In 2018, Gov. Ron DeSantis didn’t win Duval County in the general election race against Andrew Gillum. It was a bad year for a few statewide GOP candidates in Duval, including another who won the state but lost the county: Rick Scott also failed to carry the county against Bill Nelson. And local Republican Party leadership at the time took
For over a year now, our lives have been completely upended, and it all seems terribly unfair. Family and friends have gotten sick, and sometimes died, from a virus that didn’t exist in our country two years ago. We isolated our frail and elderly and dying from human contact at a time when they needed it most. The human cost
President Joe Biden finally signed his hard-fought $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law on Monday, November 15. As a result, approximately $19 billion in federal investment is headed to Florida. That tally includes $13.1 billion for roads and $245 million for bridges over the next five years, with a focus on mitigating climate change, resilience, bike and
City Council has withdrawn the Confederate monument legislation and may never take it up again — an act of cowardice that took place last week in an open forum where no one seemed the least bit dismayed or even ashamed. As it happened, I wondered, What are we teaching our children? Recently, on First Coast Connect with Melissa Ross, my
Fundraising isn’t everything. That is what every underfinanced candidate has said since the beginning of time. And that is also the message of Donna Deegan, the first Democrat to run for Jacksonville Mayor in close to a decade. Deegan launched her campaign the day before the fundraising filing deadline for October, which was Tuesday, and before filing new numbers. A
Many cities are looking for solutions to the issues caused by gentrification and displacement. One emerging strategy is “‘withintrification,” when the changes and investment are driven by the current residents instead of outside developers, planners, consultants, and politicians. While the common thought is that displacement is inevitable as revitalization occurs, Jacksonville’s Eastside neighborhood is working to become the latest example
I wanted to write a response to the recent stories about housing: one in this newsletter on the plan to plug Jacksonville’s “missing middle” in the housing crisis with townhomes, as well as a Times-Union piece on the decline of the Black population in historically majority-Black neighborhoods. Reading those stories triggered an annoyance in my spirit I tried to ignore.
The wisdom of the Jacksonville City Council has always been a matter of debate. This is the same group that once saw a former councilman (Reggie Brown) argue for the better part of two months about whether people had the right to back their cars into their driveways. His theory was if they did so, they could use their trunks
Two new projects in LaVilla and San Marco are creating something in short supply in Jacksonville: urban townhomes. Can they help Jacksonville’s “missing middle” housing problem? The projects Two townhome projects are currently moving forward in Jacksonville’s Urban Core: Johnson Commons in the Downtown neighborhood of LaVilla, and the Terraces of San Marco. Johnson Commons, a partnership between Corner Lot
By next week, vaccines could be available locally for children ages 5 to 11 and the long pandemic nightmare we’ve been living might finally come to an end. I can’t wait to get my 6-year-old vaccinated. He’s looking forward to it too. He’s been wearing a mask for nearly two years. Even when friends, neighbors, and strangers have refused to
