The Bill is 2010-802; introduced by Corrigan. This is $800,000 for scholarships that can be used at Edward Waters (tuition is about $5000 a semester); JU (about $13,000 per semester); UNF (Less than $3,000) or FSCJ (Formally FCCJ and less than $3,000 per semester).

This is one of the items that was proposed to be cut.

My primary argument against this is that it is not a function of the city to award money for education. They may have done this is the past, but it wasn't right then either. Another point is that we are competing against private scholarships; many of which do not even get rewarded due to lack of interest. My daughter tells me that UNF has extended the scholarship deadline for some of their scholarships because they still have money. To summarize, there is money out there and this an appropriate use of funds seized from the citizens of this county.

Please consider contacting the city council members who introduced or are supporting this bill. The bill was, as I stated before, introduced by Corrigan; it is being supported by Hyde, Shad, Fussell, R. Brown and Jones.

The bill can be reviewed at

http://citycirc1.coj.net/coj/COJBillList.asp?Bill=2010-0802

Contact information for the City council members is at:

http://www.coj.net/City+Council/City+Council+Members.htm

The next City council meeting on Tuesday, November 8th at 5PM.

Dawn