it was good but when politicians post on that nobody everybody pushes back because we're just politicians okay um call my little notice meeting to order and um we'll uh go around and introduce who is here and start to the left and it is uh by the way it is uh the october the 8th and it's about uh four after three yeah good afternoon money holder at large group one good afternoon jimmy peluso district seven and good afternoon this is matt carlucci at large group four and um i i simply called the meeting because um there's a park that um i was approached by um marcia oliver and um one of my favorite people in life and um pam paul jr um to name after um their beloved or pam's beloved mother of pam paul um who anybody who knows pam paul she has put in decades and decades of so much hard work um uh for the city for the children in the city and um and i i love her to death i was so honored to be a part of this and um uh she worked for the john delaney administration for a dollar a year i think and they asked if i would consider introducing a legislation um naming a park uh after her and i said of course i would and um and so um i said uh to her daughter pam and marcia um uh pam's friend both pam's friend to find whatever park work with daryl uh joseph and and um and just bring it to me and uh we'll put together a nice ordinance with some nice whereases and i'll uh bring it before the council and i'd love to have both of you as uh co-introducers if you'd like so um if you have any questions and then i will address the uh the fact that she's still living and i will address this whole business of you know waving the code and all that because i think i can address that better than anybody on this city council well thank you uh uh thank you chair thank you councilman carlucci for bringing this to our attention um i've known pan paul pan paul jr marcia oliver um for quite some time and you're right the dollar a year uh salary is well known in this city um she has such a huge heart um for for the youth in this city for children um fought very hard for the children's district um and then finding a dedicated funding source for the children's commission i only wish that it had passed i think i think it failed by two percentage points um you know and it's just kind of a shame that it didn't but but that's the kind of heart she has she wanted to make sure that there was a a long-term plan to help make sure that young people in this city children in this city were given um given a chance and so i i certainly am very supportive of this i'll co-introduce with you as soon as you file it i plan to file it at our next council meeting and uh money councilman holer i should say thank you um yes similarly that's the word when i first moved to jacksonville and i um got involved with the junior league of jacksonville and um pan paul's senior was one of our guest speakers and from that moment on and that was almost 15 years ago i've admired the work that i've heard that she's done in the city of state both close with her pan paul's junior so we'll be honored to have co-introduced this legislation and thank you so much for the opportunity and for for and the question i was going to ask but you addressed it is the fact that she's still living because i know in one of our more recent i think it's committee meetings that came up as an issue for another project that was worked on not necessarily issue but a question so glad that you're on top of that and yes thank you you're welcome uh so there's a uh a section in the code that has to be waived because she's still living now the the reason that this this i have uh some research being done on this by colleen hampsey our uh senior research analyst um and and i'm having some research done which i think i already know the answer to but on why um the legislation the code um requires that you only name parks buildings and so forth after people who are deceased and um the reason that is is because um our pre-consolidated government has so many well we had three bodies back then we had a city council we had a city commission and we had a county commission and the um all three of those bodies um back then i think it was 14 um council members and city commissioners a lot of all those uh plus some appointed and or other elected officials 14 were indicted i mean it was awful and some of some of them had um parks and buildings and so forth named after them um and uh one of the parks was friendship park and that was named after dallas thomas now dallas thomas was a city commissioner and um and one of the things he was in one of the counts he was indicted for was he had a new kitchen installed in his house um and i have the grand jury uh papers he was he was making his his wife happy i think no french provincial uh cabinets solid birch uh new tile new plumbing and um and city commissioners back then the commissioners were over certain departments of the city and so the departments that he was over one of them was the agricultural department and he had the bills all sent to the agricultural department and so they paid for it and uh and as as these types of things surfaced you know then um and his name and there's a park named after him um it didn't mix well and i'm having a check but i believe it was my father who actually um introduced the legislation that um said you could not name anything after somebody until they were deceased because it was such a problem back then well we still have problems today but nothing nothing it pales in comparison to the days of pre-consolidation and so if anybody is sensitive to that issue i am and i was just old enough back then to remember those days and uh and uh and i have still lots of records um about those days that my father had kept and i could go on and on and i won't tell you any more about it but um but long story short um uh if anybody could could stand up and say we shouldn't you know waive the code uh i i could stand up on a soapbox and and do that but i won't i believe there comes a time uh that you pin a rose on a lapel of people that are still living uh and i want people like pam paul and um to be able to enjoy seeing uh their name on a park and enjoy that i think they burned it and i make no apologies about it now i mentioned in a meeting that i had uh it may have been in a committee but i wanted it to be known that because my council tenure goes back to 1987 uh that i was i knew i was going to be asked to introduce legislation this last year to name certain things after people because i'd been asked and so i was kind trying to to to let people know uh for for uh i don't want to say forewarned but whatever a nicer way of saying that is uh to let people know and so they wouldn't be surprised because i knew about the um the waving of that code and so at our last council meeting it was brought up that it was perhaps we were doing this too much um i don't think we have done it too much when you look at the the span of time and i think i've i think this may be the second or maybe third person over the many years of warren jones and uh who else have we done uh cory who uh and haskell yeah yeah yeah and yes ma'am miss pollock you've been a great help to me by the way thank you yes um so you're looking to rename a park not a street right yes so yeah if you rename a street yes the person has to be deceased and i'm looking at the code here under 122.105 and i'm looking at the seven criteria for renaming at their public facilities public buildings public parks and i don't see anything that would require the person to be deceased unless there's some other provision um there there uh there is a provision there's another provision um outside of 122.105 okay and and in general if i may chair i mean in general i know that it has become a sensitive subject for some of our colleagues but we just recently renamed the lasco regional park after dick kravitz who was still living to this day he was a former city council member and former state uh representative and lives in mandarin right now i'm not sure how his health is i think that was part of it but i think there's no question anyone who knows anything about the political environment in duval county and jacksonville and northeast florida in general knows pam paul and knows the impact that she's had on um on on children and uh foundation work and great non-profits and the community foundation i mean she's been she's been everywhere you would hope to see folks she's she's as high a caliber as as preston haskell is so so i i'm eager to see who really is going to come out and say anything about this also i believe she was just honored by the florida house i think it was three or four months ago um and so i believe the mayor was there daniel davis was there a salute i think rick scott helped facilitate it as well i mean a ton of folks on both sides of the aisle know who this woman is and what she's done so you know i'm i'm very i think there's enough precedent there i think we only heard one or two council members talk about it and also liberty park which is in my district um you know i don't i don't believe it's its name is tied to anything more than it being on liberty street and um doesn't you know it's it's it's something i think when when properly explained to anyone in the community is is going to feel good about it the only thing that i would encourage you to do sir is please reach out to springfield uh spar um springfield preservation and revitalization they just get really sensitive when things are named without their say so um first street uh was kind of renamed for one block um and the name does not uh sit well with some of the uh members of the community so just just please reach out to them that's the only thing i would ask we will yeah that's a thank you for reminding me of that we will we will certainly do that and um and i will reach out to uh some of the community leaders and former mayors who have worked with pan paul and just let them know uh that we're doing this so in the event that um they may want to um uh they they'll be aware just in case there was any objections they might want to um uh they they may want to um uh provide their um their support and if anybody wants to oppose it i mean that's their right to do so um and but um uh i i just think um i'm just i'm just i'm not in defense laws like that i'm i'm in i like to err on the side of kindness and generosity when it's been earned that's that's who i am that's who i will always be and um so uh it's section 122.102 uh cherry is that section i think i think that's the one um so anyway that's what i want to let you know and uh i uh am greatly honored uh one other thing i want to share with uh while i got um both my new at-large member here and um and um yeah and um council member peluso is in your district is the uh peace memorial park that we did not name after anybody but uh the weavers uh wayne and dolores weaver uh helped fund some wonderful improvements and uh we may wind up having a um just that may be finished in november and it is going to be a show case it's going to be beautiful great weather too and um and and and and thank god for the weavers very excited for it yeah if you go by you'll see so much of it's been done but you really can't tell how beautiful it's going to be because i haven't planted the grass and the plantings yet but it's going to be fabulous and but the infrastructure work looks great and the labyrinth is going to be cool too yeah yeah i'm going to stay away from that because i'll probably get lost in it but maybe i thought i was supposed to go this way no wait a minute hold okay uh anybody got any questions or anything okay well uh john you got anything you want to say i'll i'll let you have a couple minutes if you want to speak or you don't need to other than that uh okay anybody else want to speak okay well i guess we're adjourned gotta give me some coffee are you coming to my meeting i think i am all right um you you you you you you you you