Debating Downtown Development and Public Safety with Dr. Michael Binder

[00:00:01] Mike Mike Mike Mike Mikes on Mic, a conversation about politics, government and Jacksonville with 50-year opinion leaders Mike Hightower, Mike Tolbert an award-winning broadcaster and longtime political observer Mike Miller. Welcome to another edition of Mikes on Mic I'm Mike Miller along with Mike Hightower

[00:00:22] here in studio our colleague Mike Tolbert is joining us from his home studio at the farm and as we begin we want to of course thank our sponsor Alan Bliss and our friends at the Jacksonville Historical Society which is

[00:00:33] located inside the Jacksonville History Center for their support and to the many donors by the way who continue to make this program possible it's really great of them to do so. Thank you. Dr. Michael Binder is professor of the

[00:00:46] Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Florida he returns as our Mikes on Mic guest. Dr. Binder is also faculty director of UNF's public opinion research laboratory. The UNF public opinion research laboratory has conducted and released a new poll of

[00:01:03] registered voters regarding the proposed deal between the Jaguars in the city to remove or renovate I should say some people wish it were removed but to renovate the football stadium into a stadium of the future. Today Dr. Binder is going to help us dissect those polling results and

[00:01:19] give us a better understanding of what the public really thinks about this and why. Mr. Tolbert from the farm you kick it off for us sir. Welcome back Dr. Binder good to see you even if you're not here just like me.

[00:01:32] Thanks for having me you inspire me. First of all tell us about the mechanics of the poll when and how was it conducted and how many voters were interviewed. So this was a poll that was conducted in two ways multi

[00:01:45] modes which is really kind of what everybody's doing nowadays in different forms back at the end of May May 21st through the 23rd we had 667 registered voters from Duval County and it was a mix of telephone and then

[00:02:00] we texted folks a link and they were able to complete that on an online platform. Last September you one we were our guest but also at that time UNF released a poll on this same subject and we were all a little bit

[00:02:16] surprised that the jail was more popular than the stadium however now that we understand the deal is on the table there are some differences can you kind of tell us where we are and why those differences. Yeah I think that the

[00:02:30] short answer is the stadium deal is gotten a little more popular maybe if you if you look at it in totality and we can break that down talk about it but specifically for the jail in a very weird sense it's still more

[00:02:47] popular than the stadium and and like we talked about last time in the jail you know we the number that we used for the jail last year was much smaller because that those were the numbers that were available. The recent

[00:03:00] committee report that came out tagged it about a billion dollars and we used that billion dollar number and still 73% of people are like yes I support either strongly or somewhat investing this kind of money in a new jail and

[00:03:15] we didn't attach how that would get paid for or anything like that but the idea that these folks understand they want to invest in the jail to a get it out of downtown and then be upgraded or expand it but maybe they think a jail

[00:03:30] is actually something the city should be spending money on it's a public good as opposed to maybe money being handed over to a billionaire. I just wonder if I can just jump in from I just wonder whether or not those

[00:03:43] people who were polled in that thought perhaps that by enlarging the jail and moving it which is what the proposal is that this is in a way going to affect the crime rate that we have in Jacksonville thinking the bigger the

[00:03:57] jail boy crime is gonna go down now because they've got room to put these criminals away. Yeah that's what I was wondering is there saying we need a new jail because we got we need a place because we got more bad people.

[00:04:10] Well it's not just that right because your short the short cue shorts that you would use big oh you know maybe Republicans want the jail to lock everybody up and the Democrats want the jail because they're soft on crime

[00:04:24] and they want to you know make these people more comfortable and all those sorts of things but it's equally supported across all parties Democrats are at 75% support Republicans 69 independents at 75 so everybody wants it and I think there has been a great deal of attention paid to

[00:04:44] the quality of the jail over the last six months a year particularly a lot of the local coverage highlighting some of the deaths and some of the problems with the lack of health care in jail and the overcrowding but there's

[00:04:56] also been a consistent theme that having a jail smack dab in the heart of downtown isn't great for development and improving a downtown area so I think it's a multi-front assault on the jail to kind

[00:05:09] of move it out of there and get it going but yeah how that gets paid for is I'm glad I'm not the one making that decision let's just put it that way. You know most polls like to ask the question what is the most

[00:05:21] important problem facing the city but in this poll you kind of twisted that question didn't you? You asked it in a different way tell us how how you questioned it differently and then what the results were from that. Yeah and

[00:05:34] part of the reason that we did that because we usually do the most important problem is this poll was entirely about the stadium. We would not have done it if the stadium deal hadn't been proposed and so it's

[00:05:49] focused on that so we were thinking about well that's a lot of money and let's think about this in terms of tax dollars so we asked folks what is your top priority for the investment of tax dollars in the city of

[00:06:01] Jacksonville and infrastructure was number one followed by education and then public safety or the police followed by after that affordable housing and homelessness and then much further down the list of the stadium where the Jaguars and you know I think that's telling in some

[00:06:18] sense that these traditional investments of city government infrastructure education are the things that folks want to be spending money on so that makes a lot of sense to me and even though as we'll talk about people are willing to spend money on the stadium it's clearly not a

[00:06:36] top priority for them. I was a little bit surprised mostly because I didn't this is not a question that we were that we typically ask and you know infrastructure investments it makes sense right I just didn't think about

[00:06:53] it and I wasn't really I didn't have a great expectation going in how this would turn out but you know the stadium being so low considering it was literally all over the news for a couple days going in was a little bit

[00:07:05] of a surprise. Compare the infrastructure public safety and education results of the poll with what it said about the renovated stadium expense. Yeah so 23% for infrastructure was number one education was 19 police and public safety was 13% so you know just kind of back of the hand math there that's

[00:07:28] almost 60% over 50% of the population wants those things. The Jags came in at 3% and there is no demographic split where it's more than four or five percent so this is the type of thing that a few people think it's very

[00:07:47] important and you know I might get that those folks are big Jags fans but that's it and it's really kind of something that everybody wants to spend money on the things that government spends money on you know collective

[00:08:02] goods infrastructure police and fire safety those types things and education. I'm curious Dr. Bender that public safety came in it sounded like third in your list and people think that we crime is out of control crime is out

[00:08:19] of control I'm wondering why you think it was in third was it because the sheriff gets so much money as it is? That's a great question and this is something that we've been doing most important problem in Duval County for

[00:08:31] for a decade now under my watch at least and it's either crime or on the off chance it's the economy if if the economy is going really badly and it's been crime lately and it's been crime by a mile so yeah the idea

[00:08:46] that it's so low and I mean by so low 13% third place think that that should be their top priority it was a little bit surprising and yeah I mean listen they are the big budgetary winner in Jacksonville as far as resources go

[00:09:02] the sheriff's office gets a lot of money they're up over half a billion dollars and you know quite likely more particularly when you're talking about pay raises for officers and even potentially expanding well we'll see

[00:09:15] what the next budget looks like but you know that's a lot of resources so so I certainly think that could be some of it yeah I think that's good point yeah and on that point if I remember correctly the way the new legislation

[00:09:26] and the new statute has gone through is he can use that he can move that money around without he has total authority and he doesn't have to report it or hold or be accountable for it it's his discretion of how he

[00:09:39] uses because I think it's close to going close to 700 million dollars so he can do it anyway he wants and he doesn't he doesn't have to tell us how or who or where it was spent

[00:09:50] it gets told where it gets spent but he doesn't need free authorization to spend it we find out what happens to the money on the back end but again right now there's an election every four years I guess that's the

[00:10:02] enforcement mechanism people are using that argument a lot when it comes to spending a lot of money hey there was an election you voted me in so I guess I guess he's not immune to that either I just ask for forgiveness that

[00:10:15] permission I'm a big believer dr. Bender in addition to the stadium in jail we heard some pretty big numbers recently about the money needed for downtown development and that's always been controversial we've talked about it here we've especially DDA the poll said that 39 percent said the

[00:10:37] investment in downtown is downtown is critical to the city's growth were you surprised that they talked about downtown development I know listen this is one of those circumstances where I'm generally under the opinion that we have a good downtown it's active it's burgeoning it's growing it's just

[00:11:00] not located at the address did some people like to think it's called it's called the town center right the town center is really our downtown there's commerce there's people that live there it's crowded there's things happening

[00:11:13] that's that's our downtown but the fact that these numbers were so high yeah you mentioned a 39 percent that said it's critical there's another 28 percent that says listen I see the potential benefits I have some reservations but I'm willing to invest down there that's that's big right

[00:11:32] you're talking 67 percent two-thirds of the sample are either all in or pretty darn near all and supportive investing down there shocked like you asked me earlier if you know this surprises me or that surprised me every time I do

[00:11:47] media and I release a poll oh what surprised you and most of the time I'm edging I'm fishing I'm making something up I was baffled I was absolutely astonished because and this this is the part that that drives at

[00:12:01] home we ask people how often they go downtown for leisure and 24 percent never go downtown so this is a completely foreign land to them and another 46 percent only go downtown a few times per year so that's 70% of

[00:12:20] the sample that either is never down there or hardly ever down there and still 48 percent of those groups are supportive of this stuff and it's you know yeah I'm yeah baffled like that they they they want to spend this

[00:12:39] money on down down development you know I personally may have a different opinion but listen this is about what the voters of Duvall counties have to say let's up let's get into this CBA a little bit the community

[00:12:51] agreement as a reminder the mayor of course and the Jaguars agreed to each put up 150 million dollars into workforce and community development affordable housing homelessness and parks it would be the largest CBA in NFL history now let's talk about that because there are some interesting

[00:13:11] numbers Michael about the support for the stadium as a standalone issue versus the support that we saw for the stadium and the community benefits agreement would you go through that with us please yeah this is the one

[00:13:27] thing that has been steady in the sense that the support for just the stadium reconstruction the 775 million dollars the city's kicking in 41 percent support 22 strongly 19 percent somewhat 58 percent of those opposed so underwater by almost 20 points but the community benefits agreement that you

[00:13:53] alluded to which has the city kicking in 150 million and Jaguars matching at 150 million over 30 years 81 percent support 53 percent strongly 29 percent somewhat so 81 to 17 wildly popular then when we asked folks okay what about if you wrap this whole thing in a bow and it's 925 million with

[00:14:16] everything support goes from the 41 percent that just support that just supported the infrastructure and the redevelopment of the stadium have 56 percent when you include the CBA so that's CBA pulled 15 percentage points of support into these categories and I think that is really

[00:14:37] telling about where the city sits on giving money to shot con for the stadium versus taking some of that money and then investing it in the city to help improve the surrounding areas I just wonder as we know and we talked

[00:14:55] about this before the show that and we should again make people understand that we're taping this on the 11th of June City Council is tonight going to be taking this up for a first reading but unlike what many of us

[00:15:10] thought was going to happen where we were going to see a number of separate bills that were going to be introduced as dr. Binder told us no instead they put it all into one 300 and some odd page bill that will be

[00:15:22] voted on once and that will be for the whole the whole shebang if you will I wonder Michael if the thought was well G if if these are accurate numbers and if the City Council decides to go along with the

[00:15:37] responses that you received on the survey then we might find that if we go to the City Council with just the stadium it may not get the support that we're hoping to get out of it but let's put it all together because it

[00:15:51] may end up being that the CBA ends up carrying the stadium there's a gigantic irony about this that is hard not to really really just kind of look at and shake your head at publicly yes the CBA is carrying the stadium

[00:16:11] and without a doubt but within those 19 votes on the City Council I would hazard a bet that they could have introduced a 775 million last month when they revealed their big grand reveal voted on it immediately and it

[00:16:29] would have passed they could vote on it tonight and I think that 775 passes without question the irony about this whole thing is the CBA that portion might not pass even though it's hands down the most popular piece of this

[00:16:45] entire chunk of legislation and I think by linking them together the mayor has created a situation where it's an all-or-nothing type deal and there's an argument you made right the package it was negotiated the Jaguars was for this whole thing it wasn't one piece here and one piece

[00:17:05] there so I think it's a smart strategic move by the mayor and ultimately I think much like all of us had suspected this thing is going to pass City Council it's just a matter of if it's you know 16 votes or 17 votes or

[00:17:19] whatever the number happens to be let me make sure I understand it is the CBA now included in the in the big 300 and some odd face bill or is it going to be moved aside like Salem said and and voted on in another time

[00:17:36] during the budget process it's a singular bill now theoretically I guess they council once it's introduced could could separate it but as of right now it is a singular bill that's going to get introduced tonight so it'll be a one-shot deal on the whole package unless the unless

[00:17:54] somebody who wants to break it apart has introduces an amendment to start breaking it apart which correct which then all of a sudden is you've got all kinds of issues and challenges to the whole bill given what you just

[00:18:07] discussed about the results of the poll what is the political risk or benefit to City Council members deciding to either separate the CBA or kill it outright like Roy Diamond wants to do what's the risk

[00:18:24] or benefit to do that I think there is several layers of risk and on folks part not just specifically Rory Diamond but maybe some of the other council members as well listen Shad Khan is an influential

[00:18:43] member of the political community here and this there are a lot of folks in kind of the the political elite in Jacksonville that are supportive of getting this done if you look at all of the endorsements that

[00:18:56] have come out from former mayors to organizations, civic council to be the person that kind of breaks this thing apart and attempts to kill it you run the risk of alienating that group of folks and you know if you have your

[00:19:13] eyes on further political futures here in the region you know there I'm not sure that's necessarily the smartest play. Yeah Mr. Hightower you got a little experience in that don't you?

[00:19:26] Yeah I mean that's high stake poker. I think Mr. Talbert once or twice has used that and you do it. Well you know I don't know that Lot J Diamond cares. Lot J Diamond? Well I think he should if he's trying to redeem his terrible

[00:19:48] compromised reputation if he wants to run for Congress someday I think he should step back and consider that maybe maybe he's given that up and I don't know I find it hard to believe. Maybe the other thing was that there were some

[00:20:01] of the council members just said you know you better get on the train or be under the train you know I really well I'm it's interesting because you know we've been as we got ready for this show Dr. Bender we kept talking

[00:20:15] about they're gonna be seven bills and we all talked about it ourselves as we got ready for the show that you know if you break it apart and you try to do the CBA late earlier then what's the leverage that you have to do it so

[00:20:30] everybody's been sort of thinking they were going to be seven bills so I let Mr. Talbert but maybe that lessons learned or they did some on Lot J and said let's see what the polling looks like and let's roll it up

[00:20:47] and let's go for it maybe that's what happened I think if it's all in one and they try to break away the CBA I think it's they must have their ten votes if they're going forward. Sure I absolutely believe that to be true

[00:21:04] it's also true that you know the CBA hypothetically if it were dealt with later I wouldn't say that the Jaguars have zero incentive to pull out of that right there is something else coming down the road that the Jaguars

[00:21:22] need to keep goodwill with City Council that's a lot J part 2. Now whether or not it's actually lot J but the development around the stadium that's coming in the fall right that is absolutely I would

[00:21:37] the second that the NFL owners pass this and say yes at their meetings in October the next day you're going to see a rollout of what that developments going to look like around the city around the stadium and

[00:21:51] what the city's going to be kicking in for that because that's going to be a big number two. Not to get too much deeper into the weeds but I'm wondering too that the strategy being used by putting all of these bills

[00:22:04] together in one I wonder if that's going to make it more difficult for any individual council member to introduce any kind of amendments to this project that is going to get support from their colleagues because now you're

[00:22:20] talking about changing the whole picture by just one amendment rather than taking it up as a single bill and you're just amending a single bill so it might be more difficult to get anybody to really support an

[00:22:32] amendment that would one of the things that we talked about was lessening the number of years that the Jaguars would put in their hundred and fifty million dollars from 30 years down to 10 years or 15 years because the money

[00:22:46] that obviously 30 million or five million dollars a year for 30 years is what they're looking at but five million dollars in year 30 is going to look a lot different than five million dollars in year one so I

[00:22:58] thought that someone might think about trying to squeeze that into a smaller smaller period you've got to give the mayor and Mark Lamping credit with having these huddles out there and talking about that and getting it goes

[00:23:14] back to what Talbert said before you talk to the community I mean that's what Jake was great at he would go out there you can't over communicate and I think that you know I think there what seven mics may help five or

[00:23:29] seven Democrats on there who are going to be loyal to her then all of a sudden is you've got the Civic Council most of the members are huge political if not donors to the council members all you need is ten and then ten is the

[00:23:44] magic number correct mr. Talbert I would think so dr. Bender I'll refer they don't need a super vote do they or do they I think David Berline told us that they needed a super vote to get it out on the 25th of June then he say

[00:24:00] that when this is a bit if you feel we're talking about two weeks here which normally it's just in it a six-week process from once you introduce legislation so that usually comes out three readings so six weeks

[00:24:13] yeah so we're gonna we're gonna do this in two weeks it's so somewhere along the line if I remember what David Berline said that they're gonna need to take load on it on the 25th of June they're gonna need to get a super

[00:24:28] majority of council to agree to that but it sounded like to me they they must not be worried about it they must be confident they got it yes because they're gonna they're having a special council meeting I believe on

[00:24:43] the 17th that is just for this it's been assigned to the committee of the whole so everybody's there yeah they're confident to use these emergency procedures to rush it through so that this can happen under Salem's watch yeah yeah that's a political game I guess for for Ron

[00:25:02] Salem he can look back in his retirement and say hey this got done on my watch but it's whether it's 13 or whether it's 10 I'm not sure that it matters I don't think that the votes are in jeopardy I just I just don't see

[00:25:18] seven members of council voting no on this whether so I mean I think I was of the mindset that this would have passed the day that they announced it so maybe I'm not the one to think no I think here is

[00:25:32] absolutely correct on both of them I totally agree I totally agree and I'm you know and I you know I'm my I'm biased on this one I think we should have it I remember what what the other Mike Corrigan said last week when

[00:25:48] we were talking to him you know he was president of visit Jacks he said 30 years ago he was part of that committee and he said 30 years ago we made the decision we were gonna be one of 32 and we knew back then that

[00:26:00] 30 years later we were gonna have to come back here and redo and look at that stadium and I think that the and it's very obvious that the Jaguars and the mayor and the people who are supportive of that have done their

[00:26:13] homework and my feeling is hats off to him I think congratulations and I'm glad we're gonna keep I'm glad we're gonna do it good for our city let me let me go out of this lane for just a couple of moments and go back

[00:26:25] go back to the to the polling Michael tell us about the other items that you asked on this including the job performances of some of our elected leaders how did that come out and how did that differ from the last poll

[00:26:38] you did back in September so so we asked job approvals of the mayor of City Council writ large of the sheriff and and also Melissa Nelson even though her district expands outside of Duval and it's just Duval

[00:26:51] residents that are just you've all registered voters that we asked about for her and then also we asked about Sean Cotton and we asked about him occasionally when we do Jaguars stuff all of their numbers were really

[00:27:04] pretty positive and interestingly mayor D was at 63% which was pretty high the City Council as a whole was at 48 to 42 so below 50 but above water with adult nose in there and then yeah TK waters at 64% so the fact that

[00:27:23] Degan and TK were so close I think is you know that that's a little bit surprising in the sense that you know TK was much more popular back in the fall and then Melissa Nelson you know popular but she has a lot of

[00:27:36] don't knows as well she was at 60% 61% and then Sean Conn was even at 60% so I think you know there's optimism around the Jaguars I think there's optimism or at least a wait and see when it comes to the

[00:27:51] mayor because of that 63% job approval she has 26 was strongly 37 was somewhat and even among Republicans she had 41% support as opposed to 51% disapproval so she's doing well enough amongst Republicans and has huge numbers of support amongst Democrats and independents

[00:28:13] Dr. Bender you talked about Shod's number I this is my observation you know with the Jaguars putting in 150 in the community the CBA I got to believe that that made a difference of you know people have talked about you

[00:28:29] know what's what is Sean Conn doing he's a billionaire and all that everybody knows he owes the Jaguar I got to believe that that had something to do with people saying they're putting in something for the community

[00:28:39] I think I think there's certainly some merit to that I also think that merit to for regardless of how last season worked out with Trevor Lawrence being injured and them struggling down there down the end of the season I

[00:28:53] think there's some general optimism around the team and I think that they think there's gonna be a bounce back here and and winning is the elixir right that solves all your ills so I think there's that part of it

[00:29:04] as well and I think that's probably more of it I also think and this really hasn't gotten talked about a ton was as much as we talked about the gun behind the door about the Jaguar threatening to leave there was never

[00:29:20] any public posturing about that you know they weren't they didn't come out either subtly or not so subtly like other teams have done and say listen if you don't do this we're out of here and that has happened in other

[00:29:34] cities they did not do that so I think that probably contributed a little bit as well by the way and I would say this to our listeners and our viewers to please go to the UNF public opinion research laboratories website because they've

[00:29:49] got a breakdown of all of the numbers that are associated with Michael Binder's polling and they're just fascinating you see the demographic differences the political differences all of that is in there so it's a great

[00:30:01] study and if you're into polling like we are it's a great way to spend the weekend we even broke it down by whether people are Jaguars fans or not whether people go downtown for leisure or not so there's a variety of different ways

[00:30:16] that you can look at some of the specifics on how each of these questions flushes out yeah I was looking for the Bears fans category and I didn't find it anywhere but I'll keep looking Michael I'm sure it's in there somewhere

[00:30:29] well my my associate director is a Bears fan as well so when did you post this I take it sorry posted yeah it's been it's been up for a couple of weeks as soon as we came out

[00:30:40] with the poll that came out with the press released it went to the media right away not that I'm cynical maybe that's why we see I know that maybe the political citizen that maybe some of those 19 councilmen said hey have you

[00:30:56] seen this local poll yet and they went maybe you better think about where we are and you know you mean they sometimes wet their finger and check to see what's happening do you think they did that no

[00:31:10] I would give let me tell you if I was the mayor or if I was the Jaguars and I would say you got a concern I'd be looking at those poll numbers which I think really to to y'all Mike Bender y'all done a great job to

[00:31:25] have that kind of following and that kind of reputation that people one are listening to you and they're reading it and obviously it's making an impact so kudos to UNF and to you yeah and we're delighted that you'll come on their program and talk about

[00:31:41] this and break it down with us and give us the background on it too I mean I can't not come on the program my name is like right I got its name after me that's funny Corrigan said the same thing

[00:31:50] yeah I was just thinking how many mics are there we could you know we should just have a mics one day well I got Weinstein on here to talk about the funding mechanism right I tried doing that when I tried convincing him to come on this week

[00:32:06] and I said come on Mike keep the street going we're really doing well but we're really glad that you came on with us we're glad that you joined us even from out of the state have a pleasant trip back again

[00:32:19] and we appreciate Michael everything that you do and particularly with the work that you do with us thank you so very very much thank guys I appreciate that and UNF you know we're part of this

[00:32:30] community and we want to see this place get better and I am of the mindset that the people's will ultimately is what drives this and getting that voice heard I think is really important well and your political science department at UNF is also contributing

[00:32:46] tremendously to that as well so thank you very much for that thank you next week we have a very special program that we're doing there will be the third in our series on the stadium but this time we're going to the

[00:32:58] stadium Mark Lamping is going to be our guest next week and we're doing it from Shad Khan's conference room out at the stadium it'll be the first time that Mike's on my goes on the road to try to do it you know

[00:33:09] outside of a regular studio we're all doing it one by one by going to our respective homes but this time we'll all be together and we'll be at the at the stadium to do next week's show with Mark Lamping so we certainly hope you

[00:33:22] will join us for that once again our thanks to the Jacksonville Historical Society inside the Jacksonville History Center and the many many supporters that we have through that organization we thank you for joining us hope

[00:33:33] that you'll catch us every week on Facebook on our website at www.mikesonmike.com or on iPodcast or any platform where you get your favorite podcast thanks again for joining us everybody have a good week take care

[00:33:47] Mike's on Mike with Mike Tolbert, Mike Hightower and Mike Miller can be found on your favorite podcasting platform Facebook and YouTube visit the website at www.mikesonmike.com join us next time for more conversation with Mike's on Mike