Daily Record Financial News &
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Vol. 103, No. 162 • One Section
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
Push for civilian review boards Brown planning to file legislation
The Rev. R.L Gundy of Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church stood before City Council this month, a list of demands in his hand, a row of fellow African-American men at his back. They were there to make a statement about the state of affairs involving the black community and police. “You’ve got to do something about it,” he told council members before taking a step back, locking arms with his cadre in silence for his remaining two minutes of public comment. Atop Gundy’s list was a common request: The creation of a civilian review board, a way for independent oversight into police-involved disputes. Most frequently the calls come after police-involved shootings like that in the death of Vernell Bing Jr., a 22-year-old unarmed black man shot in Springfield after ramming a car into a police cruiser following a high-speed case. Gundy told council he’d talked to Mayor Lenny Curry and Sheriff Mike Williams about a citizen-review board, but Williams “doesn’t want independent investigations.” Council member Katrina Brown responded by saying she’d done research on the issue since taking office July 1. And after “thousands” of calls and emails early Brown continued on Page A-2
Brown
Photo from PGA Tour Superstore
By David Chapman Staff Writer
A putting green inside the PGA Tour Superstore. One is shown on a site plan for The Strand at Town Center.
New stores coming to town Centers attracting PGA Tour, 2nd & Charles and Goo-Goo car wash
The Strand at Town Center and The Crossing at Town Center appear to be bringing several more retail newcomers to Jacksonville. PGA Tour Superstore, 2nd & Charles, Chuy’s restaurant and Goo-Goo 3 Minute Express Wash join previously reported Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill and Wawa as newcomers to town, according to a site plan. That plan shows The Strand will include: • PGA Tour Superstore, 2nd & Charles and Hobby Lobby as major inline tenants. Another anchor space and small shops also are on site plans, which indicate several letters of intent, lease negotiations and “initial interests” are in progress. • Chase Bank, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Chuy’s restaurant, TD Ameritrade, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill and Moe’s Southwest Grill are show on separate parcels with executed leases or purchase-and-sale agreements. Several sites remain available. • Ravella at Town Center apartments at
the north end of the property. Developer Stanmore Partners of Houston intends to buy the land. • An unidentified hotel that is indicated to have an executed agreement. The Crossing is shown to include: • Wawa, ABC Fine Wine & Spirits and a PDQ restaurant. • Goo-Goo 3-Minute Express Wash, which is in lease negotiations. • Another site remains available. Representatives of many of the newly identified retailers did not immediately return calls or emails Monday. One that did is the PGA Tour Superstore.
Matt Corey, chief marketing officer, said in an email the company continuously explores new locations and Jacksonville “represents a hotbed market for golfers.” “We plan to open a new interactive retail destination in Jacksonville next year and will provide more details at a later date,” he said. The company said those were the only details it could share now and did not state a location. Owned and operated by Roswell, Ga.based Golf & Tennis Pro Shop Inc., the PGA Tour Superstore sells golf equipment, apparel and accessories. It also offers repairs, lessons, events and other services. Second & Charles is a division of BooksA-Million, whose real estate subsidiary is developing The Strand and The Crossing. The store buys and resells items such as used books, CDs in original cases, video games, comics, iPads and iPods and vinyl records. Stores continued on Page A-2
How JEA helps keep the lights on for city
By Max Marbut Staff Writer
There has been plenty of news coverage lately on how the city plans to spend its money next year, but where does the city get the money to begin with? There are many sources, but two account for more than half of the annual collection. In Jacksonville’s 2015-16 general fund budget of about $1 billion, property taxes accounted for 34.9 percent of the city’s revenue. The second-largest source of
Public
revenue was JEA. Last year, the utility transferred $235 million to the city, about 24 percent of the budget. The projected transfer in the 2016-17 spending plan under review is $239 million. The funds come from the annual contribution from the utility, plus a 10 percent public service tax and a 3 percent franchise fee enacted in response to changes in state law that affected property taxes. Utilities — first electricity and decades later, water and sewer
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service –– have been a steadily growing source of revenue for more than 120 years. The story goes back to March 7, 1895, when the switch was thrown at the new Main Street Power Plant at First and Main streets, powering up Jacksonville for the first time. Only nighttime service for lighting was available. People who lived south of the St. Johns River didn’t have electricity until April 8, 1912, when service was made available from 6 p.m.-12 a.m. to 37 homes and businesses.
By 1938, the system had grown to cover 42 square miles, serving 30,000 residential customers and nearly 7,000 commercial and industrial accounts. Some of the city’s most significant capital infrastructure improvements have been made possible by utilities. In 1942, an 8-inch oil pipeline was completed from the Gulf Coast to the Talleyrand Avenue Light Plant to assure its fuel supply. Power lines were run to Baldwin in 1943 to support the war
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effort to provide power backup for Camp Blanding and Jacksonville Naval Air Station. In 1953, the Southside Generating Station was put in operation after cables were installed under the St. Johns River to connect the plant to the rest of the electric system. By 1964 improvements to the Southside and J. Dillon Kennedy (formerly Talleyrand) generating stations allowed the electric system to serve 150,000 residential and commercial customers. JEA continued on Page A-3
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