um all of your hard tireless work on that i know it all too well um whether it's fixing trees and planar beds or fighting storage units thank you for being i knew there would be a little chuckle there uh thank you for being an integral part of the san marco community uh colleagues thank you for all your support in honoring this organization and if we all had champagne glasses i would toast to another 50 years to a bright future so thank you and i'll now invite president-elect matt little to come up and say a few remarks good evening um on behalf of san marco preservation society first i would like to just thank councilman carlucci we're very fortunate to have you as a partner in our mission and we really appreciate your support couldn't do what we do without you um thank you to councilman matt carlucci as well for your long support of our organization and to the council uh for your service to our city and the support that you give to organizations like ours that help make up the fabric of what makes it such a great place to live um so i'll keep it brief at that and just say we have a lot more work to do over the next 50 years so we're going to get back to that and look forward to working with you as we move forward thank you congratulations you want to come you coming at what you coming down all right well come on down councilmember matt carlucci let's go there's always an open invite for anyone who wants to come on down to these council president while they're wrapping up taking up pictures i want to take this time to recognize our pages tonight from south side middle school we have kayliana homes and from douglas anderson school of the arts we have charles minor thank you for serving with us tonight all right get on the other side of me uh thank you and now matt carlucci will say a few numbers colleagues we're now going to take up quasi-judicial items the first of which is found on page five these items we are now taking up do not include public hearings as they were thoroughly reviewed at the committee level where public hearings were part of the decision-making process council members are reminded to declare any ex parte communication i'm number one twenty twenty six zero zero one five i move the amendment we've got a motion second on the amendment no one's in the queue all in favor of the amendment signify by saying aye aye any opposed to say nay the amendment carries with the bill as amended got a motion second on the bill as amended no one's in the queue please open the ballot and record your vote 18 yays one nay by action you've approved 2026-0015 item two twenty twenty six zero zero eight seven i move the bill all right we've got a motion second no one's in the queue please open the ballot record your vote 19 yays zero nays by action you've approved 2026-0087 i'm three twenty twenty six one three zero uh mr president i have ex parte to declare i spoke with josh cockrell about this on january 23rd he gave me an overview of this project and i've filed this with legislative services and i moved the amendment all right seeing no other luz i will add mine so i would like to declare not luz ex parte i got a call from josh cockrell this morning said that this bill went through luz with no um with no opposition and asked me if i had any questions i said no so we'll get that filed with legislative services and now we have a motion second on the amendment all in favor of the amendment signify by saying aye aye any opposed say nay the amendment carries with the bill as amended got a motion second on the bill as amended no one's in the queue please open the ballot record your vote 19 a zero nays by action you've approved 2026-0130 item for 2026-131 i move the amendment got a motion second on the amendment before that we'll go to the vice president mr howland you recognized yeah thank you mr president i also rise to declare ex parte on this one i spoke with miss cindy trimmer yesterday april 14th at noon about the 301 bypass the project and we'll make sure all communications related to this are in filed with legislative services thank you sir all right thank you mr vp so we have a motion second on the amendment is that right mr floyd thank you very much all in favor of the members signify by saying aye aye any opposed say nay the amendment carries that was a weak aye by the way we're going to get better as the night goes on move the bill as amended we have motion second on the bill as amended no one's in the queue please open the ballot record your vote 19 yeas zero nays by action you've approved 2026-0131 item 5 2026-133 i move the bill got a motion second on the bill no one in the queue please open the ballot record your vote 19 yeas zero nays by your action you've approved 2026-0133 item 6 2026-134 i move the bill i have a motion second on the bill i have no one in the queue please open the ballot record your vote 19 yeas zero nays by your action you've approved 2026-0134 item 7 2026-171 move the bill got a motion second on the bill i have one member in the queue mr peluso you recognized thank you mr president i stand to declare ex parte against i heard concerns from the church neighbors about the possible impact on the premises regarding alcohol sale and consumption and it's been filed with legislative services all right thank you very much the bill has been moved and seconded no one else is in the queue please open the ballot record your vote 16 yeas three nays by your action you've approved 2026-0171 item 8 2026-172 move the bill i've got a motion second on the bill councilman peluso are you still in the queue nope they just cleared you open the bell record your vote 19 yeas 0 nays by your actions you have approved 2026-0172 item 9 2026 173 i move the bill i've got a motion second on the bill no one's in the queue please open the ballot record your vote 19 yas 0 nays by your action you've approved 2026-0173 i'm 10 2026-176 move the bill i've got a motion second on the bill have no one in the queue please open the ballot record your vote. 19 yays. 0 nays. By your action, you've approved 2026-0176. Item 11-2026-178. Move the bill. And a motion second on the bill. No one in the queue. Please open the ballot. Record your vote. 19 yays. 0 nays. By your action, you've approved 2026-0178. Colleagues, we're now on to page 9 to take up the consent agenda. As a reminder, you can be added as a co-sponsor on any item. If you want to be, please reach out to Les Slave Services as counsel rules prohibit items from being pulled just for this reason. Mr. Thiel, would you please read the bills? 2026-158, 182-184, 189-190, 191-202, 205-207, 228-233, 234-235, 238-246, and 253. I move approval of the consent agenda. Got a motion second on approval of the consent agenda. There's no one in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. 19 yays. 0 nays. By your action, you've approved the consent agenda. Colleagues, we're now going to jump ahead to page 30 and take up our third reading resolution. That's item 69-2026-204. I move the amendment. I've got a motion second on the amendment. No one's in the queue. All in favor of the amendment. Signified by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed to say nay. The amendment carries. The bill as amended. Got a motion second on the bill as amended. No one's in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. 19 yays. 0 nays. By your action, you've approved 2026-0204. Mr. President, please recognize our Rules Chair. Colonel Miller, the Rules Chair. You're recognized, sir. Thank you, Mr. President. We've just approved the following appointments as part of the consent agenda. If you're in the audience, please stand to be recognized. Matthew Jones to the Waterways Commission. Krista Bowman to Council on Elder Affairs. Bradley Nestor to the Tree Commission. Dorothy Gillette to the Jacksonville Housing and Community Development Commission. And Dean Kate Morehead Carroll reappointed to the Homelessness Initiatives Commission. Please join me in thanking these individuals for their public service. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, it's time for public comments. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to speak, you should have filled out a green public comment card. No cards will be accepted after six. Council rules call for an allotment of 90 minutes for public comment. Given the number of cards submitted so far, each speaker will be given two minutes so that all those wishing to speak will have an opportunity to do so. This may be decreased if we receive more cards because you can submit them up until 6 p.m. I'll announce five speakers at a time. When I call your name, please come down the reserved seats in the front row while awaiting your turn to speak. Your time will not start until you arrive at the podium and remember to state your name and address before beginning, or you may say my address is on file. A speaker may be invited to the green room for further discussion at a council member's discretion. I will read the first five names now so you can begin to make your way down front, and then I'll have Mr. Thiel read Council Rule 4.505 regarding disruption of meetings. My first five speakers, please come on down. LaToya Kendrick, Robert Stafford, Johnny Turner, Kathleen Pereira, and Latrice Bell. Mr. Thiel, please read Council Rule 4.505. Council Rule 4.505, disruption of meeting. Any person who disrupts a regular meeting of the City Council, standing committees, special or select committees, subcommittees, or any other public meeting presided over by a City Council member may be forthwith barred, removed, or otherwise ejected in the discretion of the presiding officer from further attendance at that meeting. If necessary, due to the nature of the disruption, the audience may be cleared from the Council chambers or meeting location in the discretion of the presiding officer. Any person who refuses to leave the City Council chamber may be subject to arrest. Thank you, Mr. Thiel. Legislative Services, please note the start time as 5.33. And LaToya Kendrick, the floor is yours. Hello, my name is LaToya Kendrick. My name is on file. I'm part of JTA, JTAC Disability Advisory Board. I'm here to speak about USERV, a service that's provided through JTA. April 2nd, the service left from $6 to $10 for one-way. Now, a one-way trip is basically too much. A person was telling me yesterday, a $6 trip now is $10. By the time they do a round trip is $22. $22 is too much. That's at least two days of rides, plus they're not able to afford it if they do four days of trips. That's $44 each day for a round trip. For the disability community, they don't have the funds. Hopefully, the community can find federal grants or federal funding for the JTA, so they don't have to go in their pockets. Because now the service is now $6.2 million. They are paying a year for this service. The disability community needs this service because they are safe with this service, and they don't really trust the other services. And when people are on budget, they're not able to afford this service. This service impact the disability community, the wheelchairs, and plus they have special needs that the regular service is not able to do at this time. And we are asking for the community and others to help us find other ways to balance out the price of the service, maybe lower the service. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Robert Stafford. Good evening. My name is Robert Stafford. My address is on file. I'm a staunch advocate of the half-penny sales tax. The shirt maybe is misleading. I'm here to thank a council member for stepping up and providing his support to resolve an issue at Fruccy Payne Elementary School. The school is a lighted property. There was a hole in the roof. And the sales tax is generating a no-forever new, but we shouldn't have schools with holes in the roof. We shouldn't have non-ADA-compliant parking lots. We shouldn't have crumbling sidewalks. We shouldn't have trip hazards. Now they're making a hard pivot back to the conditions of the facilities. We need to refine the acquisition and implementation process. We need to develop a life-cycle maintenance and life-cycle support process. We need to get these things in place so that we won't have any more schools with holes in the roof when this surtax is generating $10 million a month. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous, ladies and gentlemen. So I'm thanking the council member who pitched in. I believe their support led to the COO giving us their personal attention. So we need more of that from the council members. We don't need any confusion. We need to resolve all the anxieties. We need accurate information to the taxpayers, to the students, parents, administrators, and taxpayers. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, Johnny Turner. Good evening. My name is Johnny Turner. I'm here about the George Crater Bridge. I ain't going nowhere. I'm going to be here in every meeting y'all have, so y'all might as well get used to seeing this people like him. And we've been fighting for that for three years. We take y'all head to the toilet when we first started. We had to get petitions. We went around. We got everybody to petition it. Going around the people's houses and did all that. And we still ain't got no satisfaction. We taking, they taking the toilet bridge down further in front of it, further by it. And we ain't got no other fish. And we want to see what y'all doing with the money. Because ain't nobody talking about the money. Ain't nobody telling about the money you gave for when the bridge was thrown down. And the female money, we ain't here. All you do is tell them where you got the money, but we ain't seeing where the money's going. We want to know where the money is. That's what we want to know, where the money is going at. The bridge ain't fixed. The bridge going down. They tell us one time, they want to take the whole bridge down. Now we ain't got but a piece of bridge. And it's supposed to be a mile-long bridge. Y'all need to just come out there. Just come out there and look at the bridge. And on a Saturday, you can't hardly get up there. You got to fish like this. Because so many people on the bridge on the weekend, because that's what everybody do on the weekend. That's a family bridge. Everybody loves coming out there. And we want y'all to find out where the money's going at. We go downtown. They're shutting up everything downtown for us to fish at. We used to fish right behind the courthouse. We can't even fish there now. They done shut down and fished in there. Go around Hedgewood Drive. All the bridges around Hedgewood Drive. We can't fish there. They say no parking. You're either going to move your car or something's going to go on. And we just want y'all to help us and go and get the thing going. Because this ain't the last time y'all going to see me or the rest of my crew. Thank y'all. Mr. Turner, can you please say your address? He said your name. My address is on file. Thank you, sir. Ms. Kathleen Prayer. My name is Kathleen Prayer. My information is on file. Most of the neighborhoods in Jacksonville are made up of hardworking citizens who deserve no less than their own place of refuge and peace. So how else should we feel when our meager sanctuaries are destroyed, the instant the city allows developers and deep pockets to put soccer stadiums, morgues, service houses, or oral depots in our backyards? The city is supposed to make decisions for the common good, that is, for most neighborhoods. Is it for the common good, then, that the city is to expect Windy Hill and Fox Chase neighborhoods to tolerate Sports Jaxx's plans for a 15,000-seat major venue, which will shake our windows from concerts and games, overtax our septic tanks, drown our backyards, and pollute our well water from increased flooding? And what about the traffic logistics for handling 15,000 extra cars going in and out of only one main artery of the St. John's Town Center, which is already significantly congested? The answer is quite simple. For the common good, move the soccer stadium to areas that do not impact neighborhoods, like the downtown sports complex, Imerson, Cecil Field, or Regency Square. Also, past 2026-183 tonight, the emergency shelters known as the Baby Boxes not only give the desperate mothers hope and peace without judgment or punishment, but also give witness to the decency of a civilized society. Thank you. Thank you. Next, Latrice Bell. And then the five after that, please come on down. Carrie Baggs, James Bell, Wells Todd, Margie Watkins, Ulysses Cromedy. Ms. Bell. Good afternoon. Leachers. Leachers Bell, my address is on file. I want to take the time to say thank you. I know you don't get to hear that a lot, but thank you. To the ones that have took time to come out to help support Councilman Gay, City Councilman at large, Matt Carlucci, we're working hard to try to get the Duval side open. We want to extend an invitation to you to a come together day. You will be, if you have not already got an email, we ask that you will pick a date, the best date for you. And we call it a come together day because that's what we're going to be doing, coming together to get the bridge. Two bridges open back up. Extending the invitation once again for the ones that have not come down there and laid eyes on the beautiful land that God has created for us. We are our brother's keepers, and we need to look out for each other because when you need help, you're calling for somebody to help you. So all we need to do is to come together, find this money that the federal government have already given us for the repairs for that bridge. We really don't need to come up with no money because the federal government has already paid funds for the bridge, which was used for something else. That's misusage of funds. That's against the law. We know some people have gone to jail for misusing federal funds. So all we ask in that, we get together, put our heads together, because y'all are a smart group of people. I saw a lot of y'all in action, and we can get things done if we come together, okay? So all we're asking you to do is to come together day, which will be next month. You will be getting an email, so we ask that you pick a date, and we come together, and we get those bridges open. Thank you. Carrie Baggs. My name is Carrie Baggs, 3330 North Canal Street, Jacksonville, Florida, 32209. And I just want to reiterate on more of what Ms. Bell said. We are getting older now. Time is running out, and there's not a whole lot we can do but fish. And we need these bridges open. We need to know where the money's going. We need to be able to get out and express ourselves, to meet new people, to meet family members we don't know. We need to be a part of the community. And it's not fair for us to sit around and wait and beg for these things to happen for years and years and years on end. And now we are sitting there with the same thing. And I'm like, it's like what the Israelites, the question the Israelites asked Jesus, how long, how long do we have to wait before this comes to a conclusion? We need your help, and we need it now. Thank you. Thank you. James Bell. Good evening. My name is James Bell, and my address is on file. I'm here to represent the George Crater Bridge, Fishing Pier State Park, and the bridge crew. You heard from three of the bridge crew already. All we want to happen is to reopen, find a way, reopen that Duval side of the bridge so we can fish comfortably, comfortably. That's all we're asking. Money hasn't been given for it. We wouldn't be here today if the money was used the right way for the right thing. We wouldn't be here. We'd be out there fishing. But we can't fish now, but on the Nassau side, everything is working good on the Nassau side. They find money for to build a little pathway to get down there to the water, down there to the surf, put up new portables down there. That's Nassau side. We're talking about the Duval side, so we won't have to go on the Nassau side. But all we want done is the bridge to open so we can fish comfortably. Thank you. Thank you. Wells Todd. My name is Wells Todd, and we'll take him down. Jackson, my address is on file. These people have been coming here for months around being able to fish. The money was already allocated. Where'd the money go? Money was allocated to fix the bridge. Where's the money? What I want to talk about is mental health. It's time to create a permanent mental health emergency response team. Too many of our citizens, when they call 911 and the police respond, there is fear in their hearts of what the police will do to their loved ones. And we've seen it time and time again. What result comes out of calling the police for help? People have died. It is time to take the responsibility of mental health out of the hands of JSO. They are not mental health professionals. It is not their job. Lastly, I want to say the city council needs to inform Melissa Nelson to drop the charges against the three youth who were arrested and dragged out of this chamber. for simply demanding that the city pass a resolution against the genocide that's been carried out against the Palestinian people. Thank you. Thank you. Margie Watkins. Good evening. My name is Margie Watkins, and my address is on file. And I'm here to say no to 140, yes to 227, and yes to 186 baby boxes. If our city and our Texas money can give $775 million to Jaguar, $49.66 million to Publix downtown, $12 million they're asking for warehouse headquarters for Winn-Dixie. Yes, I love my supermarkets. I love all of them. But if they can give all this money to Publix and Winn-Dixie, only $300,000 comparing with that is nothing. And the councilman who put, no, only four, he's the one who was standing for free health for illegals. He's the one who is not standing for baby's life. So that's baby lives. Everybody thinks it's a joke. I know so many that their children got saved in those baby boxes. They told me themselves from many years ago. And they were ex-firefighters, ladies, and she said she rescued 15 of those babies. So why can't we give $300,000? Maybe we can raise some carnival something downtown and make barbecue and raise that money. That is like so funny for $300,000 that the gentleman said no. But he will give millions, millions, up to billions to everyone else. And he asked for free health for illegals. God bless you all. God bless USA. And God bless Israel. Thank you. Next up, Ulysses Cromedy. And then the five after that, I believe this is Reginald Gundy, Blake Harper, James Edwards, Lydia Bell, and T. Brad Huntley. Come on down. Mr. Cromedy. Good afternoon. My name is Ulysses Cromedy, Sr., 4625, Lynn Crest Drive, South. It's a pleasure to stand before you, you, and especially you, to have my plea and cry to you heard. I've been here all my life, Jacksonville, Florida. I'm standing to help ask you and you and you to keep the George Crater Bridge open. Please, ma'am. Please, sir. It's very important to me. At my 74 years, I have lived in Jacksonville. I've seen bridges closed and renewed and not suitable for us to fish from the fish. The bridge I know of is the Nassau Bridge. Now I understand. It's George Crater Bridge. We ask you to please, ma'am, and please, sir, get us together, get together, and get this farm so we can have a fishing pill for the citizens of Jacksonville and around counties. A lot of people love to fish, and that bridge is the only real bridge that a month or two of people can go on and have a good time and fish. A lot of people fish, and they don't eat fish, but they love the sport of fishing, if you understand what I'm saying. A lot of us will go and feed our family. Like I said last month, my mother bought us up to fish and feed off the sea. So, sir and ma'am, whoever's concerned, help us to keep that bridge open. Thank you. Thank you. Reginald Gundy. And, sir, I need you to either say your address or fill out a new card and put your address, because you can't write on record for the address on the card. You're saying I can't say my address on file? You can say it out loud now, yes. You just can't say on record since you didn't put it on the card. My name is Reverend Dr. R. Leroy Gundy. My address is on file. As a national CEO of the True Southern Christian Leadership, Florida, some things were brought to my attention, and we would like to bring that to your attention. GS culture must change. Every person in a crisis is not a suspect. They are a soul in need of care. Matthew 25, 36, I was six, and you visit me. We have approximately 2,300 mental health providers in Duval County. We must use them and save our tax dollars from all these lawsuits. I will send all the data to you, each of you, because I don't want to come to you and not give you a recommendation to fix it. Luke 418, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. Second, $65 million in Winn-Dixie with no equity in the deal. Thirteen stores where? Harvest is closing on 48th and Main Street in a stable and thriving community in a four-story senior apartment complex that's about 300 yards from the store being built right now. The city of Jacksonville prioritized corporate headquarters, job downtown and west side, while Winn-Dixie leveraged cash, tax breaks, and long-term incentives. Our community benefited indirectly with no guarantees. We need a community benefit agreement with three to five stores in certain areas to relieve the food deserts. Third, thank you, Councilman Peluso, for your help with Rufus E. Payne. It is in disrepair, and if you go to the school, any of you, I don't think you want to put your child in that school, and they're consolidating kids in a blighted school, and they must stop. Fourth, JEA belongs to the community, and we need a community advisory board for more transparency. One hundred million dollars could be used for solar energy, and the sun from above is free. I commend you on your internal investigation, but a grand jury investigation will take a struggle out of the testimony that's going on with JE right now. Fifth, the citizens with that bridge, just tell them the state will not give you a hundred million dollars to fix that bridge. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Peluso. We'd like to see you in the green room. Reverend Gundy, and then the gentleman in the cowboy hat, if you could have a seat, or if you need to stretch out, you can go out in the atrium, but we can't have anyone standing in the chambers. Thank you. Blake Harper, you're up. Blake Harper, information on file. Well, Rockman Johnson's not here. I was actually going to thank him for putting up the resolution about honoring or recognizing the libraries. The libraries are important to our community, as schools are. The work I'm doing with regards to the school libraries has brought me to come to speak tonight. We didn't get a chance to speak on any kind of a public hearing with regards to, or public participation with regards to the resolution. I have a problem with that. The reality is, I told you about the American Library Association that has been openly advocating for subverting community standards. I've come to find out that the ALA is now supporting critical race theory and DEI programs that undermine the 250th anniversary of our nation. So this is the American Library Association. So why am I sharing this with you? Again, I think Tim does a great job, but we have to continue to have scrutiny and pay attention and exercise care with our libraries, our school libraries and our public libraries to make sure the content is appropriate, age appropriate for the children, to make sure that the events are appropriate for the people at the time and the place, and to make sure we have constructive people on the board who are going to recognize the importance of keeping a politically neutral, a gender neutral library in place so people are not indoctrinated by the left-wing agenda of the American Library Association. Again, I want to thank Tim for the good job he's doing. We need to keep continued scrutiny because the bad actors are all over this country, and they're here in this city. I can attest to that personally. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. James Edwards. Honorable Council members, my name is James Edwards, and my address is on file. I'm sorry, deeply saddened, actually, to hear that Resolution 2026-0253, Rockman Johnson's proposal, passed. I find as a believer in Jesus Christ and in a Judean Christian values, it is appalling that public, Jacksonville public libraries would host drag queen story hours. For impressionable young children, these times oppose biblical standards that promote the basic family unit and heterosexuality that God honors. I recommend that as a governmental body, we support the stories of white and black heroes who fought in a Revolutionary War and America's wars that have purchased our freedoms. There is support teaching by Tim Barton of wallbuilders.com. Check it out. That can be viewed as on YouTube. Any book written by him, The American Story, The Beginnings, that the public library should provide. Also on YouTube, Biblical Citizenship in America by former Texas Representative Rick Green is an excellent source. He presents, this is, yeah, he presents much historical evidence for the patriots that fought for our freedom in the foundation of the U.S. refuting critical race theory and implication that this country was founded on slavery and not on religious freedom. Why was the Civil War fought? How far back did abolitionists go? What did the politicians envision with the passage of the 13th Amendment? Thank you. Next up is Lydia Bell. Good evening, Lydia Bell. Brentwood 300, address is on file. Mental health should not be a death sentence. Drop the charges against Connor, Leah, and Dragon. When Dr. Bob Falscraft is being investigated, suspended with pay for his freedom of speech by posting on X, I'm looking forward to the big, beautiful obituary. That's what he said, and suspended with pay until further view. He's suspended for words, but no one is investigated for genocide, not words, to build a 51,000 square feet industrial plant releasing biomedical fumes, killing Brentwood children at Kemp School and Residence, a morgue and forensic lab without the residents' knowledge, but one can be suspended and investigated for words, not death. Then the pictures I have given to you, I question why are senior citizens, young people, sitting on the ground, sitting on the garbage cans with their grocery on the ground, standing at bus stops, no seats or coverings that were removed, all on the north side, not replaced by millions of dollars by skyways that JTA want to bring to the city, failing skyways. Nothing's being placed on the north side. All those millions of dollars that are being spent, and black people are sitting on the ground in 2026 waiting on a bus. No covering, nothing. People on the north side of Jacksonville don't get any of our tax money to be used for us. So there's got to be a change. We're going to have to get people in office that want to do the right thing, because we also had a neighborhood bill of rights meeting. We're tied to a neighborhood bill of wrongs, so there's got to be a change. T. Brad Huntley, you're next, and then the five after Mr. Huntley are Addison Patrick, Tracy Karpis, Kiana Blaylock, Jerry Woodham, and Alyssa Arroyo. Please come on down. Mr. Huntley. Good evening. My name's Brad Huntley. I live in Holiday Harbor. My address is 13927 Shipwreck Circle. I'm here to solicit Councilman Diamond and any of the others for a line-item support in the budget for a watershed sediment study that affects about 100 of the residents in my neighborhood. The silting of the Sandwood Canal is an issue that we need to have resolved one way or the other to find out where the issue lays. So we hope for that support, and I want to thank all of the councilmen. You have a thankless job, but you do a great job in services in Jacksonville. Sometimes it's a very thankless one, but we appreciate you. Thank you, sir. Addison Patrick. Good evening, Mr. President and members of the council. My name is Addison Liberty Patrick, and my address is on file. As we look at the 2027 gap created by the Jaguars' move to Orlando, I want to talk about the transient rental tax that visitors pay to stay in our city. We know that some of that goes directly to our TDT, the Tourist Development and Convention Funds. Traditionally, we use that money to bring people to the stadium, but in 2027, the stadium will be a construction site. Orlando just approved $400 million of their TDT to renovate Camping World Stadium to host our team and expect to receive a whopping $20 million in local spending per game. We cannot afford to let our local revenue and jacks follow the team down I-95. Florida Statute 125.0104 gives this council the authority to use TDT funds for promoting and advertising tourism. I am calling on this body to ensure that the 2027 marketing budget is not spent on national TV spots, but instead a local-first bridge campaign. While we're investigating JEA for past mismanagement, let us not create a new crisis here by mismanaging the 2027 stadium transition, we need an economic bridge for the small businesses, the bars, the caterers, the shops, who have been the backbone of our downtown for the last 30 years. Specifically, I ask that, one, we carve out an emergency marketing fund from the current TDT, and number two, ensure that this fund is dedicated to driving foot traffic into the city for watch parties and local events during the away season instead of national TV ads for a stadium that's under construction. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Tracy Karpus. Hello, my name is Tracy Karpus, and my address is on file. I'm the mother of Charles Faggart. It's been over a year since I've heard anything about him. I still don't know what happened, but I have a really good idea. I am here to reiterate everything about the mental health and hopefully drug rehab as well. We need these kind of programs in place instead of JSO, just hauling somebody off to jail. My son died for no good reason. He was in there for misdemeanor. I believe if there were such programs in place, my son would still be here. Just because you have a mental health or a drug problem, it doesn't mean you need to go to jail and die. It's disgusting. There's no sound on the videos in the jail. Not one. There needs to be sound. The COs don't wear body cams, so eight of them, including a sergeant, felt it convenient to kill my son. No other family should ever have to feel what I still feel over a year later because my attorneys can't even get the video of what happened to my son. The jail is a problem, not a solution. You don't need a new one. Fix the one you have, and I yield my time. Thank you. Next up, Kiana Blaylock. Ma'am, Council Member Peluso would like to speak to you. Ma'am, Council Member Peluso would like to speak to you. Ms. Blaylock, you're up. My name is Kiana Blaylock, address on file. In 2025, there were seven JSO shootings related to mental health crisis. This community deserves people who are trained mental health professionals, not JSO officers, when they are calling 911 for a mental health evaluation. We are demanding a mental health emergency response team. Again, these officers are not those people. That is not their job. Their job, as they claim, is to protect us, but also we have seen that with these calls, they also use excessive force. We have seen excessive force in here. A year ago, when three people who were just here to talk about Palestine and demanding y'all sign a resolution, they were actually attacked, but then Connor is now having felony charges for assaulting an officer. The portion of the budget for JSO continues to rise, even though, again, they have proven that they are not capable of de-escalation tactics. We do not need money for a new jail or for more officers or updated equipment for those officers with mental health services and resources, especially when there are studies that show time and time again that increasing in policing just makes more people incarcerated not a healthy community. If you continue to ignore the demands of the people for mental health services, you are then complicit for the future deaths of those people who call 911 to get help, not for an officer to then brutalize them and even kill them. While we are given two minutes for public comment, people are here, up here, doing presentations. Not that they don't deserve it, but you know what I'm saying? You can use that time to then have a presentation for these families who are then affected by state-sanctioned violence via JSO. We have presentations for San Marco and people in, quote-unquote, red coats, but not for Ms. Tracy and not for Ms. Kemp and not for people who are actually brutalized by this city. Thank you. Next up, Jerry Woodham. Chaplain Jerry Woodham, address on file. Dear Council Members, you were a baby once. Thank God your mother loved you and wanted the best for you. Unfortunately, in this broken world, we have young moms who are scared or confused or depressed. Because of guilt or shame, they want to get rid of the baby or because of not thinking clearly. We've heard the story of the moms who have killed their babies by drowning them or slamming them on a floor, throwing them in a garbage can, or letting a boyfriend abuse them, or even selling them for drugs. This bill, 2026-0186, protects the most vulnerable of all. They are defenseless. Every baby is priceless, and God has a plan for its life. Babies are not born Democrat, Republican, Independent, or NPA. They're just babies. Please pass this bill so every district will have a safe place to turn in a baby. If you're worried about the small price of $300,000, what is a life worth to you? What are your children and your grandchildren worth to you? These babies deserve a chance to find a loving home. If not wanted by birth parents, this city gave $25 million property to Sean Conn to build a hotel. What are these babies' safety worth to you? And since I have a little time, I must say you need to slow down on all the building in the neighborhoods. With disregard to property owners' rights, they pay the taxes. We've seen a liquor store, a morgue, a slaughterhouse, and now probably another mosque. I've lived here for 47 years, and now we're talking about a soccer stadium to destroy two more neighborhoods, destroying the tranquility of their homes. Also, they want to build on swampland. The change on Cortez allowed building on swampland. Are we not going to protect our environment? Thank you. Next up is Alyssa Arroyo, and then the five after that. Please come on down. Brian Jefferson, Denise Scott, Leah Grady, Monica Gold, and Ian Face. Please come on down. Ms. Arroyo. Alyssa Arroyo, my address is on file. We remember what happened on this floor almost 11 months ago when three of our community members who spoke up for a free Palestine in these chambers were arrested. One of them was arrested for clapping. The other was arrested for and brutalized because he was trying to film. And then the third person was arrested for reacting to that brutalization. Why? Well, they were asking you to stop the Brentwood Morgue. They were asking you to stop the new jail. They were asking you to sign a ceasefire resolution. Here in the South, we talk about the First Amendment rights a lot. And the don't tread on me sentence, isn't that what this sentence is exactly for, that First Amendment? JSO, or city council would rather line their pockets, calling JSO on people for clapping than helping do their job, helping the working class people of Jacksonville. We've heard from several people so far about where the city council can do so much better. Instead, folks are begging you over here to be heard. Mental health is critical. Giving people answers is critical. 11 months later, these issues are the same. Some are even worse. We remember the political repression that happened on May 27th, 2025, and we know who's accountable. We stand for Free Palestine. We stand for Free Jacksonville, where people can talk to our city council like normal people and where they will actually listen to us. Until that happens, if one of us falls, we all rise up. Free Palestine. Thank you. Brian Jefferson. My name is Brian Jefferson, and my address is on file. In 2025, there were seven JSO shootings related to mental health crises. That's seven lives unnecessarily lost at the hands of JSO. Rashad Martin, Rest in Power, was one of them. Thousands of people live with mental illnesses, many of them in your community, your friends, your family, and your neighbors. And their families are put in difficult spots when their loved ones have an episode and they have to potentially make the choice to call for help. But oftentimes, they get JSO instead. And JSO is not trained to handle the sort of situation in which someone can be acting potentially erratically and perceived as a danger in a mental health crisis episode. And they are likely to shoot because they fear for their lives. And a mental health crisis should not be a death sentence. The community deserves guaranteed protections, ensuring that the actions of these officers will not be the normal and regular rules of engagement when it comes to dealing with mental health crises. Jacksonville needs to create permanent mental health emergency response teams with professionals individuals and not patrol cars and police officers coming around and shooting folks. We need to see consequences for the officers who are behind these shootings. And we need to give the families of these people who have lost their loved ones answers. It is a shame that people have been waiting for months, let alone years, for some of these. And they have to sit on the anguish and the turmoil of not knowing and having their loved ones treated like criminals. But having a mental health episode is not a crime. And I know we have the money for having a mental health response team because we can put money, more and more money, into JSO every year to the point where they almost have half of the city's total budget. So where's the investment in mental health? Thank you. Next up, Denise Scott. Good evening. My name is Denise Scott. My address is on file. I've got granny duty. Please create a permanent mental health emergency response team of professionals and not patrol cars. JSO officers do not know how to escalate situations. I made it to JEA's last board meeting. I will say to you what I said to them. You can never have the fox to guard the hen house. Who's going to guard you all? You all are corrupt as they are. Vice President Holland. I came here just to get on the record to let you know just how rude you were on Thursday. And I told you that you were rude. But your little white, privileged self had the nerve to say that just because you didn't intend for it to be rude, that it wasn't rude. It's not your behavior is considered rude, and it's based on the impact that it had on me. While you lack the intention, it could be forgivable, but you were still rude, and you just refused to admit it. Folks like you always like to change definitions of words. Rude is still rude, just like woke is still woke. I'd like for you to, this council's assistance concerning that one mill referendum that should be on the ballot in November. It would be beneficial to have this council and school board on the same page to get the word out to our constituents. We understand that the chair is the voice piece for the school board, but you all know that that's not a new tax, and you should remember to, we need to invest in our schools and our children, and it's for the arts, it's for athletics, and it's also to support teachers. Let's send a clear message that Duval supports public education. And you were still rude, sir. Next is Leah Grady. Good evening. My name is Leah Grady. My address is on file, and I'm with the Jacksonville-Palestine Solidarity Network. For two years, JPSN came to city council to plead with our representatives to act in our interests, to rescind Resolution 2023-742, to pass a ceasefire resolution, and to divest our tax dollars from Israel bonds. Over the course of those two years, we witnessed our people and the broader community get ignored, silenced, and thrown out. From comments on the budget, anti-immigrant legislation, the morgue in Brentwood, Palestine, to potholes and roads in our neighborhoods, the people of Jacksonville, who come out to public comment, are consistently ignored. What a shame it is to believe in a process of democracy and then be completely ostracized from it or to face arrest. The people in this city deserve to be heard by the representatives or for action to be taken on their behalf. We deserve to live in a city that funds life, not death, and we deserve to not just survive, but to thrive in Jacksonville. If the people don't get the action we deserve or people that will hear us out, we can put them in come spring of 2027. I unite with the Jacksonville Community Action Committee's campaign for a city budget that prioritizes the community over emboldening the violence of the police. And for the establishment of a mental health response team to respond to mental health crises. For too many, far too many times have we seen people get brutalized or killed by JSO, and we need something better. We need real consequences and accountability for cops that use excessive force. We need community control of the police. We will not stop coming to demand accountability from this council, nor to speak about the issues that matter most to us, despite any repression, threat of arrest, or prosecution that we may face. And we remain steadfast in our determination to fight for better conditions in this city. Thank you. Thank you. Monica Gold, you're next. My name is Monica Gold. My address is on file. And I'm here tonight with the Jacksonville Community Action Committee. I am asking that city leaders explore a pilot program where mental health professionals are called to the scenes of mental health crises. While this currently happens on occasion, it does not happen with enough consistency or with proper fidelity. In the case of Brian Gillis, Brian's mother called requesting mental health support. Police arrived on scene with a mental health professional. But instead of allowing the professional to de-escalate, Officer Caleb Bumgarner traded in his non-lethal taser for his gun and fired seven shots at Brian as he ran away. Brian was killed when he could have been helped. And this is not an isolated instance. This is a recurring problem that has a solution. We are calling on a pilot program that truly prioritizes knowledge around mental health, de-escalation strategies, and a belief that our neighbors are worthy of proper care. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Ian Face. And then the five after that, please come on down. Danny, Cordy, Dina, Zacharia, Sarah, Haddad, Carmen Martinez, and the only name I can read is Marina, I believe. Please come on down. Ian. Hi, my name is Ian Face. My address is on file, and I am here with the Jacksonville Community Action Committee. As we've heard, there were seven JSO shootings related to mental health crises last year, and many more officer-involved shootings other than that. But the mental health crisis is very important. We need to have mental health emergency response teams, professionals, not police, respond to things like these. Obviously, the police responding to them only escalates. It does not de-escalate, and it does not help that person that needs it. Charles Faggart was killed by nine officers in a jail. His mother still has yet to receive the video of that, what little video there is. There needs to be body cams on every single officer, whether you are in the field or you are in the jail or you are a corrections officer, body cams with audio. Families should not be waiting for records within, for months for records or videos or a year for videos. They should receive them in a timely manner. Also, I wanted to say it's kind of going off of people being rude. It's really rude that a lot of you don't even look at the people in here that are speaking to you. They're standing right in front of you, and you're looking down. You don't even acknowledge that person. I think I guess I'll yield my time. Next up, Danny Cordy. Hello, my name is Danny Cordy. Address on file. Today, we are 920 days into the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It has been 369 days since Charles Faggart was pronounced dead after being brutally redacted at the hands of nine corrections officers inside the Duval County Jail. And it's been 322 days since officers inside this room targeted, assaulted, and arrested three community members as a tactic to suppress their right to free speech at the request of city council. Some of the officers involved have recorded histories of domestic violence, and one was just arrested for grand theft of almost $5,000 in public funds stolen from taxpayers. This council is no stranger to controversy, as multiple members are repeatedly making the news cycle for unpaid taxes, using their positions on the council to funnel money into their own businesses, promising positions to people based on favors, and racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charity funds to scam veterans with PTSD, aligning their own pockets. More than half of this council's members are millionaires, and yet we're expected to trust you to represent us when so many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. And even more disheartening is the frequency at which you sit and stare down at your phones, scrolling through Facebook, Grindr, or posting heinous commentary about your constituents with your trigger-happy Twitter fingers as we stand in front of you, pleading for you to simply do your jobs. The combination of cowardice, callousness, and unrelenting malice that permeates this council should mortify you, but I know better than to expect humility from someone who has no shame. So instead, I'm asking all people of conscience who stand against the repression of free speech and brutalization of the community by JSO to come support Leah at her trial tomorrow, April 15th at 9 a.m. at the Duval County Courthouse, Room 309, and our rally outside of the courthouse at 5.30 p.m. Thank you. Dina Zachariah. Dina Zachariah, address on file. On May 27th, 2025, City Council sicked three JSO officers, or JSO officers on three organizers and community members exercising their first amendment right of free speech in these very chambers. That day, a majority of those in chambers were clapping, cheering, but why, I need to ask, were those three specifically targeted? Three people well known to be outspoken against City Council. We were told that this was a disruption, that we were causing the disruption, but the only disruption that day was JSO swarming the chambers, a certain officer arresting Leah, Leah Grady and permanently injuring nerves in her wrist, a different officer grabbing Connor by the neck and throwing him over a row of chairs and throwing him and pinning him down to the ground. This is an attempt to try to silence our outspoken nature against the wrongs of City Council, consistently ignoring our voices. None of this would have happened if City Council members had shown the slightest concern for Jacksonville residents. But instead, we see reps regularly showing a lack of respect and attention during public comment, playing games on their phones, using social media, even live tweeting during public comment and sending photos, sending photos of people speaking at public comment directly on Twitter, live streaming this on Twitter. People, the City Council has also consistently ignored Brentwood Morgue being the first morgue in America in a residential neighborhood, a predominantly black neighborhood, despite protests against it. They're also, City Council also supports a $1 billion jail wasting more city funds instead of repairing the existing jail. And a pro-Israel resolution, which we have campaigned against for two years, because you all claimed allegiance to a foreign entity. City Council was quick to pledge allegiance to Israel before listening to any one of our pleas and demands at public comment. City Council members are meant to be public servants, not advocating vocally for a foreign entity that has sniped children and bombed hospitals. Drop the charges. Thank you. Sarah Haddad. My name is Sarah Haddad. My address is on file. My mother is a Ramallah-born Palestinian, and my father is from Jordan, not too far away. A little bit about me. I've lived in Jacksonville for almost two years now, and I've learned about the large and flourishing Arab community in Jacksonville. I was so excited to be a part of that. I found local organizations that are actively fighting for a free Palestine and to free West Asia from Zionist and U.S. imperialist occupation and genocide. The more time I spent in Jacksonville, I learned things I didn't like so much. I learned about our involvement in shipping weapons to the Jacksonville port. I learned that a fellow Ramallah-Palestinian sitting on the City Council wasn't an ally, but rather a bystander, complicit in the genocide of his own people and ignoring those of us advocating for a free Palestine. I've heard the countless stories of City Council members ignoring their community members, working class people who are taking time out of their busy lives, lives which are only getting harder and harder every day to come in and voice demands that the City Council has the power to change. It's even worse when City Council sicks the dogs we call JSO on people in these very chambers nearly a year ago today, only exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. Anyone who's seen the video proof knows there's no grounds for felony charges, knows that these charges have been trumped up to continue to silence and repress the movement for a free Palestine. This City Council is complicit in the brutalization and arrest of Connor, Leah, and Dragon. We demand the City Council advise Melissa Nelson to drop the bogus charges against Leah, Connor, and Dragon. I also stand in solidarity with JCAC to demand a mental health emergency response team of professionals, not patrol cars. We need to enforce real consequences to officers who choose to murder or use excessive force instead of treat a mental health situation as it is. Thank you. Carmen Martinez. Good evening. My name is Carmen Martinez, and my address is on file. I'm here as a soccer enthusiast. I was the original Jacksonville soccer mom in the mid-'80s, and I followed the sport for many years. I followed the Cyclones when they were our first team, professional team, then the Armada, and now we're going to have a new team, but it has no name yet. But we're going to have a stadium. My purpose here is to object to the site of the stadium. I no longer go to the town center because it's too crowded, and the traffic is terrible. So just adding a 15,000-person stadium is just what we need there. Presently, to add this to the community, they're going to be gridlocked in their homes there. It's impossible to get around right now, and to add this venue is going to be insane. I recently was at a professional women's soccer match in Washington, D.C. for the D.C. Spirit, and it's a 20,000-person stadium, and it took forever to clear it at the end of the match, and those people got there on public transportation. They didn't even drive there, and we're going to have drivers come because we don't have public transportation to the town center. If we do, it's very little. So this is going to be a real problem for people that live on Beach Boulevard to Butler, and I urge you to think twice about this place. You could have it at Regency. You could have it at Imason. You could have it at some other place. Thank you. Thank you so much. The next card, I believe it's Marina, zip code 32003, and that's all I can make out of this card. That sounds like it may be you coming up, and then the next five speakers after that, Jonathan, last name S-M-Y-K, Kathleen Murray, Nancy Murray Settle, Shane Tremblay, and I believe this is Casey Cruz. Go ahead. I apologize for my handwriting. My address is on file. As-salamu alaykum, which, if you aren't familiar, means peace be upon you. I don't know why the city leadership of Jacksonville feels like injustice is acceptable, why they feel like they can treat human beings with such brazen callousness. Perhaps it's because your hearts are as hard as iron. It's pretty clear that you guys don't care. You can't even look at us. So I'll bring some warmth. Perhaps soften the metal that encases your hearts. Please drop the charges against those kids. All they're doing is protesting killing babies. I advise you against it just strategically if you want to be reelected. If you continue these evil actions, I'll be forced to bring fire, all right, that I'll use to strike the iron that encases your hearts. And perhaps you'll bend a knee to the advancement of humanity. And by fire, I mean political mobilization of the youth. We're educated on these matters. Our vote matters. And you refuse to represent us. And as I'm standing here, you really don't represent any of Jacksonville. It's pretty obvious that people don't really like you guys. All right? Your allegiance to Israel tells me everything I need to know about your character and intentions. It's no surprise that your constituents are so unhappy, all right? You aren't doing a very good job because you lack morals. And it's clear to me, listening to these good people today, that they have them. So in the future, we'll be showing up to these meetings. We won't stop. And not only will we vote against you, not only will we organize against you, we will run against you for office. You're civil servants, and you work for us. Don't forget it. Jonathan, last name S-M-Y-K. I'm sure I will mispronounce that, so I'll just spell it. My name is Jonathan Smyk, address on file. I'm here today to speak in support of those who have been targeted by this council and by JSO, specifically Leah Grady and Connor Colley, my fellow comrades in Jacksonville-Palestine Solidarity Network, JPSN. Connor and Leah are two of the kindest souls that I have had the pleasure of meeting since joining this organization about six months ago. Their strong morals and sense of justice are something we all should model. While I was not at this council's meeting on May 27, 2025, I've seen the videos, and it's clear that while many in the chambers were clapping that day, Leah was specifically targeted and singled out by two JSO officers. It's obvious that Leah's continuous and outspoken appearances in front of this council in support of the Palestinian people was the impetus for targeting her, especially given she was sitting in the far rear of these chambers apart from the others. As her arrest was taking place, Connor was slammed by his neck over the chairs while filming the arrest, as he is allowed to do. I call upon this council and JSO and the state's attorney to drop these egregious charges. We will not be silenced. We are only growing our movement, and we will be here and in the courts continuously and peacefully until you do what is right and is demanded of you by the citizens. Lastly, I'd just like to express solidarity with my fellow citizens seeking their right to fish in our most beautiful resource, the public waters of the St. Johns River. If city funds were promised to them, then those funds should be used properly. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Free Palestine, and I yield my time. Thank you. Kathleen Murray. Good evening. Kathleen Murray, Citizens Defending Freedom, address on file. Speaking in support of Ordinance 2026-0186, which funds infant safety devices or baby boxes at fire stations across Duval County. This is a practical, life-saving measure that provides a safe, anonymous option for parents in a crisis moment when panic can otherwise lead to irreversible harm. These devices ensure a newborn is immediately placed into a secure, monitored environment where help is already in motion. In that critical moment, fear is replaced with safety, and desperation is met with a path that preserves life. This is not theoretical. In Florida, the only existing baby box located in Ocala has already been used to safely receive a newborn, proof that when this option exists, it's used and it saves lives. Fourteen fire stations mean fourteen accessible points of intervention across the county. Fourteen chances to ensure a child is received safely and given a future. Citizens Defending Freedom supports this ordinance. We thank the bill's sponsors and urges the council's approval. Finally, although the freedom to fish is not explicitly mentioned in CDF's mission statements, The pursuit of happiness is foundational to the Declaration of Independence, and as such, we urge the opening of the fishing bridge so that Duval residents and fishermen can be free to pursue their happiness. Thank you. Thank you. Nancy Murray Settle. Nancy Murray Settle. Address is on file. We are not in D.C. I'm quoting a council member from this past summer. She continued to say, you need to stay out of people's bedrooms, and what they do with those bodies is totally up to them. You're totally wrong. You have no business going down that road. You're going down today, period. I'm ashamed of you. Last summer, Councilman Diamond introduced a budget amendment that divided the council, and once again, Diamond wants to bring the culture wars to Jacksonville. I'm talking about Ordinance 0227, prohibiting the expenditure of city money on abortion or related services. Currently, the city does not pay for abortion or abortion-related services, nor do city employee insurance plan cover elective abortions. So why? This unnecessary ordinance is just another attempt to slip in the budget amendment that was defeated last summer. Yes, I am ashamed of this man also, who is obsessed with regulating women's bodies and health care choices. The ordinance is overly vague. What are related services? Ultrasounds, test kits, emergency contraceptives, medication, surgical procedures, all that legally fall within the already restrictive six-week Florida ban? Why is he so obsessed with women's health care? Because yes, access to these reproductive services is health care. He should be, all of you, we should be ensuring that all women and men have access to health care. All children, boys and girls have access to food, quality public education, freedom from this government overreach. We don't want government snooping in our bedrooms and our doctor office visits. Please don't support Ordinance 227. And also, I stand with Connor, Dragon, and Leah. Drop the charges. Again, government overreach. Shane Tremblay. Good evening. My name is Shane Tremblay. My address is on file. I'm coming to you on behalf of the Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network. Many people in this room, including myself, were also in this room on May 27th when Connor, Leah, and Dragon were brutalized and arrested. You really didn't need to be there, though. All of this was captured on video. Anyone I've shown this video can account to the appalling use of force by JSO that day. Beyond the physical brutality, I would say the context of this is even worse. These are three of your constituents that were punished for taking an active role in their city. Three people conscious bringing Palestine to the ears and hearts in this chamber. Three big-hearted individuals that want to make it clear that despite y'all's resolution that the city of Jacksonville does not stand behind genocide, this, by the way, this is the majority opinion in this country and the world. Y'all have the minority opinion here. Must feel a little bizarre for some of y'all to be a minority. This context is worse because of what it means for the people of Jacksonville that want to voice their opinion and take a stand. It's been almost a year since my friends were brutalized by JSO. It's been over a year since Charles Faggart was murdered by JSO. It's been over two years of an ongoing genocide. When will y'all take a stand? How many more people need to get arrested? How many more people need to get brutalized? How many more people need to die? Leah's trial is tomorrow at 9 a.m. Connor's trial is on the 28th at 9 a.m. I urge folks in this room that stand for a free Jacksonville and for a free Palestine to join us in support. Drop the charges. Free Palestine. Next speaker, I believe this is Kaya Cooney. And then the five after that come on down. Connor Cavley, Ashley McKenzie, Clarence Maximus Cassius, I believe that is. Sarah Posey and Ashley Chapman. Kaya Cooney. Hi, I'm Kaya Cooney. My address is on file. I've heard a lot of good arguments about why the treatment of the three people who were arrested last year is unfair and why these trials and why these trials are just a way to punish them without actually convicting them of a crime. But I know we are a practical group of people. Your job is to take money on one end and decide where it goes on the other. So I have put together a list of some better uses of the cost of putting these three sham trials in place. We could fill in 1,500 potholes in the city. We could pay for 37,500 school lunches, 5,000 bus stop benches, 35,885 gallons of gas, 653 wheelchairs. City council pay amounting to 10,714 hours, 7,500 clown makeup kits, all items in $15 to $20 general stores, one quarter of the budget of the film Napoleon Dynamite, and approximately one Playboy Cardi feature if you were to produce a hip-hop track. Thank you. That is all. Connor Cavley. Connor Cavley, address on file. So almost a year ago, myself, Leah, and Dragon were brutally arrested and dragged out of these council chambers simply for speaking out against the ongoing genocide in Palestine. I am currently facing two trumped-up felonies. I did not commit, each carrying a maximum sentence of five years each. I'm here today to remind city council that you not only remain complicit in this clear case of political repression, but that you also remain complicit in said genocide through Resolution 0742, which you have yet to rescind. I'm also here to remind the people who have come here today to have their voices heard that this threat of violent removal for disagreeing with the council extends beyond just the anti-war movement. Just two weeks prior to my arrest, the family of Charles Faggart was removed for demanding his justice, and two weeks after, Miss Lydia Bell was threatened with removal for speaking out against the redlining of Brentwood. The way this council treats their constituents is horrid and disgusting and should not be tolerated by the people. Chaki Arla is an Irish phrase that means our day will come, and sure enough, no matter how many times you share my mugshot on y'all's Facebooks, y'all's day will come to an end, and the day of the working and marginalized people of Jacksonville will come to fruition. I unite with the JCAC's demands for a mental health response team, and I want to invite everyone in this room to come to my trial on the 28th, not only to support myself, but to join us in the struggle and fight against the repression of all of our voices. Chaki Arla, Free Palestine. Council Member Polisa would like to speak to you in the green room. Ashley McKenzie. My name is Ashley McKenzie. My address is on file. On May 27th, 2025, the city council decided to deploy JSO to target, brutalize, and arrest three of our beloved community members in a clear act of political repression as they advocated in support of the Palestinian people amidst an escalated genocide. During the brutalizations, an officer permanently injured Leah's wrist, and another threw Connor by his neck over a row of chairs. Dragon was arrested for merely being a concerned friend. The implications of these actions are grim. They mean that this council believes it is above accountability. You ban clapping and showing signs of support because a unified room of constituents terrifies you. You don't want to hear speech against you backed by a whole community because that signifies your facade of invincibility is crumbling. This commitment to cowardly actions means you see JSO as your personal enforcement arm. The fact that city council continues to allow officers with a history of violent misconduct and domestic violence charges to monitor chambers to keep us safe is beyond shameful in a clear attempt at political intimidation. But let our presence here tonight serve as a reminder that we are not afraid of you. The true power here lies in the hands of every single working class person sitting behind me who comes out each and every week to confront your corruption in these chambers. It's evident that none of you have interest in the will of your constituents. You ignored protests against the Brentwood Morgue, the first in America built in a residential neighborhood, a historically black neighborhood. You're wasting a billion dollars on a new jail instead of allocating that money to providing affordable housing, supporting food programs, or repairing what already exists. You also pledged allegiance to a genocidal entity before listening to a single person in this chamber as we campaigned against your pro-Israel resolution for over two years. May 27th was not an accident. It was an expected conclusion of a council that silences dissent, weaponizes police, and punishes those who refuse to be quiet. Leah's trial is tomorrow, April 15th at 9 a.m. Connor's is April 28th. We will be at the courthouse, and we will keep this fight raging until the charges are dropped. Free Palestine. Next up is Clarence Long Maximus Cassius. Okay, I'll call that again later. Sarah Posey. My name is Sarah Posey. My address is on file. As I was walking up, I noticed Peluso and I actually have the same water bottle. I guess I'll burn it. I'm with the Jacksonville-Palestine Solidarity Network. On May 27th, 2025, City Council allowed JSO to brutally arrest three organizers and community members for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech here in this room. I stand before you today concerned that you are normalizing silencing your constituents' voices as an act of political repression. Whether it be through ignoring us when we bring our demands for a ceasefire resolution. Failing to meet our eyes when we bring hundreds of pages filled with the names of Palestinians murdered in the ongoing genocide. Concerned that you would rather let your constituents be brutalized in your chambers at your command before you would let their words change your mind. Because you are that afraid of finding out that you might have been wrong all this time. This is the definition of bigotry. You claim you want your chambers to feel safe. In my experience, the safest places are filled with resources to meet my needs and filled with people who I trust. Neither of which you have provided. You have nearly unlimited power to enact legislation that will actually meet the needs for our community. And what I need is to not be falsely represented by my council members, who to this day maintain that Jacksonville supports a genocidal state. And as for trust, you don't build trust by allowing your constituents to be brutalized in your chambers for the simple act of clapping. And then tweet about it an hour later saying things like hashtag back the blue and hashtag FAFO, which is an acronym for fuck around and find out. These arrests were clear. That would be your final warning for language, even though you only have nine seconds. I yield the rest of my time. Free Palestine. Next up, Ashley Chapman. And then the four final speakers, please come on down. Charlie Bender, Jake Jacobs, John Nooney, and Caroline Schultz. Ashley. Ashley Chapman. Address is on file here at the Jacksonville Community Action Committee. Far too many times, members of our community have called the police, trusting that they would serve and protect their loved ones undergoing a mental episode. Instead, the police arrived and murdered the person they were called to help. People like Brian Gillis, a 30-year-old with a documented history of mental health struggles, who was killed by JSO. People like Jose Cabrera, also with a known history of mental illness, who was killed in his own son's yard. Tell me how one mentally ill 62-year-old in flip-flops is a deadly threat to three heavily armed officers. His daughter said, he has his good days and his bad days, but mental illness means there's nothing for sure. His son said, I break right now. Why'd you shoot my dad? Why'd you kill him? Why'd you shoot him? JSO has proven themselves to be fundamentally inequipped to deal with these matters. This is why we have an urgent, immediate need for an emergency mental health response team. You have all deemed it fit to spend $750,000 on a survey simply to decide where to put a jail, much less to build it, instead of investing in infrastructure that keeps people out of it. Furthermore, I implore you to join us in asking the charges to be dropped on Connor, Leah, and Dragon. To all those listening, if you can be arrested for speaking up in public comment, every person here is a suspect, and all of us are at risk. Thank you. Charlie Bender. My name is Charlie Bender. I live at 13833 Fourwinds Court in Holiday Harbor. My family has lived on Hogpen Creek since 1968. When I was nine years old, we moved there. I'm 67 now. And I fished on that, sailed on that, swam in that creek. It was a wonderful, wonderful waterway. Eleven years ago, my wife and I bought our family property and moved back. And we noticed a big difference. Since the inception of the Sandalwood Canal, the waterway has not been the same. We don't see the wildlife, rarely see manatees anymore that we used to see all the time. Five years ago, the sediment that was filling in the creek had accelerated greatly with the expansion of the Sandalwood Canal. The north end of the creek in our canal is now completely sanded in. It's not coming from the intercoastal. It's coming from the Sandalwood Canal. I am advocating and asking the council to put forth the funds on your expenditures to make sure that a proper environmental study is done to assess exactly what damage the Sandalwood Canal has done and is continuing to do to our wildlife and our environment. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Jake Jacobs. Good evening. My name is Jake Jacobs from 14155 Pine Island Drive, Hogpen Creek. I would like to ask all of my neighbors that came here today to stand up so that the council can see who you are. Thank you. I want to thank Councilman Amaro for meeting with me today to discuss this very topic. The sediment buildup in Hogpen Creek has been identified as a concern, but the underlying causes have not been fully analyzed or quantified. There are multiple factors that influence the sediment movement, and each of you should have received this deck, which I'm reading from. But you can see there's, number one, the Sandalwood Canal instability, number two, the stormwater runoff from developed areas such as San Pablo Road, and number three, in-channel disturbances such as the work that was done by JEA in 2013 to 2018 and in 2023. The gentleman still standing, please have a seat. That's considered a display right there. Thank you. Without a watershed level analysis, the city lacks the information needed to determine the primary sources of sediment or develop effective long-term solutions. A comprehensive watershed analysis is the standard method for evaluating these types of systems. If you look through this deck, you can see just how significant this problem is. The Sandalwood Canal is an 11 square mile, just over 7,000 acres. I put a map in there so you can visually see what this is. It's draining 4.5 million cubic feet of water per rainfall with one inch of water. There is documented erosion to the Sandalwood Canal. Thank you, sir. Next up is John Nene. Hello. You know, there's a Waterways Commission meeting tomorrow at 9.30. You know, so I hope they show up. There. I am John Philanthropic, Jelly Roll, Good Boy, Resiliency Noonie, 8356 Baskin Road, Jacksonville, Florida, 3216. I'm in City Council District 4, CPAC, Planning District 3, Rosemary Waslowski. School Board District 3, Cindy Pearson, 2025-0867, 2024-0107, 2024-0325. Look them up. It's evidence. Governor Ron DeSantis, Pardon Noonie, FWC, Fishing with Corrections. Now, the next topic, you know, at a recent Ethics Commission meeting, I asked. We have six CPACs representing the entire city of Jacksonville, the MDC, Mayor's Disability Council, the Council on Elder Affairs, Senior Citizen Gang. Why is OGC not represented at these meetings? Right now, CPAC meetings. Here's three that I went to, the North District, Southeast District. I'm in that one. It's probably the worst. Then the Urban Corps. Well, here's JTA, and here's JEA, only down to about 50-some seconds. But what I wanted to share with you, JTA, public transportation. Anyone that's attending, representing JTA, needs to go to these senior citizens using public transportation. If you can't do that and then report back, then don't sign up for it. Okay, just down to like 20-some seconds, JEA, you know, they're not even on the agendas. And let me just say with JEA, always remember the River Accord. And, you know, right there, that's public access, you know, septic tanks. You know, just down to 12 seconds. But public access on our waterways, it's the worst ever. But FWC, Fishing with Crady, the George Crady Bridge. You know, FWC, 2026-0024, Fishing with Clara. Hi, my name is Caroline Schultz. My address is on file. I'm a member of the Jacksonville-Palestine Solidarity Network. It sounds like you guys care about kids because you're over here claiming more than $300,000 to put up baby donation boxes around town. So I'm assuming you do. But it's pretty selective, right? Just the local kids, just the white kids you care about. You can think about local kids, but you can't think about kids in Palestine. We come in here week after week for over two years to demand for you to sign our ceasefire resolution. Your eyes glaze over. You play games on your cell phones. You eat snacks. You excuse yourself from the dais. Instead, you all have claimed allegiance to a genocidal foreign entity committing treason for the whole city to see. I know you see the images of an entire people being ethnically cleansed and genocided, bombed, being starved, being tortured. You can't ignore it. You see the images of parents picking up the remains of their little babies in plastic bags. What if that was here in Jacksonville? What if that was the little pieces of Monroe's, the little Jack's, the little Christie's, having to be picked up by their parents in public grocery bags? Would you care then? Speaking of selective, let's talk about city council's history of selectively using arbitrary conduct rules, forced removals, shortened speaking times, and arrests to silence community members who are speaking up against the wrongs of this world. You are silencing dissent and ignoring the will of your constituents, the ones you work for. First, it was passing new rules about clapping or showing any type of support for speakers. Now you are sickening JSO, violent, brutal JSO officers on the people. All right. Point of water, Mr. Johnson. Johnson, what's your point of water? About what? Mr. President, I'm sorry to interrupt this young lady here, and I just have to say this body, we cannot say the names of children here, especially the children of the members of this body. They did not sign up for this, and especially in this context, this is incorrect, and I do believe the speaker does need to be not removed, but your remarks must, through the president, I'm sorry. I don't. The remarks should be culled at this time, please. All right. I'll agree with that. You can be seated. I don't know your kids. Thank you, ma'am. Your time is done. I'm going to call this name again. He did wish to speak, but he did not come up. Clarence Long Maximus Cassius, I believe, is that person here. Okay. Mr. President, that concludes all those wishing to speak. I'm going to read some of those that do not wish to speak and read them into the record. Mary Stafford, please continue to research closely school consolidations. Ann Turner, please do not build a football stadium next to my subdivision. She's from the 32246 area code. Margaret Hall, opposed to stadium being built near UNF. Catherine Del Rio, 2026-0186. She supports baby boxes. Deb Hitchcock, yes to baby box, no to the new soccer stadium. Michelle Dumars, police accountability, justice for mental health victims who were killed from lack of proper care. Kari Cooper, Grady Bridge. Faith Elliott, citizens have a right to free speech and to protest. And Marco Zazelli dropped the charges on Connor, Leah, and Dragon. This concludes our public comment. And it is now time for our public hearings, beginning on page 16. Council members should declare any ex parte communications, and anyone wishing to speak on the following bill should have completed a blue speaker card, and you will be allowed three minutes to speak. You may state your address is on record, but you're encouraged to be more specific with your location, as that may impact the weight given to your comments. Like public comment, a speaker may be invited to the green room for further discussion at a council member's discretion. Mr. Thiel, please read the bills. 2026-005, 140, 170, 174, 175, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 248, 249, 226-006, 7, 22, 23, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, and 169. We can open up all these public hearings. I'm 2026-0005. I have one speaker card, Mr. John Nooney. Mr. Nooney, you filled out a lot of cards tonight. Please speak directly to the bill of which you're coming up for. That is 2026-0005. Hello. I am John J. Nooney, Jacksonville City Council Resolution 2023-0819. I'm in City Council District 4, CPAC 3, School Board District 3. The reason I wanted to fill this out- Address, Mr. Nooney. Yep, 8356 Baskin Road. Thank you. was when this went through the committee process, you know, here's the CPAC meeting that I was at, and the CPAC wanted a resolution, and this could have been deferred. And the reason I just want to speak at it was that it was said through the committee process that people could come here. I don't know if Mr. Smith is here, the chair, or anybody, you know, from the CPACs. And, but I just want to be on the record for this. This is just one of dozens of examples. You know, with these CPACs, you know, OGC is not there. It is completely off the charts with stuff. So, anyway, that's, you know, I just wanted to speak to it, because through the committee process, it was said, this is a public hearing. You get one more turn. It could have been easily deferred so that the CPAC resolution would then at least have some meaning. All right, thank you for listening. I have no more speaker cards. All right, so public hearing is closed. Mr. President, I have an amendment. It's the floor leader amendment that has been passed around to everyone. I move the amendment, if I can get a second. We've got a motion second on the floor leader amendment. I will have Ms. Tafopoulos explain this technical amendment. Thank you. Through the President to the Council, so there is a summary of this floor amendment on your blue sheet in the instance you want to refer to it. It was a technical cleanup after we went through the committee process. The Neighborhoods Committee had approved an amendment that addressed the fact that there were additional property owners that were identified and then noticed, and when we initially drafted that amendment coming out of neighborhoods, originally the split was eight initial property owners were noticed, and then two were thereafter noticed. When we identified those two additional, we identified that there were actually three property owners that were noticed on the second round and seven that were noticed on the first round. So it's everything that was approved through the Neighborhoods Amendment with the change that was seven initial property owners that were noticed and three additional that were noticed the second round. All right. Dr. Johnson on the amendment? I just wanted to say, and this actually is on the bill, Mr. President. I'll wait. I'll wait. All right. No one else in the queue? All in favor of the floor amendment? Signify by saying aye. Aye. And you oppose say nay. The amendment passes. Move the bill as amended. Got a motion second on the bill as amended. Dr. Johnson, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise for this quickly to say in TEU, this was discussed, and I know it was brought up in public hearing that it needed to go back to the CPAC, but the CPAC chair was here at the time, and we have not, from my understanding, there's not been a communication from the CPAC, but the chair did go back and share the information with the CPAC, so all of that information was, and if there were any objections, the chair did let us know that the CPAC would bring it up to us. Thank you. Wrong bill. All right. So we're going to go ahead and vote, unless Ms. Clark Murray would like to speak. You're recognized. Thank you. Through the chair, through the president, to Councilmember Johnson, this is the wrong bill. The other bill, it's the other bill. So please just disregard what Councilmember Johnson said, because it refers to another bill. Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you. All right. So we have passed the floor amendment on this bill, and we'll go ahead and open the ballot, record your vote. 19 yays, zero nays. By your action, you approve 2026-0005 as amended. I'm 29-2029-140. I have seven speaker cards. For that wish to speak, come on down. Mr. Tony Langels, Kathleen Pereira, Blake Harper, and Jerry Woodham. And then while they're coming down, I'm going to read the do not wish to speak. Deb Hitchcock opposes this ordinance, as does Catherine Del Rey and Ann Martin. Those three all oppose this ordinance. Mr. Langels, go ahead. Good evening, everyone. My name is Tony Langels. Address is on file. It won't take me very long to address this issue. I'll just make it short and quick. Per ordinance 2026-0140 to rename Confederate Street to Rose Arbor Way, at least to pick the colorful name to rename the street. I'll give you that. I do not want my taxpayer's money spent in this fashion. The councilman is using the name change to erase the Civil War history to reshape the Civil War narrative of our city. Confederate Street has been a part of Jacksonville's history for years. Let's keep it that way. Let's not change it. So vote no on this name change for 0140. Thank you. Thank you. Kathleen Pereira. My name is Kathleen Pereira. My information is on file. There is no need to change any of our streets' names, but there is a need to fix the potholes in our streets. Stop wasting our resources on such virtual signaling to eradicate our history. Good, bad, or indifferent, our history is our history. Its main job is to remind everyone to strive on improving ourselves from the lessons learned from controversial times. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Blake Harper. Blake Harper, information on file. Well, I have been working to protect the history of Jacksonville for over three years. Every time the issue has come up about protecting the history of Jacksonville, you all have made the wrong decision. When you've had the opportunity to make the right decision, you haven't taken it. The reality of it is that history for a nation is like your memory and your personality. We're 250 years old. We're not perfect. But we are the single greatest nation that's ever been on this earth. We've had mistakes. One of the things, we've made mistakes. We started out in a world of slavery, in a world of oppression and darkness. We understood that we needed to fix that. And we worked on it. 600,000 people, their lives were lost. And then in the compromise of 1877, all those lives were washed down the drain when the Democrat Party reestablished economic and political slavery in the South. To me, this isn't about the Civil War. To me, this is about what happened. There's a narrative out there which is absolutely false. I keep on reciting Joseph Goebbels and Saul Alinsky. Tell a lie often enough, it becomes a truth. You might even actually believe it yourself. That's exactly what's happened. I asked the question, what would the other side of this conversation say if somebody wanted to change a name that had something to do with their side of the conversation because they didn't like it? Would you all go along with that? What kind of a precedence are you setting here? Because somebody doesn't like something? The facts are the facts. They're uncontroverted. This is a long-standing street. The thing about this nation is we have learned from our history. We need to keep that history in mind. We aren't the same nation today that we were in the year I was born when a gentleman wrote Color, Communism, and Common Sense, but we were a black and white nation. We are no longer a black and white nation. We're integrated. We're a multicultural nation of many colors and hues. And that's a great success. And so when you start to remove the point of our beginning, then you start to diminish that success. And you start to diminish the reality of how great this nation is. Indeed, as we were talking about with the 250th celebration, they're trying to destroy our history, our nation, the foundation of it. And this is a small part of it. Please make the right decision. Thank you. Next up, Ms. Jerry Woodham, and then John Nooney will be after Ms. Woodham. So come on down where... Oh, there you are. Ms. Woodham. Chaplain Jerry Woodham, address on file. I stand here tonight to tell you to not fall for a long-held tactic of communism, destroying history. Wipe out any remnant of it. We are a town that had Confederate and Yankees fighting against one another in a terrible war. We can't change that. But we can learn from it. From 1862 to 1865, there were 11 states referred to as the Southern Confederate. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Did you hear that? Florida. You can't change that history. Children can learn about the good, the bad, and the ugly. If children don't learn history, we're apt to repeat it. Keeping the name Confederate is merely just conserving history. It is not condoning the slavery, but it is a reminder to never go down that path again. The Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal. So we should remember that on God's law, once we are forgiven by Christ, we are all one family. Only people that want to cause division want to destroy our history. Why did communists do it? So they can replace our history with their own version. So stand for the truth and vote no on 2026-0140. We must protect our history. And lastly, what does it cost to change the name of a street? John Nooney. Hello. My name is John Nooney. Name and address is on file. I just want to apologize. I had the bill number wrong. But I did want to speak on this. And really, it's more of just a point of order with the process, with all these CPACs. Like I said, there's dozens of examples. But I just want to say or just speak to this. Again, it was the, you know, on the agenda, it wasn't even on the agenda, but they talked about it at the meeting. And then they voted on something. So I just, again, want to be on the record with this. And there are so many other examples with these CPACs. So that's really what I just wanted to talk about. And again, I apologize for that. Mr. Diney, I think you forgot your address again. Can you just say it's on file? Well, I said it was on file. Thank you. I have no more speaker cards. All right. So do you have the amendment? Yes, I moved the TEU amendment. I believe you need to close the phone here. Sorry. I moved the TEU amendment. Motion and second on the TEU amendment. Dr. Johnson is having a conversation out there. Councilwoman Clark Murray, you're recognized on the amendment. Yes. Thank you. So the, to the president, to the council. So the amendment was proposed as a, you know, a compromise in a sense for changing, instead of the entire street, a portion of the street. And so those of us who are on neighborhoods, we thought that that was very fair to do so because if a person lives on a particular street, which most of the people who come, who came to the podium, they don't live on the street, they pay their money, the fee, and they want the name of their street changed, they have the right to do so. And they went through the proper procedure to do so. So with that being said, they should be able to change the name of the street where they have property to the name that they're choosing, as long as it's not vulgar and it doesn't, it's not in any way illegitimate or break any laws. So with that being said, everyone should pass this amendment. And if, through the, to the president, may I call up Ms. Pollack for a moment? Yep. You still have some time? Ms. Pollack, if you would come forward. Because there have been many things that have been said this evening that are not true. And as I stated earlier, it's amazing how everyone is speaking for the street except for those who live on the street. So we know that this street has two halves in a sense. It's not a straight road. It has one portion that is near the park that parallels the park, Springfield Park. And there's another portion that's more businesslike. So through the, through the president to Ms. Pollack, would you first of all, because there have been many things said in regards to the history of this road. And I did read and I'm hoping that I read correctly. What was the original name of this road? And it was in your report. Do you remember the, recall the original name? Cherry Pollack, Office of General Counsel and the Historic Preservation, through the chair to a council member, Clark Murray, the Historic Preservation Commission issued a report. And that is in the, in the documents. And I believe that the original name was indeed Confederate Street, as mentioned in the report. And so they did their, um, they did a review and they recommended, they voted to change the name of Confederate Street. And do you recall the time, what, what, what year or what time frame was that? That it wasn't during the, during the Confederate war. I think it was in the eight, I have the minutes here. I have to just go through the minutes. Go ahead. Because. Of the HPC, uh, the minutes. Well, within the time that I have. Because I, I did read that it was called maybe Lincoln Way or Lincoln Street at one time. And so it was changed to Confederate Street. Because I, I did my reading, but I didn't read it recently. So it's, it's tough for me to recall right now. But thank you, Ms. Pollack, for that just very briefly. But the point that I'm making is this. If someone lives on a road and has property on a road, they should have the right to change the name of the road. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Dr. Johnson, you coming back? All right. Dr. Johnson on the amendment, then Dr. Salem. Not on the amendment? All right. Dr. Salem on the amendment. Thank you, Mr. President. I am familiar with the neighborhood amendment and voted against it in committee. I am not familiar, I apologize, on the TEU amendment. How does that differ from the neighborhood amendment? Through the chair to, to Mary. Through the president to Councilmember Salem. So the, you recall the neighborhoods committee, the primary aspect of their amendment was it, instead of renaming the entirety of Confederate Street, it's renaming the portion between Market Street and Liberty Street. When the item was marked for the subsequent committee agenda and rules, it reflected a waiver of a provision of the code where it, it would provide that because you were only doing a portion of the street to be renamed, it inserted in the amendment that it included a waiver of the code provision because otherwise the code says you have to rename the entirety of the street. However, upon further review, Ms. Schell looked at it as well as Ms. Pollack. They determined because Confederate Street is not contiguous, that waiver was not necessary. So the only thing that the TEU amendment did was take the waiver out that was added as part of the neighborhood's amendment. Everything else remains the same. So it's essentially the neighborhood amendment. It is. The TEU amendment. Correct. Okay. I just want to make sure I know what I'm voting against. Thank you. All right. All in favor of the amendment. Let's do a show of hands. The amendment passes. I move the bill as amended. I have a motion and second on the bill as amended. Dr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. President. And I got a little discombobulated on the other bill, and Mr. Teal got me. We're dealing with another issue. But I want to say here quickly with this, as it stands, I'm going to repeat what I said, but I also want to explain and share one of the reasons that I had some trepidation with this. Number one, as I said earlier, the CPAC chair was at our meeting in TEU. And I do believe had there been any kind of objection, we'd have got something back from them. And I hadn't seen anything to that respect in my email or to our offices. So I think that they're okay with this. Number two, I voted no on this in committee. I was the only one to do that. And let me explain why. While I will probably support this bill tonight, my reason for voting no is because I think if we're going to do something, I don't want to be performative about it. If we're going to rename the street, even though the street is not contiguous, I don't believe we should do portions of it. If we're going to do it, let's do the whole thing and let's not do it at all. And so that was my reason for voting no, because I really, while I do understand that it was a concession and that only a part of the street was named, I do believe this is an opportunity to move forward. And as I shared with one of the emails I got, I try to return all the emails I get. But as I explained to them, it's not about erasing history, but it's about preserving dignity. You cannot erase history. That's impossible. But what we can do is work to the aspirational needs of our community today. And I believe that's what renaming this does. So I do not believe that we should do just portions of it, but I will am highly likely to support this tonight. Thank you for letting me share that, Mr. President. All right. There is no one else in the queue. Please open the bell and record your vote. 11 yays, 8 nays. By interaction, you've approved 2026.01-0140. And Council Member Pelluso, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank this body for putting this bill up. And I genuinely want to thank, through the President, to Council Member Boylan. I know this was a tough one for a lot of folks. This was not about me or my great initiative by any means. It's because DESC asked for this and we want to respect them. And I genuinely appreciate you doing the good work, uh, in the committee process. Um, this was a, this was a, uh, it's not ideal, but in this body and, and given, given where we are, I want to be, I want to show gratefulness when, when it's due. So, so thank you, sir. And thank you to this body. All right. Thank you very much. Mr. Floor Leader. I'm 30, 20, 26, 1, 7, 0. I have no speaker cards. Public hearings closed. I'm 31, 20, 26, 1, 7, 4. I have one speaker card. Questions only. Mr. Austin Roboshka. Public hearings closed. I move the amendment. I have a motion and a second on the amendment. No one's in the queue. All in favor of the amendment. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed to say nay. The amendment carries. I re-refer as amended. I have a motion and a second on the re-refer as amended. No one's in the queue. Please open the ballot. Record your vote. 19 yeas, 0 nays. By your action, you've amended and re-referred. 20, 26, 0, 1, 7, 4. I'm 32, 20, 26, 1, 7, 5. I have one speaker card. Austin Roboshka. Questions only. Public hearings closed. I move the amendment. Got a motion and a second on the amendment. No one's in the queue. All in favor of the amendment. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed to say nay. The amendment carries. I move to re-refer as amended. We've got a motion and a second on the re-refer as amended. No one's in the queue. Please open the ballot. Record your vote. 19 yeas, 0 nays. By your action, you've amended and re-referred. Referred. 20, 26, 0, 1, 7, 5. I'm 3, 3, 3, 4, 20, 26, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2. I have no speaker cards. These public hearings are closed. I'm 3, 5, 20, 26, 2, 1, 3. I have one speaker card. John Nooney. Hello. I am John J. Nooney. Jacksonville City Council Resolution, 20, 23, 0, 8, 1, 9. And City Council District 4, CPAC Planning District 3, School Board District 3. All right. This ordinance, 20, 26, 0, 2, 1, 3. You know, it's a balanced budget stabilization reserve. What we're going to do, we're going to be changing the process for when general fund, general service distribution unsigned fund balances increases to fund future financial obligations. I mean, this is some good stuff. I mean, you know, that sounds like some RAP legislation to me, you know, and you all know what that's an acronym for, R-A-P. Okay. That's Renegades at Pottsburg Creek. That's your nanny. I'm in. No, it's, no, this is going to be, it's in rules, finance, you know, it's not neighborhoods or waterways. But, you know, this is some real CIP stuff, you know, our capital improvement projects. You know, I can't help but think of 2025, 0867. And, you know, Wendy Kahn, you know, Office of Economic Development, that's CIP. No, what we're doing is, this is going to be funding future financial obligations. What an unbelievable opportunity, you know, for legislative leadership, you know, with this body. So, FWC, you know, financing with council. I'm in. All right. Thank you. I have no more speaker cards. Public hearing slow. I'm 36, 20, 26, 2, 1, 4. I have one speaker card. I believe this is Shanice Dunham. Good evening. Thank you for coming here. My name is Shanice Dunham. I don't know if I'm supposed to say my address is on file because it's on that paper, or do I still need to say it? I still need to say it? You can say address is on file. Okay, my address is on file. So, I came to speak because I recently attended a housing symposium at the main library. I believe Councilman Peluso was there. There were many organizations that addressed our affordability crisis in Jacksonville, but what stood out to me was that the access to a lot of the resources. It shows that we have a lot of major barriers for the people who actually need those resources, the low and extremely low citizens of Jacksonville. There's a lot of technical language that a lot of these residents probably don't know or understand, and they're dealing with already high daily stress. So, I just wanted to make sure that we're understanding what the United Way 211, because this program, we just want to make sure that they're addressing those real-world barriers that the low and extremely low residents are facing. Just to make sure that when we discuss this with the mayor's office and the city, we're simplifying the navigation for these citizens, reducing the friction for them to access those resources, and ensuring that the people in these high-stress situations can actually connect and see the success. I also just wanted to pose these questions for the council. Are there any follow-up referrals to see if these resources are actually being helpful? Is there a support for the people who struggle with the applications or any of the documentation that's required during the process? And also, is there any plain language or accessibility being addressed for those citizens who face those barriers? That's all. Thank you. Public hearings closed. I'm 37, 38, 20, 26, 215, 217. No speaker cards. These public hearings are both closed. I'm 39, 20, 26, 218. One speaker card. John Nooney. Name and address, Mr. Nooney. All right. My name is John Nooney. Name and address is on file. All right. Now, this one, you know, this is, you know, DIA stuff, and all I just want to just say on this is just going to the Urban Corps CPAC. You know, we have 20, 26, 0, 0, 0, 0, 4. Excuse me. Yeah, that one. And 20, 26, 0, 0, 2, 4. But, again, you know, it's, I just want to speak on this. You know, you got a DIA board meeting tomorrow. You know, and the Urban Corps CPAC. All right. Thank you. I have no more speaker cards. Public hearings closed. Item 40, 20, 26, 219. One speaker card. John Nooney. My name is John Nooney. Name and address is on file. You know, again, this is another one of these where, you know, a DIA board meeting tomorrow, too. But is this also, you know, with the Urban Corps CPACs? You know, and it's not just this one. Like I said, it's all six of them. So, anyway, I just wanted to, you know, just have that on the record. Thank you. No more speaker cards. Public hearings closed. Item 41, 42, 43, 20, 26, 220, 221, 222. No speaker cards. Public hearings are closed. Item 44, 20, 26, 223. One speaker card. John Nooney. Hello. I am John J. Nooney, Jacksonville City Council Resolution 2023-0819. I'm in City Council District 4, CPAC 3, School Board District 3. All right. Now, this is a happy bill. I mean, this is a good one. Okay. We're, you know, DIA. I mean, we're expanding the drinking zone. I got my Guinness shirt on, FWC. You know, it's a spin-off of Fish and Wildlife Commission. But in this case, it's fishing with cocktails. And I'll tell you. And tomorrow, like I said, we got DIA board meeting. You know, FWC, fishing with Colin. You know, DIA, downtown includes alcohol. And, you know, again, at the Urban Core CPAC meeting, they wanted this, you know, why not make it citywide? And so, anyway, you know, I just wanted to get that on the record. I'm in, and, you know, just make it citywide. And send it to all the committees. It's in neighborhoods, rules. You know, send it to all of them. All right. Thank you. Your address is on file again. 8356, Baskin Road. Thank you. I also had one do not wish to speak. Ms. Jerry Woodham opposes this ordinance. Public hearing. No more speaker card. Public hearing is closed. Item 4546, 2026, 224, 225. No speaker card. These public hearing are closed. Item 472026, 226. One speaker card. John Nooney. All right. My name is John Nooney. Name and address is on file. Now, this one, you know, okay, we're appropriating $77,000 in grant funding from FWC. And here we go. The Waterfish Wildlife Commission. And, you know, my thing is, you know, we got waterways tomorrow. And this is, I mean, this is in everything. This is in neighborhoods, TEU, Finance, Waterways Commission. And so we have four. We're going to be disposing of four derelict vessels. And so, I mean, where are they now? I mean, is it in just one particular council district? I mean, I'm just curious about that. And, but anyway, no, I support it and just wanted to speak to it. Thank you. I have no more speaker cards. Public hearing is closed. Item 482026, 227. Seven speaker cards, none of which are John Nooney. Come on down. Ms. Kathleen Pereira, Mr. Blake Harper, Ms. Kathleen Murray. And then, Ms. Deb Hitchcock does not wish to speak, but opposes this. Catherine Del Rey does not wish to speak and supports this. I'm sorry, Ms. Deb Hitchcock supports this. So does Catherine Del Rey. And Martin also supports, but does not wish to speak. And Nancy Murray Settle opposes, does not wish to speak. Ms. Pereira. Yes, my name is Kathleen Pereira. My information is on file. I don't know if you all remember, but to paraphrase Chaplain Zimmerman, who spoke at our Invo vacation today, she said, everyone has a right to a good life. Our taxes are supposed to be used, again, for that common good, which means preserving life, not taking innocent life away. It's time to stop pretending that abortion is health care. It is the antithesis of health on many levels. The death of a helpless unborn child, the fatal wound to a mother's soul, and the further destruction of the family. And so this bill is necessary to make sure that the taxpayers should not be forced to be complicit with this, these things like abortion, nor with those who willfully and callously murder their responsibility. Please pass this bill. Thank you, Mr. Blake Harper. Blake Harper, information on file. First, a bit of legislative history. Reggie Gaffney Sr. put up a bill for Jacksonville taxpayers to pay travel expenses for city employees to go get abortions out of state. This is when the abortion amendment was up for a vote in the last election prior to that. So roundly offensive was that to the city of Jacksonville that Reggie Gaffney Sr. withdrew that bill. The city of Jacksonville very clearly understands how important life is. It understands how important, how wicked taking an unborn child out of a womb is, very simply. By the way, just a real quick comment. I didn't have a chance to speak on another bill that Mr. Diamond has put up. But I want to thank Mr. Diamond for putting up two very strong pro-life, protect unborn children, protect newborn children. That's a huge thing. And you will all do well to support these. So back to this. So why is it important that Mr. Diamond put this up? Well, this mayor has a record, a penchant, if you know, penchant, however you want to pronounce it, of deciding to do whatever the blank she wants to do, irrespective of what the codes say. Started with taking down the women of the Southland statue when she did not get a certificate of appropriateness. The hologram Donna thing was money taken out of parks. It was never supposed to be used for that. She decided that your veto wasn't relevant. Mr. Harper, we've got to get back to the bill a little bit. I am. I'm talking about it. But the reason for this, okay, the reason for this is because you have an executive who will try to do anything she can to pursue her agenda, even when she knows people don't want it. So this is a very important stopgap. So, again, Mr. Landon, I know the rules here, and I will speak to the necessity of a context, which is what this is. You have to put this boundary in place. The city of Jacksonville has spoken over and over again. We have a mayor who goes rogue. This is very important to do this. I wouldn't be surprised if the vote is along party lines, which it seems to be so often. This needs to pass, folks. We need to make sure that we protect unborn children. Thank you. Thank you. Kathleen Murray. Good evening. Kathleen Murray, Citizens Defending Freedom, Address on File, speaking in strong support of this ordinance to prohibit city funds from being used for abortions and related services. This is not a marginal budget decision. It is a question of whether public money should be used to fund the intentional ending of human life. At its core, the issue is simple but profound. A child in the womb is the same human life that child will be moments later outside the womb. The only difference is timing and location. When government crosses that line, citizens are compelled to financially participate in decisions that many deeply and conscientiously reject. This ordinance draws a clear boundary. City funds should support services that protect life, strengthen families, and provide real help for women in crisis without requiring taxpayers to fund abortion. And consistency is unavoidable. This council cannot affirm the value of an infant life through baby boxes designed to preserve and protect newborns in their most vulnerable moments, and then turn around and fund the intentional ending of the same human life. That is not nuanced policy distinction. It is a direct contradiction in how the value of life is applied. The distinction is not one of biology or humanity, but of decision, whether that life is protected or deliberately ended. That inconsistency cannot be reconciled while claiming to affirm the value of life in public policy. This is also about conscience, moral and religious. Citizens should not be forced to subsidize procedures that violate their most deeply held beliefs. That is foundational to fairness and trust in government. Every budget reflects values. The question is whether those values are consistent in affirming life and respecting the conscience of the people being taxed to fund it. Citizens Defending Freedom thanks the bill's sponsor and asks for the council's support of this measure. Thank you. Thank you. I have no more speaker cards. Is public hearings closed? Item 49-2026-248. I have one speaker card who does not wish to speak. Mr. John Nooney. He supports this. Public hearing is closed. I have no more speaker cards. Or I'm sorry. On item 50-2026-249. I have no speaker cards. Public hearing is closed. On page 24, which starts our public hearings on land use amendments and certain companion rezoning. Item 51-2026-0006. I have no speaker cards. Public hearing will be continued to 4-28-26. Item 52-2026-7. I have one speaker card. Shanice, I apologize. I cannot read this last name. I can read it on the last one, not this one. I apologize for that. That's okay. I just wanted to speak on this rezoning request. Name and address, please, ma'am. Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Shanice, and my address is on file. I understand that we need additional housing. I'm just concerned that if we continue to focus primarily on the single-family developments, it won't align with the affordability challenges or the current demographics in the city of Jacksonville. Right now, we're seeing an increasing demand for more diverse and attainable housing options, and a lower-density development can limit how many people are able to house in these high-need areas. I just wanted to make sure that the council takes into account that there needs to be a broader strategy for housing affordability and alternative housing types that would consider this. My last question is, at what point do we shift away from primarily single-family zoning as our default approach, given the current affordability pressures? Thank you. Thank you. I have no more speaker cards. Public hearings closed. I'm 53-2026-0. Sorry, public hearings continue to 4-28-26. I'm 53-2026-22. I have one speaker card, Mr. Mike Herzberg, who is questions only. Public hearings closed. I move the amendment. Motion to second on the amendment. No one's in the queue. All in favor of the amendment, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed to saying nay. The amendment carries. I move the bill as amended. Got a motion to second on the bill as amended. No one's in the queue. Please open the ballot. Record your vote. 18 yays, 0 nays. By your action, you have approved 2026-0022. Item 54-2026-23. One speaker card, Mike Herzberg, questions only. Public hearings closed. I move the bill. I have a motion to second on the bill. No one's in the queue. Please open the ballot. Record your vote. 18 yays, 0 nays. By your action, you have approved 2026-0023. On page 26, items 55-56, 2026-122, and 123, I have no speaker cards. Both items will be continued to 4-28-26. Item 57-2026-124, I have one speaker card, Bill Lewis. There are Bill Lewis in the crowd. Yep, I see him there. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're still here and wish to speak on a bill that hasn't come up yet, I would ask you to start moving, making your way down just so you can get to the podium faster. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Bill Lewis. I live at 8852 Ivy Mill Place South. I'm the president of the RAL or Civic Council, which August will be 25 years we've been in the organization. So I've just spent the last 20 minutes talking with the planning department about the traffic issue there, because the capacity on Collins Road is at 122% capacity, I believe, plus my notes. Anyway, hopefully we get that stuff resolved. And is there an explanation why this has been postponed or moved or added extra stuff, extra? After your time is up, we can have someone talk to you in the green room and give you that, but we don't really dialogue during the public comment section. So we'll get someone to answer that for you afterwards. Fair enough. We are in favor of this project because it's a lot better than 400 apartments and 100 townhomes like there was four years ago that got approved by city council. So like this, we're just concerned about the traffic on Collins Road going into an industrial business part. Thank you. Mr. Lewis, your council member, Council Member Johnson, would like to speak to you there. Thank you. I have no more speaker cards. This public hearing will be continued to 526. I have 58-2026-125. One speaker card, Mr. Bill Lewis, who is currently talking to his council member, Dr. Johnson. This public hearing will be continued to 526. I have 59-60-2026-126-127. No speaker cards. These public hearings will be continued until 428. I have 61-2026-128. I have seven speaker cards. Go ahead and come on down if you do wish to speak on this. It's a combination of those that wish to speak and those that do not. Herbert Ramsdell, come on down. He does wish to speak. So does Keith Langenberg. Jeremiah Dernberger also wishes to speak. Jane Ramsdell opposes but does not wish to speak. Kendall Lidita Peepers does not wish to speak but also opposes. Melvin Peepers opposes as well but does not wish to speak. And then Mike Herzberg does wish to speak. So let's see. The order I called them, I believe I called. Jeremiah Dernberger, Keith Langenberg, Herbert Ramsdell, and Mike Herzberg. Are you Mr. Ramsdell, sir? Yes. You can go ahead first then. My name is Herbert Ramsdell. My address is on file. Why do we have a 2045 comprehensive plan that outlines future land use and future land use maps? This was supposed to be a plan to manage future land use and development. You put this together. You voted for it. Why is the plan not good enough now in this instance? Why does the developer need a small-scale amendment? It is because he wants to do something that is not allowed in your plan. What good is a plan if we continue to allow developers to ignore it and get amendments? The 2045 comprehensive plan future land use element, I would call your attention to goal number one, policy 1.1.1. Objective 3.1, continue. The city shall continue to maintain adequate land-designated residential uses. The city shall eliminate compatible land uses, incompatible land uses. In this agenda alone, there are nine requests for small-scale amendments. Why do we even have a plan for the future? Your planning department has recommended denial of this request. It is obvious that the neighbors in the community recommend the same thing. The only reason you do not have a recommendation from CPAC 2 is because this land use ornament never was permitted or presented to the CPAC. It has been brought up that Southside Boulevard was built as an expressway and still operates as an expressway. This is a bending of the facts to meet the current narrative. My research indicates that Southside Boulevard has never been officially designated as an expressway. While it serves as a significant route for traffic, it does not meet the criteria typically associated with expressways. It also states that Southside Boulevard is one of the most accident-prone roads in Jacksonville. The agent of record also states that traffic on the boulevard is up 42 percent and on the service road up 33 percent. We already have people speeding on both boulevard and service roads, as well as totally ignoring stoplights, stop signs, and along the service road. How is this land use change going to help this by adding more traffic to the area? Please stop gaslighting the people. Stop destroying our neighborhoods, our residences, our homes, and our lives. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next up, Mr. Dernberger. And then Mr. Langenberg. And then Mr. Herzberg. All right. Jeremiah Dernberger, address on file. So what I've given there to pass around and take a look at is actually what, as I was trying to get ready to talk about this tonight, and actually last week before the LUZ, I was not able to attend the LUZ meeting, it's kind of the challenges that we have as the public to get the information that we need in order to form an opinion and express that opinion. And so on the legislative gateway, which is the first document here, screenshot from today and was also the same as last week, the only information that's available there is the bill and two exhibits, which were simply the description, the legal description of the land, which really doesn't tell us anything about the application, what's going on with that. And so trying to find that is where I went to the planning department's public view and the application to search there for the zoning applications and the land use application. And so when I actually searched for the ordinance number, whether it was 128 or 129, it says no applications are found. And so actually going in and using the map, which right now apparently has some difficulties with some pins being out in the middle of the ocean, but when I did go into the area of record here for Southside for this particular, this application, clicking on it, it gives me ordinance number 2026-0059, which is of course not the one that we're talking about. And so there is no way for us to maybe look at the application, understand more about what's going on when maybe our opinion may have been that we may actually have been in support of it, but we have no information in order to do that. And so, you know, with that being said, I'm going to have to stand with what the planning department's recommendation is at this point, which is denial. CPAC, as the previous speaker mentioned, was not given a chance to look at this, but probably also would have denied it based on the lack of information. So recommending that we reject this, but I also did want to point out these sort of process issues that we struggle with as citizens to try to understand what's going on so that we can make an opinion and speak to that, because we just can't get any information through what's available currently to the public on the website. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Langenberg. Keith Langenberg, address on file. Good evening, Council members. I want to respectfully respond to several claims made by the applicant at last week's LUZ meeting. I was there, and I opposed, and I spoke. Many of the claims do not reflect the reality of our neighborhood. In several statements, after research reflects conflicting statements. First, the developer or applicant referred to these homes as outdated relics, as part of the residential island. Excuse me. These homes were built in 1946 before Southside Boulevard was a dirt road, two-lane road, one way. Okay? They are not even an exception. They are the foundation of the community. Residential is the foundation of this community. The road came later. The neighborhood did not suddenly become inappropriate. The conditions around the residential homes became, they changed. Not sure about a residential island. There's 45 single homes going south to Boulevard and several going north. How can you call this an island? Second, we heard that single-family homes are no longer appropriate due to the current local traffic. But if Southside Boulevard is intended to function as a major corridor, then introducing businesses will only increase congestion, turning conflicts, turning conflicts, and access points, making traffic worse, not better. Third, the claim that homeowners cannot invest or achieve a positive return is simply not accurate. There's a strong demand in Jacksonville for housing, especially rentals. Older homes are being renovated, rebuilt, and repositioned every day. With these parcels, there is ample space to build further back from the road, improves the liability and value. It takes effort, but it's viable. Fourth, the argument that no permits happened in that area in 20 years on the east side or west side of Southside Boulevard is misleading. There's a brand-new house built several houses north of that. I guess this new building house didn't require a building permit? This new, brand-new house? A lack of permits does not mean lack of value. It reflects durability and longevity. Just asking. Finally, the statement that rezoning would have no impact is simply not realistic. Introducing business invites further encroachment, and once that line is crossed, it's very difficult to undo. I respectfully ask you to vote no and stand with the residents in Southside Estates. Thank you. Sir, next and last speaker, Mr. Mike Herzberg. Mr. President, members of the council, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today, and I do understand that neighborhoods... Mr. Herzberg, can you give us your name and address? My apologies. Mike Herzberg. Mr. Teal, can you start the clock for him, too? Your staff is handing out the stuff. Mike Herzberg, address is 12483 Aladdin Road. Sir, and ladies and gentlemen, this is an application to change the land use from LDR to BP along these parcels. As stated earlier, these parcels were originally developed in 1947, post-war and long before State Route 115, or Southside Boulevard, was completed by the Jacksonville Expressway Authority in 1963. As stated by the testimony provided just a few moments ago, this roadway really was a dirt road. However, it has, since 1963, run more than 10 miles in length from the Arlington Expressway at US-1, at the avenues, all the way back up to the Arlington Expressway, excuse me, from US-1. Construction began in the 1950s, so shortly after these homes were actually built, and it was intended as a bypass to avoid the then non-consolidated city of Jacksonville. It was built actually as an eight-lane super road intended to bypass the city, and it spurred development in the area. A lot has changed on Southside Boulevard, as you heard. A lot has changed in our city from going from dirt roads to a paved eight-lane road. Additionally, as you can see in the 1960s map that's on the front page of the handout that's coming around, the east side of the road was actually deemed to be a part of Southside Estates at that time. The west side was actually part of Holiday Hill. And I do understand that the residents' concern on the Southside Estates' side, being that that neighborhood was bisected, effectively, by this 200-foot right-of-way, which is Southside Boulevard. Let me make very clear that these are, in fact, FDOT Expressways. The city's comprehensive plan designates them as FDOT Expressways, and so does the FDOT. Furthermore, as you'll see on page three of the handout, the city's comprehensive plan divided the urban and suburban boundaries right down the middle of Southside Boulevard. So the properties on the west are in the urban area. The properties on the east are in the suburban area. So the comprehensive plan, which, as you all know from working with this, is a living, breathing document. It's not intended to be done. There will be changes to it, which is why you face land use and zoning changes on a regular basis. Again, that plan morphs and changes as our growth continues. You did hear a little bit about the traffic volumes, as I stated at LUZ. They now exceed 42,500 vehicles each day. You heard some testimony earlier about how busy the town center is. This segment is actually busier than any area of the town center, as calculated by the FDOT itself. So in 2010, they were around 30,000 vehicles per day. So that's up about 42% over the last 15 years. That's substantial. The city's roadway design classifications for the side streets, or the service roads, makes very clear that these are not local roads. These are service roads for the expressway. Traffic on that service road well exceeds a local count. In other words, according to the comprehensive plan, a local road is deemed to be a road with less than 1,450 vehicles per day. We're well over 2,000 vehicles per day along here. And most of that, or a lot of that growth occurring over the past five years. Council members, I won't go through all of the policies. I'd ask you to look at the- Yeah, Mr. Harris, all the time there, Mr. Herzberg. Sorry, sir? Time's up. Thank you. I'll ask you to look at the policies on the back page. Thank you. I have no more speaker cards. All right. This public hearing is closed. I move the bill. Motion second on the bill. Council Member Peluso. Thank you, Mr. President. I stand to declare ex parte. I received- We're not on the- That's the next bill. Yeah, we're on the land use. We'll do the ex parte next. On the zoning, there's no one in the queue. Please open the ballot. Record your vote. 12 yays, 6 nays. By your action, you've approved 2026-0128. I'm 62-2026-129. And I have eight speaker cards, a combination of those that wish to speak and those that don't. Herbert Ramsdell, come on down. You do wish to speak. Commander Wayne Van Dorn does wish to speak as well. Keith Langenberg does wish to speak. Mike Herzberg wishes to speak. Candel Ladea Peepers also wishes to speak. And so does Jeremiah Dernberger. Those that do not wish to speak, Jane Ramsdell opposes this. And Melvin Peepers also opposes this. And neither of them wish to speak. Go ahead, sir. My name is Herbert Ramsdell. My address is on file. On this agenda item, I see that the Planning Department recommends denial. The Planning Commission approved. But what I didn't see on this agenda item was the recommendation from the Greater Arlington and Beaches CPAC. This begs the question, do the members of the council have a copy of this communication from CPAC 2 recommending denial for this ordinance? You have recommended from your Planning Department, you have a recommendation from your Planning Department to deny, and they have told you why. You have a recommendation from CPAC 2 to deny. Recommendation from CPAC comes from the neighbors expressing their concerns relating to this rezoning. Your experts say no. People who have skin in this game say no. But people we do not get to vote for and people we do not, that do not have skin in this game say yes. We are incessantly bombarded with reasons for rezoning projects that say we have a housing shortage, that we need thousands more residential properties in the next few years. Yet we have four residential properties here that the developer wants to obliterate to build an industrial business park. This means destroying trees and thus destroying the environment, increasing traffic in an already challenging traffic area, thereby increasing safety risks along the roadway. That is already considered to be one of the most accident-prone roadways in Jacksonville. First, one property, then a second, now four more, then more, then more, and more. Where does this insanity stop? Every time you allow a property to be rezoned, commercial, or industrial, you effectively decrease the property value of the adjoining RLD properties, and the cascade continues. You are destroying our neighborhoods, our properties, our lives. Can you please do the right thing at this time and deny this rezoning? If you don't have skin in the game, should you be allowed to vote against those that do? Thank you. Next, Kanda Ladea Peepers, if you're out there. Keith Langenberg. Ms. Peepers opposes. I do not believe she is in the crowd any longer. Go ahead, sir. Keith Langenberg, address on file. Now, I want you to take you back just for a moment. Back in 1988, you'd be traveling north on I-95. You'd get off at Southside Boulevard. You would encounter pine forest and pine trees on the both sides of the boulevard, Bay Meadows, JTB, Southside, all the way to Atlantic Avenue, Atlantic Boulevard, okay? This meant driving through nothing but pine forest and peaceful. It wasn't commercial. It wasn't crowded. It was quiet, open. And this made you feel at home. Over the years, that changed. All that changed. But what did not change was the commitment of the people on Southside Estates. Remember Bill Bishop, Scott Wilson, Lynette Self? They didn't live in that area. They invested thousands of hours working to preserve this corridor as a residential place for families. They worked with the state, with FDOT, and with the community to shape what this area would become. And out of that effort, FDOT, for four blocks, named it Benolkin Parkway in honor of Skip Benolkin, who dedicated his life to Southside Estates, walking up and down those service roads, developing that park, working with the city, working with councilmen, sitting, got benches into that park. So people, school people, whatever, walking up and down could sit and relax. He didn't think about roads and traffic, Skip. He thought about people. He envisioned the overpass park as a place where neighbors could sit on benches, gather, and join the community. And that's what this area has been all about. It's been simple. When you're stuck on Southside Boulevard traffic in Southside Estates between Beach and Atlantic, you're stuck. What do you look to the side and see? Residentials. Homes, trees, neighbors, neighborhoods. It's calming. It reminds you that this place is still where people raise families and care about what they are. Do we want to replace all the Southside Estates with commercial development? That's what's going to happen. That's the only place on Southside Boulevard, the 10 miles that FDOT has, that's pure residential. Yes, there are some businesses on the urban side, whatever, but they've been there many, many, many years. This just isn't about parcels. It's about honoring people that have put in decades of work, vision, and of people who gave their time to protect something meaningful. We are the stewards of that legacy now. And once we start to replace it piece by piece, we don't get it back. I respectfully ask you to protect what so many before us have worked so hard to preserve. Thank you. Thank you. Commander Wayne Van Dorn, you're next. Then Mr. Dernberger, then Mr. Herzberg. Wayne Van Dorn, address on file. I'd like to address a couple of things. One, the fact that our letter from CPAC from the previous month never made it to the Planning Commission and to the LUZ, according to what we were able to find out last night from the person who oversees our planning CPAC meeting. I want to move on to a more important thing. You all, plus the mayor, have lamented about the fact that we have a lack of affordable housing. In fact, if you look at development of apartment complexes, only 7% of them between 2020 and 2024 are deemed affordable that have been built and used in that period of time. This area on both sides of Southside Boulevard, and I don't think the development will stop with just the western side of it, but it will be both sides because you all are going to go and bend to the sway of those people that want to just demolish all the homes, build concrete jungles to house businesses, and there's a great place for it. How about the old defunct place just to the north of the Arlington Expressway? I'm sorry, I forget the name of the complex, but right across from Best Bet. It's a large area. It doesn't add any more heat because every time you turn something to concrete jungle, it adds more heat. So are we going to get rid of more single-family houses that are affordable? Have any of you actually been in those neighborhoods and seen the homes? We're talking two- and three-bedroom, one-bath homes, very reasonably priced, and the average starting family can actually buy them. Look at the prices, and you're going to demolish all these affordable houses. Yet you're going to go to the bully pulpit and say, oh, we need more affordable housing while you're destroying it. You need to stop this. We need to stop this development in the internal part of the city here. And, by the way, last night we also got a thing about the canopy being destroyed, actually moving out the canopy. This will destroy more of the canopy of the trees and so forth. It will help ameliorate what we have in terms of temperature rise in this part of the city. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dernberger. Okay, thank you. Mr. Dernberger said he does not wish to speak but is opposed to this. Mr. Herzberg. Mr. President, members of the Council, again, Mike Herzberg. My address is 12483 Aladdin Road. As part of the zoning, I have three criteria that I must meet in order to have the zoning approved. And those are, is the rezoning consistent with the comprehensive plan? Even the staff report indicates that if the BP category were approved, it would be consistent. That is, the IBP would be consistent with the comprehensive plan. So, number one, not only have we done that, I would ask you to look at those policies that I have on the back page. Goal one, to ensure that the character and location of land uses optimize the combined potentials for economic benefit, while minimizing the threat to health, safety, and welfare, nuisances, and incompatible land uses. Obviously, living in one of these lots on the west side of the road, directly abutting IBP on one side, or business park uses as they're trying to seek, and having 45,000 vehicles a day out your front door, clearly is an incompatible land use. So these homes are the residential island that have been trapped. Objective 1.1, ensure that the type, rate, and distribution of growth in the city results in compact and compatible land use patterns. If you're the homeowner with skin in the game, who owns these lots immediately adjacent to the business park, then you certainly are not feeling this to be a compatible land use pattern, but rather the BP, which is immediately adjacent to you, would be a compatible land use pattern. The other two criteria that I must show adherence with is the consistency with the comprehensive plan. I think if you would finish reading those policies, I won't belabor the point. I think you'll see that not only are we seeking to have residential development in the city, we need to balance that with commercial development, and that is exactly what's being proposed here. As you heard from some of the testimony, there are already commercial offices, AC contractors, just north of these parcels on this same side of the street. And then finally, does the proposed rezoning conflict with any of the city's land development regulations? As a professional planner, having reviewed the matter, I would contend that this rezoning would not conflict with any of the city's land use regulations for development. They would have to meet all the requirements of the IBP zoning district. With that, I'll give my time. Thank you, sir. I have no more speaker cards. All right. While the public hearing is still open, let's go to Exparte. Dr. Salem. Thank you, Mr. President. I had one phone call in opposition today. I had one email in opposition today, and I had a phone call with Mike Hertzberg, and all of these will be filed appropriately. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Amaro. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to declare Exparte. Receive a number of emails in opposition. It's been filed with legislative services. All right. Council Member Gay. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to declare Exparte communication. I received one email in opposition, and it's been filed with legislative services. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next, we'll go to Council Member Boylan. Thank you, Mr. President. I do stand to declare Exparte. I received one phone message today from Mr. Keith Lundberg in opposition to this resigning. It's been filed. All right. Council Member Peluso. Thank you, Mr. President. I stand to declare Exparte against. I received one email in opposition. I also am here to declare Exparte in favor. I received a text message from Mr. Hertzberg later today. These are both filed with legislative services. All right. Vice President Howland. Thank you, Mr. President. I also rise to declare Exparte. I had one email in opposition, and I spoke with Mr. Hertzberg yesterday by phone at 4 p.m. We'll make sure they're filed. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Mr. President, I had five emails and one phone call in opposition to this, and I will be filing this with legislative services. All right. Thank you, Colonel Miller. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to declare Exparte communications. I received a voicemail message from Keith Langenberger in opposition. It's already been filed with legislative services. Thank you. All right. Council Member Arias. Thank you, Mr. President. I, too, rise to declare Exparte. I also received email communication in opposition. It's currently being filed. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And I have Exparte to declare I had three emails in opposition and two phone calls to my office, one from Keith Langenberger in which he left the voicemail, and one was a phone call from Mr. Ramsdale to my assistant, Jackie Lee, in which she took notes and told me everything that was asked and mentioned on that phone call. Then I got a phone call from Mike Hertzberg last week on Thursday in which he told me that this went before LUZ and went before planning commission, and then he asked me if I had any questions, which I had one, about what the use was going to be, in which he stated the owner did not know what the use was going to be. Those are my Expartes, and the queue is clear. I move the bill. We have a motion and a second on the bill. We have no one in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. Twelve yays, seven nays. By your action, you've approved 2026-0129. I have a 63-2026-164. I have two speaker cards. Herbert Ramstall, who does wish to speak, and Ms. Jane Ramstall, who does not wish to speak, but opposes this legislation. Mr. Ramstall. Go ahead, sir. My name is Herbert Ramstall. My address is on file. Once again, we're in a situation where we're pushing a land use change from low-density residential to an industrial business park rating. This, as I read the comprehensive plan, is not a compatible move. I guess some people could say that I'm wrong on that, but that is not something that needs to happen. This area that we're talking about has repeatedly had land use changes, has repeatedly had move-in of commercial and industrial properties, and is destroying that neighborhood. I would hope that you would take a strong look at that and vote no for this particular ordinance. Thank you, sir. I have no more speaker cards. Public hearings closed. An additional public hearing will be on 4-28-26. I'm 64-2026-165. I have two speaker cards. Mr. Herbert Ramstall, who does wish to speak, and Jane Dowlands, who does not wish to speak, but opposes this ordinance. Mr. Ramstall. My name is Herbert Ramstall. My address is on file. If you're familiar with this part of Leon Road, it is a one-way-in, one-way-out road off of Beach Boulevard. It goes through a section that has repeatedly been commercialized, one property at a time, and the argument then becomes, well, there's a commercial property or an industrial property next door. Why not this one more? Why not this one more? Why not this one more? That has gone on at least five times on the left-hand side of the road where this particular property is. How far are we going to allow this industrialization of Leon Road to push into a primarily RLD 60 neighborhood? Once again, you're destroying the property values of these properties, and the people are losing everything they get. When you say that people decide that they want to go to a commercial rating, that's only to try to recuperate money that they're losing because of what we've already done to them. As you move into this property, if you look at the tax record, there's a little picture up in the corner. If you blow up that picture, you'll see that the back part of this RLD 60 property has already been used or being used as industrial uses, and it has been being that way for a couple of years now. What are we doing about that? Why are we allowing these things to go on and push into this kind of a situation that is not registered for RLD 60? Please help save this neighborhood and vote no on this rezoning. Thank you. I have no more speaker cards. Public hearings closed. An additional public hearing will be 4-28-26. Item 65, 66, 67, 68, 2026, 166, 167, 168, 168, and 169. I have no speaker cards. These public hearings are all closed. Additional public hearings on all of them will be on 4-28-26. We've already taken up third reading resolution, so we'll go to page 31 for third reading ordinances. Item 70, 2026, 146. I move the bill. I have a motion and second on the bill. No one's in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. 16 yays. 3 nays. By your action, you have approved 2026-0146. Item 71, 2026-179. Move the bill. Got a motion and second on the bill. No one's in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. 17 yays. 2 nays. By your action, you have approved 2026-0179. I'm 72, 2026-180. I move the bill. Excuse me. I move the amendment. Got a motion and second on the amendment. No one's in the queue. All in favor of the amendment. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed to say nay. The amendment carries. Move the bill as amended. Got a motion and second on the bill as amended. No one is in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. 19 yays. 0 nays. By your action, you have approved 2026-0180. I'm 73, 2026-181. I move the amendment. I've got a motion and second on the amendment. No one's in the queue. All in favor of the amendment. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Those say nay. The amendment carries. Move the bill as amended. Got a motion and second on the bill as amended. No one's in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. 19 yays. 0 nays. By your action, you have approved 2026-0181. And I do see Fire Chief Percy in the back. Is that you all the way out there? Percy Golden, is that you? Okay. You should have came up front, man. We got you out of here. Thanks for hanging in there and thanks for all you do. I'm 74, 2026-183. I move the amendment. Motion and second on the amendment. No one's in the queue. All in favor of the amendment. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Amendment carries. Move the bill as amended. Motion and second on the bill as amended. That was in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. 19 yays. 10 yays. By your action, you have approved 2026-0183. Item 75, 2026-0186. This item has been discharged from Neighborhoods Committee by the direction of the Council President. And I move the amendment. Got a motion and second on the amendment. There is no one in the queue. All in favor of the amendment. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. The amendment carries. Move the bill as amended. Got a motion and second on the bill as amended. Council Member Colonel Miller, be recognized. Thank you, Mr. President. I'd also like to be added as a co-sponsor. I missed that earlier, so appreciate being added. And I'll also say, if we can save at least one life, this will all have been worth it. And I'm sure there will be way more than that. So I thank the introducer and the rest for the support of this effort. So thank you very much, Mr. President. All right. Thank you, Colonel. Council Member Boylan. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to clarify. Earlier it was mentioned that I did not support this bill. That wasn't the case. I merely raised a question about the veracity of 14 of these as opposed to four. And after the fact, actually, JFRD was looking at four as an initial starting point. That being said, at the neighborhoods meeting, Council Member White set me straight when he said, if it saves one life, it's worth it for all 14. So I'm going to support today. Besides, I don't want to get the wrath of Mr. Diamond on me either, too. His Twitter thumbs are deadly. All right. Pastor President Freeman. Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to be added as co-sponsor. Thank you. Council Member Gay. Thank you, Mr. President. I fully support this. I thought I had requested in neighborhoods to be added as a co-sponsor, but please add me as a co-sponsor. Thank you. All right. Council Member White. Yes, sir. Thank you. You did recommend being added, Mr. Gay, and I did, too, and they missed it. So please add me now. Thank you. Councilwoman Clark-Merry. Thank you. I recommend a council amendment for this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Motion second on the council amendment. All in favor of the council amendment. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed to say nay? The council amendment has been approved. Council Member Gaffney? No? Mr. Diamond, you want to go last because I want to say something real quick. All right. If I could give the chair to the vice president. I move the bill as twice amended. Okay. Motion second on the bill as twice amended. All right. We'll first recognize Council President Kerrigan. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thanks to the bill sponsor. I also want to recognize and thank JFRD. I got a call from Chief Terence Holmes and we talked in detail about where I thought in my district would be a good place and which fire department would be the best one. So we actually had that dialogue and came up with agreement on where to put the life-saving baby box. So I want to thank JFRD for their involvement. Thanks sponsor. Of course, we're on as co-sponsor now. So I'll be voting yes. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And Mr. Diamond, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Yeah. So I was going to speak after this pass is usually shut up if you think you have the votes, but with the council amendment, I think we'll pass. You know, I will do things that are sometimes divisive. I know it. The purpose of this bill was to literally bring us together in a bipartisan way to save little babies. I mean, and that's a good thing. And so, yeah, babies and dogs and veterans. Those are my three. But the purpose today is not just for us to do this and save lives here in Duval County, which is exactly what these will do. There's no doubt in my mind that we're going to save at least one life with these, but to send a message out to the rest of Florida that this is the standard, that you should have a safe haven baby box somewhere accessible to where you have people in your counties. And we've already talked with folks at Nassau County and Clay County and St. Johns County. They've picked up the challenge and they're going to have them all over their counties also. So thank you everyone for your leadership. I really have to give a huge shout out to JFRD. They did the hard work of working with each district council person and finding the right spot. So thank you to all the district council people who worked with JFRD. Thank you, JFRD. Thank you, Esther Bird, for bringing this to my attention. And thank you all. Appreciate it. All right. That being said, open the ballot. Record your vote. 19 yays, 0 nays. By your action, you've approved 2026-0186. Excuse me. Item 76, 2026, 188. I move the amendment. I have a motion and second on the amendment. No one's in the queue. All in favor of the amendment. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed to say nay? The amendment carries. Move the bill as amended. Got a motion and second on the bill as amended. No one's in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. 19 yays, 0 nays. By your action, you've approved 2026-0188. On page 34, second reading. Mr. Thiel, could you please read all second reading bills? 2026-230. 230. 231. 232. 236. 237. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 247. 250. 251. 252. 254. 255. 256. 257. 2026-208. 209. 210. 216. Thank you, Mr. Thiel. And I have no public participation cards. So we're going to go to page 44 now, item 121, 2026-266. And, Council President, please recognize Council Member Amaro. All right, Council Member Amaro, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. President. I move to have this legislation withdrawn. It will be reintroduced later when it's cleaned up. And I'd like a second. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second on the withdrawal. There's no one in the queue. Please open the ballot and record your vote. 19 yays, zero nays. By your action, you have withdrawn 2026-0266. Now we're going to go to page 47, Unfinished Business, item 128-2025-0872. Council President, please recognize Council Member Past President Salem. Dr. Salem, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. President. I have requested an additional postponement to May 12th on this bill. The dialogue that I'm seeing and hearing with Mr. Fackler and his Office of General Counsel team and some outside people that I've reached out to continues to be productive. And I spoke to Mr. Fackler this afternoon. And so I'd like that dialogue to continue. I'm hopeful by May 12th we'll be in a position to do something. But I would like to see it in a way that we could wrap our arms around it in a positive way. So I want to give as much time to Mr. Fackler as I can. I second the motion to postpone. All right, we have a motion and a second to postpone. Is that on the ballot? Please open the ballot and record your vote. 19 yays, zero nays. By your action, you have postponed to May 12th, 2025-0872. Page 48, time to take up the addendum. I move the addendum. Motion and second on the addendum. All in favor of the addendum, say aye. Aye. All those who oppose, say no. The addendum passes. Mr. President, we have no action items on the addendum. And with that, we are done with the official business of the evening. Well, how about that? Thank you very much for your hard work and dedication, Mr. Floor Leader. At this point, we will go to roll call. Thank you, Mr. VP. 19 present. All right. Any announcements? Dr. Johnson? Announcement, Mr. President. But I do want to, if I may have a point of personal privilege. Earlier tonight, I made a, during public comment portion of tonight, I called a point of order. And I want to address this matter that I believe deserves an explanation from me to everyone. While listening to a speaker at the podium, I heard the name of one of our colleague's children being called during that person's comments. It was mentioned in the context of a broader and deeply serious discussion. And I thought it was important in that moment, I made the decision to intervene and request that the speaker stop and the comments be called from the record. I think it was very important again. But let me be clear, that podium is the people's podium. It is a very sacred space and one of the most powerful expressions of democracy that all of us have, and I certainly take it that way. I will always defend the right of every resident to speak, to challenge, to question, and to be heard. That is a foundational commitment to American democracy. At the same time, there is a line that should not be crossed. Our children, our families, and those who are in our lives did not choose this particular life that we did. They did not run for office. They did not step into this arena. And to publicly name, reference, or involve a child specifically or any family member in any official proceedings in a particular way that exposes them to harm or scrutiny or visibility is beyond the bounds of appropriateness. Now, this is not about limiting free speech, but I believe it's about protecting all of us who are here, who have given of our lives to serve. What I want to say personally is that I do sincerely apologize to the young lady that I asked to speak, that I asked not to speak. It's never a step I take lightly to call something like that point of order. It was in me. It challenged me. But I have to say, her voice matters. Every voice matters. But the goal in that moment was not to silence. It was to safeguard. And it is important. Even though there is a right to speech in this country, there is also a responsibility. And at that moment, I believed it was being not the responsible thing to do to mention children's names. Public discourse can be passionate, difficult, and even at times uncomfortable. However, we have to remain responsible with each other and with the things that we say. Now, Jacksonville is at its best when we engage in conversation and connection with compassion. And tonight was a reminder that we have to do those things together. Just wanted to put that on the record. And again, I offer my apologies to the lady that was speaking. But I hope that she will come back, that she will give her concerns to us, and we will certainly hear them. But we must do it in decorum. And we also must be held to those same standards of decorum. Thank you for letting me say that, Mr. President. And that's why I called the point of order again. I did believe that it was a violation of the council rule. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. And I will double down on that. It was my child, after all, that was mentioned. But at the end of the day, it was threatening and offensive. And that's why I decided to uphold your point of order and limit the conversation. So thank you, honestly, just for having my back. All right. Councilmember Pittman, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, I'd like to invite you all Thursday. Representative Wyman Diamond. Wyman. I feel like I had some pills. But Representative Wyman is coming to District 10 on Thursday at 10 o'clock to make an announcement for District 10. I would love for you all to be there at the park where the shooting happened during August time when the shooting happened at Dollar General. So if you would come, I would really appreciate your support just showing up. And then I'd just like to make the announcement yesterday. Y'all heard what happened at Raines High School. And part of the announcement would be for some funding for the district as well. So I just wanted to invite you all, and hopefully you can. I know it's only a couple days beforehand, but I'd just like to have y'all support because I talked about, you know, it's not about legislation at this point because I think we have the right legislation in place. And we also have funding for a lot of the nonprofits in our community. So, you know, I just think it was something that was isolated and it happened. The school did the right thing in terms of locking down the school to make sure that none of the other students or staff was hurt. So I'd just like to commend the principal and his staff for doing that. So, thank you. All right, thank you. Councilmember, past president, Matt Carlucci. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to commend Councilman Johnson on your catch tonight on that. And I want to commend the council president on the way he handled that. It was your daughter, and you handled that very well. And you didn't know her in apology. She owes our council president an apology. Now, my kids have grown up, but has she come up and said anything about my little JoJo or Jack or my little Kate or little Matthew? You know, it would really hurt. Kids are off bounds, and that has always been the standard on this council. And I'm glad you caught it, and it should be cut off immediately. So I think we handled that very well. We take a lot of criticism up here, but we endured that, I think, with as much graciousness as anybody could. I want to make one other comment, if you don't mind, Council President. And I don't want to be contentious with this, but it bothered me. There's a comment that was made tonight directed at our mayor, questioning her commitment to life. I got to tell you, I frankly found that unconscionable, totally unconscionable. I found that our mayor is someone who has fought for her life three times. And she has dedicated herself to saving the thousands of others from cancer. And to question her commitment to life ignores both her personal journey, which has been much harder than probably anybody else's up here that I know of, particularly mine, and her public record. I thought what was said, and I won't say any names, but I thought it was shameful. And I will not allow somebody to talk about my mayor or anybody else up here like that, whether I disagree or don't agree. But if somebody's getting treated unfairly, or I feel that they've taken a personal shot, I'm going to take up for them. And I thought it was wrong, and I want to set the record straight. And I'm 70 damn years old, and I'll say what I want to. All right. Do we have any birthday announcements? There's no other announcements. Let's just move into something else. Since he can say anything he won't, we're going to sing happy birthday. How about that? Councilman Matt Carlucci's birthday was April the 9th. And so we all going to sing happy birthday to him. And we also have council service staff, Vanessa Gallon. Her birthday was also on the, her birthday was on the 7th. So y'all ready? Y'all got to do this. Since he can say anything he won't. Y'all got that? Okay. Okay. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Matt. Happy birthday to you. All right. I think we're adjourned. Have a good night everyone. Chaplain, take it home. I felt I was in a Marilyn Monroe movie. Let us pray. Gracious God, we create of all things. It's in this moment we say thanks. Thank you for the strength and the breath of life that we have in our bodies. Thank you for looking out for our families near and far. Thank you for your healing power. Ask you to reach from heaven and touch our loved ones. Heal our families. Heal our city. Heal our land. Thank you for the opportunity to serve our citizens. This great community we call home. God, we ask you to continue to guide us with your wisdom in the days ahead. Now unto him that is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before his presence of his glory would exceed in joy. To the only wise God our savior be both majesty and power now and forever. Amen. Go in peace. The smell has no shortage of wing spots, but not all wings are created the same. At Bold City Wings, everything starts from scratch. Fresh chicken, clean, prepped, and seasoned the right way. Here, it's not about covering the flavor with sauce. It's about building it from the ground up. Every sauce is made in-house, crafted to complement the seasoning. And yeah, it might cost a little more, but that's because you're paying for quality, for the care, and for the time that goes into every single order. This isn't fast food. This is an experience. Built on Jacksonville roots, family tradition, and a passion for doing things the right way. If you're looking for cheap wings, this might not be your spot. But if you're looking for real flavor, you just found it. A lot of seniors, a lot of individuals without cars call my office and let me know they can't make it to City Hall. It's in the area where I live at, you know, we can just walk from our house and come here. Coming to greet us and meet us and find out the things that we need in the community instead of going to City Hall and can't get to you, you know, whatever. But I think it's a great idea, and I think it would motivate the community as well, knowing that you're out there doing the work for us. So I hope that this is just not one thing, and not just for our community, but maybe experience throughout the city of Jacksonville. All the other districts and areas are going to do the same thing. Since we've been having these events, we've been averaging anywhere, you know, from 20 to 25 people coming on the office on the block. So, you know, and some people just want to discuss what's going on in their neighborhood. Some people just want to meet me, you know. Some people, you know, just want to give us ideas or just find out what's going on. At the end of the day, it's about bridging the gap, meeting the community halfway, and that's why we're here today. I just want to take the load off they plate. You know, if I can make they life a lot. So next to me, we're moving towards the door and gunfire. Our old ones are not wires, but I just want to be careful with that. So there's only a problem. Let's do this right. But you can use it here to push through these different parts. And all the other pieces and just look down there for the room, because of the remaining parts here. So what we're carrying out this quarantine is a lot. So it's a remote for people to play the developers and everything's happening here.