Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown plans to forge ahead with portions of his plan to reorganize city government, even as the City Council puts off approving the plan until at least next month.
The changes the mayor will embark on are mainly internal, such as changing employee responsibilities or physically moving offices.
At the same time, Brown is continuing to press the council for its approval, which he’ll need to change titles, modify who reports to whom and create new departments.
“In order to really move forward,” he said, “they should pass it. I’m not waiting for the council. The citizens can’t wait.”
Since introducing the reorganization plans to the City Council just over a month ago, Brown has pushed for the plans to be passed by Dec. 13, a time frame seen as either ambitious or impossible.
“I’ve said from the beginning that it was a little aggressive to get an entire reorganization of the city done in one [council] cycle,” said council President Stephen Joost. “We’re just doing our due diligence.”
Nevertheless, Brown and his staff have said they thought the plan would be approved at Tuesday’s meeting, the earliest possible date. The fact that the council did not meet that deadline, said both Brown and Joost, should not be viewed as a sign of difficulty in the relationship between the legislative and executive branches.
“When laying out a vision,” Brown said, “not every member catches the vision immediately.”
Much of the Brown’s ideas have the council’s support, Joost said. He anticipates 95 percent or more of the plan passing.
“It’s simply council doing its job,” he said.
The fact that Brown’s plan isn’t being passed on his timetable, say those who watched the process, is in part a result of not having yet forged relationships with all the council and in part the simple fact of being new to the job.
“He’s never been in [city] government,” said former Mayor Jake Godbold. “He has an inexperienced staff. That doesn’t mean they’re not smart, but they’re new.”
On the other hand, said Godbold, who also served as council president: “Every mayor has his challenges with [the] council.”
Brown’s ambitious plan is the sort of thing that council members want to pore over, making quick passage unlikely.
“This is almost like having a charter change,” Godbold said. “He really took on a challenge.”
Mayors come into office convinced they have a mandate, an idea Brown echoes when he says that he’ll start moving ahead with changes in order to “keep my commitment to the citizens of Jacksonville.”
Then, the executive runs into a legislative branch that sees itself with its own mandate.
“We are set up for this very thing to happen,” said former Councilwoman Suzanne Jenkins, who butted heads with then-Mayor John Peyton over courthouse construction issues. “It’s a pain in the rear for both sides. No one enjoys it. But the citizens gain from the process.”
At the end of the day, Brown could also gain from the process, particularly as the administration gears up for putting together next year’s budget.
Work on that officially begins early next year, but some in the administration have already been tasked with finding cuts in their departments.
As the budget process plays out, the relationships built and lessons learned during the reorganization process will come into play.
timothy.gibbons@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4103
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