Curry is cutting a thin slice of pie for the voters
Mayor Lenny Curry will present his proposed budget for the coming year Thursday and has promised a tax cut. Sort of. The city’s general fund largely is funded by property taxes. Because of a healthy increase in property values – about $10 billion worth – the city is rolling in dough. If the tax rate […]
Do your county commissioners work for you or Washington?
The Community Block Grant Development (CDPB) program within the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department issues grants to counties across the nation. The grants are to address low-income housing, employment, and transportation. HUD, requires grantees to have a HUD approved consolidated plan to qualify. Currently, Clay County is asking for public input to draft this […]
Both deaths and dollars are generated by emergencies
Although the Red Chinese virus visited a lot of pain on Jacksonville residents, it meant big profits for the bosses in the building we have nicknamed City Haul. For Mayor Lenny Curry’s top aide – already one of the highest paid people in local government – the deadly virus was a windfall. Brian Hughes augmented […]
Still missing: Useful financial info about how your money is used
April Fools’ Day was the deadline for the city’s annual audit, and it was a no-show again. In what is getting to be a recurring event the city’s audit – formerly known as the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report but now renamed the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report to be politically correct – did not meet the […]
City Council to hear from the public on anti-history movement
Removing all traces of the Confederacy from Jacksonville is impossible and wouldn’t change history in any case. There was a Confederate States of America, there was slavery and there was a Civil War. All are long gone. Virtually everyone learned about all of them in high school, college and other sources. Liberals have sought for […]
Paying for public records
Eye on Jacksonville has taken note several times of the way the Jacksonville news outlets have allowed local government officials to shut down access to public information, without strong protest. But the situation is worse than we knew. The information gatekeepers for the government do not have to tell the media anything. Eye, for example, […]
Mayor’s economic legerdemain (google it) may be less than it seems
Mayor Lenny Curry took a victory lap recently after Jacksonville refinanced some bonds, saving some money. Refinancing is a routine occurrence, but Curry made it seem like wizardry. “Yesterday’s overwhelming success in the market is proof that investors across the nation have confidence in Jacksonville’s surging economy and well-managed finances,” Curry said in a press […]
Buzz about the retirement of a longtime city employee
The retirement of a longtime fixture at City “Haul” seems routine. But nothing ever is these days. Cheryl Brown is leaving after more than 30 years as a city employee, the last 20 as City Council secretary. That’s the longest reign ever in that crucial job, which is a focal point of the council operations. […]
Millions in federal funds were distributed by local government
Like many state and local governments, Jacksonville was showered with cash by a federal government eager to run the national debt up as high as possible. This always is the end game of tax-and-spend Democrats when they are in power, in the hope that a crushing debt eventually will force even more confiscatory taxation. The […]
Auditors blame faulty city computer system for late financial report
Finally, the long-delayed annual financial report of the city is available – and it contains scathing criticism of the local government’s new financial system software. The report hysterically is renamed the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report rather than the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report it always has been called, because some half-woke government officials decided the acronym […]