Investing in Jacksonville: Infrastructure, Health, and Safety with Mayor Donna Deegan

[00:00:01] Mike Mike Mike Mike, Mike 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 once again to another episode of Mike's on Mic on Mike Miller, along with my colleagues

[00:00:22] of course, Mike Tolbert, Mike Hightower, wall here, and we're taping our broadcast today from the Mayor's office, Mayor Donna Deegan, who just happens to be our special guest with his wire-worn or office event. We're delighted to have with you.

[00:00:36] Recently, Mayor Deegan presented her $1.9 billion budget to the city council. Now, the council's going to be using great energy to go through every ally and every tea to see not only where the money is going for, but also where the money is coming from.

[00:00:50] And we wanted to talk to the mayor about that budget as well as other Jacksonville issues. So, Mayor Deegan, welcome to Mike's on Mic. Thank you. Nice to be with all you mics. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for having me. Mayor, thank you for doing this.

[00:01:03] We really appreciate it. And I have a simple question at the beginning with. But you've had fun. Oh, my gosh, so much fun. Of course. How? Because you're here and you have the opportunity to move the dial of him, what can be more fun than that?

[00:01:15] What's been your biggest challenge? When I was running for office, I said I wanted to change the culture in city hall. And I think that to a certain extent we've done that, I think the biggest challenge is I knew that it would be is always politics.

[00:01:28] I come into this office really with a very different mindset than I think most of the people that they come into this sort of a position. It was never a job that I pine for my whole life. I've simply wanted to make a difference from my city.

[00:01:42] And I don't care about what political party anybody is. As Lyser will end a work with me to do that. And I think working against the, what has just been the normal cadence of political silly business, I think has been probably the most difficult thing for me because

[00:01:57] I just don't have time for it. I know you're laughing it out, but the goal is it is really something that you deal with because you have to factor it into your timeline of everything.

[00:02:06] Okay, let's get past this and then hopefully we can get to the point where we're actually getting things done. So between the bureaucracy of city hall and in the politics, that's probably been the most challenge. That makes a lot of sense.

[00:02:20] And for laughing at the floor and talking to it, where that here is you are very authentic. And most people who are sitting in this office have happened that way. Some have, but not a lot now.

[00:02:31] I really honestly, those things, my, the big difference for me is I have no political aspirations past this office. And it gives me a great deal of freedom to just be able to do what I think is best for the city.

[00:02:42] People aren't always going to agree with me almost best. But they'll know, I think that I am authentically doing what I believe is best. And I'm doing my best to listen to what people are giving me a speedback. I am having fun.

[00:02:52] I'm having a great deal of fun. In very, for today, the three of us rewatched your riveting an oral speech. Where did we end? This, you know, possibly had that in the 19th. It was. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't hear it.

[00:03:08] I was a little worried that they've had this stuff at any way. We wanted to review what can you several year promises. Now, most politicians say, I don't want to talk about what I promise. But anyway, among other things,

[00:03:19] you said, for years, we've, you said, we for years, we've talked about bulkheads, drainage, septic tanks. And you said, it's now time to stop talking and make investments to fix what's long been broken. That's right.

[00:03:35] How does your budget reflect on those priorities that you laid out in the beginning? And before that, why did you say that? Well, because that's our work. I think people need to understand what has been holding us back. Yeah.

[00:03:50] And I think not keeping those promises of consolidation has really held our city back. Infrastructure is a big key part of that. And it's, it is what has, look, I've made no bones about the fact that I have a very

[00:04:04] good relationship with the former mayor of Tampa, popcorn. And we talked about that all the time on the campaign trail. He said, look, first of all, best story teller wins. He said, but if what you mean is what you're saying,

[00:04:19] that infrastructure is the key to making this city go, you need to tell people that and you need to tell the story of why. And you can't tell the story of why without going back and talking about the broken promises of consolidation.

[00:04:29] So from the very first budget we had that we had about two weeks to craft. We basically reset the priorities of the CIP to grade it in a way that we bring up some

[00:04:40] of those things that created a path to start making good on some of those promises. And we've continued to do that in this budget. We can give you a whole list of all the priority items that are in the budget when it

[00:04:50] comes to infrastructure, but it is long. And it's important that we continue down that path. Speaking of that, of course, news, a huge amount of investments from the 1.9 billion budget that you've proposed, $430 million for capital improvements.

[00:05:05] $46 million for solid waste of $11 million for storm water projects, $36 million for parts. $38 million for building improvements at UF health. $150 million for stadium improvements and that has to be done before we start the edge for renovation program. This is just bringing it up to speed. That's right.

[00:05:23] Before we get into the, you know, spot it spending. And you've also referred to the budget as being we, how did it be a lean budget when we take a look at numbers like this?

[00:05:31] And also with the amount of growth that we've had in experience in Jacksonville, why have we not been able to generate the revenue to keep up with that growth? And be able to obviously supply the services to those new residents and others are moving into Jacksonville.

[00:05:48] It was brought to me. There were some comments made that when you're, when you have the family budget, you got a buckled down and do the things, look, our family is growing. We grew by 17,000 people last year. And you have a growing family.

[00:06:01] You got to feed that family. You've got to continue to feed the family that you have. And so I say it's a lean budget because go through there and find me a lot of extraneous stuff. There is not much in that budget.

[00:06:13] In fact, I challenge you to find anything in that budget that is fancy. It's a whole lot of things that we need but if we stop investing in those things which are going to bring us the greatest return, some of those infrastructure projects.

[00:06:26] Our police and fire is another great return on investment. And I'll tell you just as an aside, just for this past month we have seen an 88% increase in the number of people applying to JSO. Wow. That is a big return on investment. I've ever paid a wrap.

[00:06:42] Do you think some of that has to do with moving to the FRS? Now that. Sure. But I think, also, I think immediately what it has to do with is the fact that we are actually paying those folks a fairer wage for what they're doing.

[00:06:55] They're out there every day, putting their lives on the line. When I first came in and started this process of negotiation and I saw what we were paying our police officers. I said, you got to be kidding me. How are we retaining anybody?

[00:07:09] At first, the FRS wasn't really on my radar. The salaries were. And the more that I met with our police and firefighters. I had said during the campaign, there was any way we could do it. I wanted to get back to a defined pension. They were absolutely convinced.

[00:07:23] And they showed me evidence of the fact that if we did not return to NFRS, that we would continue to bleed people even with better salaries. And so it was a deep inhale for us for sure. But it's something that will be a great return on investment.

[00:07:37] And I guess that's the other way of answering your question. Look we have a growing city. We have to make sure that we have the services that we need. So we want to remain a low tax city because that's how we attract business.

[00:07:49] That's how we attract people that want to live here. But at the end of the day, something's got to give. So what we have to do is invest in those things that are going to bring us the greatest return.

[00:07:59] But that's not always something you see in a year. So people have to understand if my job is not just to look at next year or even five years out. My job is to look 10 years, 20 years out.

[00:08:09] What's going to bring us the type of city that we want? And I think some of the investments that you see as boarding is infrastructure maybe are things that I'm going to create a new hashtag, maybe infrastructure sexier again.

[00:08:21] But those are things that we have to continue to do and you can say that you want to be conservative in your spending. I want to be fiscal irresponsible. And to me the fiscal irresponsible thing to do is to invest in those things that will make Jacksonville go.

[00:08:36] This one my next question, but I want to ask it. I mean, I don't want to just say we've got a big issue with solid ways. We're going to see another garbage film who I was.

[00:08:49] One thing I did not realize when I came in here was that it was in our ordinance code that we are supposed to do a favorite view every single year. We don't do that. I'm learning that ordinance codes don't necessarily, oh, wait, this man for her.

[00:09:02] But to me they're important. You need to go in, you need to look at your fees and what our ordinance says is we have to we should be recouping 80% at least of what that service cost. We're going to take a look at that.

[00:09:12] We're going to do the fee review as we are required to do and then we'll come back and we'll take a look at it. My real question was going to be I want to talk about federal dollars.

[00:09:20] I know when you're speech you talked about the fact that Jacksonville has left a lot of federal dollars on the table and those days are over. Tell me how have you harvested federal dollars in the first year and this budget you're

[00:09:34] proposing does it in having any investment from federal dollars is scheduled? No, not this year. This is our first year post having any of that money from the infrastructure bill and COVID money. And that's part of it obviously, but we got that huge $147 million grant for the

[00:09:51] Emerald Trail which will reduce our timeline to finish that trail by five years. I've heard that news. What came through your brain? What? What did you think? I did a double take because I didn't think we'd get the whole amount.

[00:10:03] I thought okay, if we got half and be great. I saw the number and I went, we can finish this thing. It was amazing. I felt that we had the right team in place. We brought Mike Lankton and who's just done an incredible job and bringing in federal

[00:10:18] dollars. We had a great team in DC, we had a great team locally. And we developed those relationships. I met with Mayor Pete a couple of times. I met with HUD a couple of times.

[00:10:28] I met with a bunch of different people in the administration in terms of what we were trying to accomplish here. And I said Jacksonville has really neglected some of its infrastructure and this is something that it really takes us down the road.

[00:10:39] And they were very helpful in helping us to create the type of grant that we needed to write to get that done. So we should not just, we got a lot more that we have out there.

[00:10:49] And most of what we probably won't hear about until fall or after the election. But we are continuing to be very aggressive and doing after those dollars. We did how we were just getting grant which was announced the 845 and for the out-east part. That's right. That is great.

[00:11:04] And obviously it's not as big an investment, but it's a very important investment. It's a big investment to let you know. Yeah, that's what it is. It is. Comprehensive. We speak in the office. It's still a big investment. Absolutely. That's true. That's true.

[00:11:19] And look, and I will say this about the CBA and that issue. I think when folks from the East Side came here to make their case, I think it's so important that people understand that this was the very community that has been left behind by consolidation.

[00:11:32] It was made promises during consolidation and that they are where they are in many respects because of the fact that we haven't kept those promises. Now that we have all this other development that's going to be going on, we've got to make sure that community is lifted.

[00:11:45] And I think the council sees that. I really do. I think they were very persuasive and I think that that will probably be if I had to read the T-Laves, probably the easiest part of the community benefit agreement to get across the finish line.

[00:11:59] The other parts when we talk about workforce development, we've historically had really poor workforce development efforts here in terms of actually moving those numbers. If you look at other cities like Tampa or Nashville, we have to make sure we have the workforce to get the work done.

[00:12:13] We have a lot of stuff going on this city now. And so we have to make the workforce that will be making that argument. We'll be making the argument about why we need that dollars for homelessness. All those things are going to be key if we're a housing.

[00:12:24] All those things are going to be key to our future success. We can't back off of them just because we have other challenges. We have to make sure that we're taking steps to be as fiscally responsible as we can.

[00:12:35] And if you would give me a moment to talk about this, I think it's really warm. We have put in place a number of lean teams, which I know y'all know what that means, but for folks who are watching process improvement teams that are working with every department

[00:12:49] of this city to make sure that we can be as efficient. We can say it is much time and money as possible over the coming years. So again, the whole idea lets make sure that we are taking government and making it as efficient as possible.

[00:13:03] Let's make it run as well as we can, and let's say it is much money as we can say while investing in the things that we need to invest in. But with this budget for all that you're hearing about the dollars and where they're going,

[00:13:15] we are taking money out of reserves in this budget to make this budget work. Right? It still leaves us with double the amount of money in reserves. And we're talking general reserves, we're not touching any emergency reserves.

[00:13:29] Double the amount of money in reserves as we targeted to have in reserves. So the family still has a very healthy savings account. But at some point you don't want to starve the kids because you want to stop. We put $76 million additional dollars into reserves last year.

[00:13:46] We're still buying new diapers. We can still buy new diapers, we can still buy food. So it's intake here or the envelope. And take care of the envelope. I don't know about the envelope. The envelope may be on their own.

[00:13:55] But it is, we have plenty of money in our reserves. I think that's an important clarification. Yeah. When because as we talked about sometimes, the news or other people who have problem with it will not tell you the whole story. That's right. That's right.

[00:14:11] And this is an important clarification. It's an important clarification. And that's where I say, I think sometimes I have to remind myself that politics says play a role in things that are said. Things that are said privately sometimes are not the same things that are said publicly. Really?

[00:14:27] And look, that's this heartening to me. And that may sound whatever it sounds. But that's not how I want to do business. That's how I want to do business. So it's, that's the stuff I have to get myself out of. That goes back to the challenge. Yeah.

[00:14:41] That goes back to the challenge. And what I'm sure is this is a very fiscally responsible budget. And I will always present a balanced budget and I will never go further than we can go to have the reserves that we need.

[00:14:55] I do want to make sure that those things that we have begun to finally fund properly continue to be funded. Good pennits. And get finished. Otherwise, you know what we're doing? We're still looking at potential. We're still looking at renderings.

[00:15:08] And we're never looking at those renderings becoming reality. How do you see the rest of your budget going through with this super matureness? Listen, I don't know. I honestly don't know at this point because we have not started those budget meetings.

[00:15:21] Those hearings where we're going to go in front of the different committees and we're going to give, we're going to lay out for them why we made these expenditures and why they're important. And at the end of the day, obviously, counts all do what they're going to do.

[00:15:33] But I'm going to make the case as I will continue to make the case to the people of Jacksonville for why we are doing these things. Frankly, I think people elected me to stop doing business as usual in this city because

[00:15:46] it hasn't gotten us where we want to be. So I'll continue to try to make that case. Council will do what they think is the best thing to do and I suspect will meet someplace in the middle.

[00:15:55] My good colleague, here, Mr. Talvert, has shared with us over on this last year of doing this is that you can never over-communicate with the public. And when I'm hearing is if the members of the council don't want to hear it, people Jacksonville are here.

[00:16:09] Look, that's been my belief that I got into this office. We've had so many community meetings when I first got in and again with the Jaguar Steel. We'll continue to have those. We're going to do those every year.

[00:16:22] And frankly, I say yes to as many events as I can say yes to and still do my job because I want to be out there getting feedback from people. And I think what you learn when you do those things is that people desperately want to

[00:16:36] be part of their city government. They have just felt like they did not have a voice. When I go to these things, largely what I do is I just say I'm here to listen go.

[00:16:46] And then we have a discussion based on what people want to know about or what their issues are. We're not going to ever make everybody happy. But I will not be that person that hasn't taken the time to listen. I can tell you that.

[00:16:56] We got 14 council districts and they're five at large. Any incentives in there to help them come along? Look, are you looking at it from a total of what's good for the community? That's really how I approached things, even with the community benefit agreement.

[00:17:11] We had some money in there for each council district's parks. But that really came from a suggestion that look a lot of our youth programs and parks in these communities need some love in this community benefit agreement. But it was a very tiny amount.

[00:17:23] And I know there are some council people that would like to see bigger chunks go to the council districts. And my feeling is we need to spend money on the things that are going to bring us the return on a large scale. And so we're continuing to go.

[00:17:35] And as far as the budget goes, look, I meet with council people all the time. I always want to know what's important to them. I want to understand what is important to them in their district and I'll do what I can to make sure those things get done.

[00:17:46] But at the end of the day, if it's got to meet what I think is the bigger picture that's going to be best for the city. Great. Speaking of the long overdue, by the way. Yeah. CBA with council making plans to take up the budget.

[00:18:00] They also are going to have to take up the CBA. What's the timing on this? Because it's very much a part of the $1.4 billion stadium deal. Yeah. That's right. Look, I don't think you want to leave money on the table from the Jaguars.

[00:18:12] To me, we were able to negotiate $50 million additional from the Jaguars and even spread out over 30 years. That's for all money. So we need to make sure that we are fully taking advantage of that money and doing the

[00:18:22] things that we can do to move some really important issues. We hope that process is done by the end of August where it's all been presented at this point. And we'll go forward with that in hearings and meetings.

[00:18:34] And hopefully we'll be voting on that by the end of August. That's the goal. In fact, I can just slide this one in. How is your relationship with President White? Oh, I really love Randy. I think he is.

[00:18:46] And look, I had a good relationship with Ron for all the things that you hear about that. I think Ron and I can have some different approaches to things. And Randy and I will have that.

[00:18:54] I think we're Randy and I are most aligned is that both of us are very much let's get stuff done people. He is not seemingly very concerned about the political this that or the other thing. He just wants to get stuff done.

[00:19:09] Now, we won't always agree on how to do that. And that's okay. But if I'm dealing with somebody who honestly just is trying to get to a place with me and as many places as we can get to together, that is a good thing.

[00:19:20] He also doesn't seem to have any other providical ambition. That the other people are important. I think that's the other piece. I think both of us have the mentality of let's get as much done as we can get done.

[00:19:33] And I think both of us when the time comes will be happy to pass that baton on to the next person and go get on our air streams or whatever we're going to do. I'm going to travel the country.

[00:19:42] But Randy has been a joy to work with so far. Yeah. I only ask you about health care. It's very obvious to all of us to health care is such an important part of your life. Yeah.

[00:19:52] And you said it was going to be a priority in your administration. You put $38 million in the budget for you at US Health. Why I'm that investment? And what else are you doing on in the healthcare arena in this budget?

[00:20:05] Those are for capital improvements for things that they need in terms of what we're almost $60 million dollars, we're actually investing into what they're doing for the community. Look, here's the bottom line. I know it makes other hospitals unhappy when I say this.

[00:20:16] But the truth is, US Health is our safety net hospital. A lot of the patients that get served by US Health are patients that the other hospitals just aren't going to be able to accommodate. So they go to US Health. It's an enormous burden.

[00:20:31] We met with them and they showed us their full load of what the uninsured population. So what we said is, let's do everything we can because in my view, and I've said this repeatedly, if we don't have a healthy city, we don't have a productive city.

[00:20:45] And I gave you the health numbers when we came in. Our primary health numbers are not good in Jacksonville. So I want to move those and to move those, we got to move the whole system forward a little bit.

[00:20:55] And I think you have health is we've got to support them, got to support them. Health care historically been a big burden for the city. Yeah. I remember I came to the 80s when Mayor Godmold partnered with Dr. Roy Baker to go after

[00:21:09] US University of Florida and get the chance over here in medical school. And primary motivation for that, one of the primary motivations was to cost it to city was already in current. And it's always homey a driving factor. Yep.

[00:21:26] Now with UF invested so much more money in Jacksonville. How does that going? Well, how's that going to change the picture? Look, I want to also say this is also world class care. These are the things.

[00:21:38] So our goal is also to get more patients with means over there because this is world class care and we need to make sure we're telling that story. If you look at the rankings every year that come out, they're right up there.

[00:21:50] And so people need to understand that's good care. But look, as we don't expand Medicaid in this state. So there's a great deal of regardless of how you feel about it. That's a great deal of additional pressure that gets put on to UF health.

[00:22:03] So we've done a couple of things. We've invested in UF health and we started with the Sunil Joshin, who is our chief health officer in Lynch, Herman. We started a campaign this year to increase the number of our people that were ensured. And we increased that number by 34%.

[00:22:16] And the huge majority of it was in the zip codes where we really needed to do. That's going to save us a lot of money from people showing up at the emergency rooms without insurance. They're all steps on a path. We've improved telehealth.

[00:22:28] We've improved mental health programs that we believe will reap a lot of benefits for us in the coming years. But I remember people asked me when I first started to run for office. I've never seen somebody run a rare who makes health care one of their planks.

[00:22:42] I said, because I truly believe if we can't be a healthy city, we can't be a successful city. So it's more than a moral imperative to me. It is really dollars and cents that if we don't tackle this, we just don't do what can be both.

[00:22:54] But also, we enforce its package as you say, we grown by 17,000 people. You can't pretend that's not happening. Yeah. It's really important for us to acknowledge. Well, you talked about world class. You hear their trauma center. Yeah. World class. Again, with small leadership. Yeah. Sponsor, your teacher planning.

[00:23:11] What you're doing? We have to. I just don't think you have a choice there if you want to. Why don't you? You are able to serve your community. So how are we going to wait night down town? Okay.

[00:23:21] I'll tell you two things that are going to be happening that I think are going to be a catalytic project for us. The related project across the river on the South Bank, which is in the old River City

[00:23:32] Brewing location, that is a developer that brings people with them. Okay. George Perez and the folks that related have basically between him and the folks that are involved with the gateway jacks, Brian, mall. Both of those people were an instrumental in building Tampa and people follow them.

[00:23:52] The related project is going to be going up on the South Bank. The gateway jacks project is going to be going up right here on Pearl Street. Because of those things, I believe will be catalytic projects for us. What about the trio?

[00:24:05] The trio right now is not in a good place. I'll be honest. I was really rooting to get that done. In fact, I know that myself and members of Council, we were willing to accept a deal that

[00:24:15] frankly, we didn't think was very good for the city in order to finally get this thing off of solve. But every time we would get close, it would seem the goal post were moved. And at this point, I'm not saying I'm finished talking about it.

[00:24:28] I am ready to move on to whatever other solutions there may be. We had a gig in Karstie, I can hardly ever see his name. And George, when I showed this past week, and one of the things he did in a column,

[00:24:41] he started it out by saying, Mayor Donodig and had an audacious first year. Now, how down he had no idea what to hell that in there? But we saw each link. Now you know whatever. Well, I'm sorry that I triggered you like that.

[00:24:56] I'm just, that's the best day. I think that's the degree in if so, why was it all the audacious? I think it was a very successful first year. I think we completed some infrastructure projects that we really wanted to complete and

[00:25:12] or at least got a long way down the road on. I think getting that Jaguar's deal done on time and the way that we wanted to get it done was huge.

[00:25:22] I don't have to tell any of the three of you in this city, our history is we let things go so long. We argue about them for so long that they either end up cost and double or they fall of hard.

[00:25:32] That was a really, that was a really big deal. But there were a lot of things the police and fire contracts are literacy initiatives. There were so many successes in this first year of things that we, the healthcare numbers, the 34% increase in our ensured rate.

[00:25:44] Those are all things that I basically talk about those promises that I made when I stood up there. Everything is meant to making this city, the best city that it can possibly be and to you, nightingest to where we believe in ourselves.

[00:25:58] I think you talked about Jaguar earlier. I think we believed in ourselves. That was the goal and day one. And my belief is we can be the old new city of the south if we simply stop getting in our own way.

[00:26:11] So we're going to just continue the forward progress. But the first year I think was a great, a great example of what we can do when we all move together and I give the council credit for that too.

[00:26:21] We couldn't have done, I couldn't do it in the vacuum. They got to come along and they did. You made the incredible statement that we talked about when you said those of us who get elected are there to make decisions. Let's make decisions. It's about leadership.

[00:26:35] That's what we were elected to do. That's right. That's, you know, don't move around on the table. That's what you've done. Yeah, no, sometimes you have to take things to the voters. But when it comes to decisions like this, that's what I think people like to me

[00:26:48] to do. And I'm grateful they didn't. We would grateful to you. Thank you. Thank you for what you do it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. When you're coming out next, there's so much more we didn't get to them.

[00:27:01] We'd love to get to with you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being with us. Nessonet, for another edition of Mike's, I'm Mike. Thank you all for joining us. Our thanks, of course, to the Jacksonville History Center, the prime sponsor of our podcast

[00:27:12] and the donors that keep on the light running in the cameras rolling. Very, very often. Join us next week once again. We hope you won't. Take care. Thanks, please. Thanks, Mike. Mike's on Mike. With Mike Tolbert, Mike Heichauer and Mike Miller can be found on your favorite podcasting

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