Jacksonville's Budget Battle: Discussing Mayor Deegan’s Controversial $1.9 Billion Proposal with David Bauerline

[00:00:01] Mike, Mike Mike, Mike Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike,

[00:00:04] Mike's on Mike, a conversation about politics, government and Jacksonville.

[00:00:09] With 50-year opinion leaders, Mike Hightower, Mike Tolbert, and award-winning broadcaster

[00:00:15] and longtime political observer, Mike Miller.

[00:00:17] Welcome to another episode of Mike's on Mike, I'm Mike Miller here in the studio, Mike

[00:00:22] colleagues, Mike Tolbert, Mike Hightower, both in their remote locations, and we're delighted

[00:00:26] to have you with us today.

[00:00:28] In the last several weeks, the Jacksonville City Council has been reviewing Mayor Deegans 24,

[00:00:33] 25, 1.9 billion dollar budget.

[00:00:36] When she proposed the budget, the Mayor said she wanted to make investments that delivered

[00:00:40] the best return for her citizens.

[00:00:43] Today we want to get into that in the status of the budget and find out just what the

[00:00:47] council has already agreed to, what we think they're going to agree to and what they

[00:00:50] mean not agree to.

[00:00:52] Our guest to help us get through all of that is David Bauerline, outstanding and prolific

[00:00:56] reporter for the Florida Times Union.

[00:00:58] We believe we were talking about this before we started the show, but we think this is your

[00:01:02] fourth time here.

[00:01:03] I think that's right, Mike.

[00:01:05] So it's going to become like a Saturday night live and you're going to get a jacket

[00:01:09] after you've been on for 15 years.

[00:01:11] Something of that sort.

[00:01:13] David's extensive beat has always been Jacksonville City Hall plus the independent agencies.

[00:01:18] I remember him well when I worked at JTA and he was always trying to dig information out

[00:01:22] me that I tried not to give him, but I gave up on it and did any help.

[00:01:27] But besides that, one of the things in work and temporary is that David was very essential

[00:01:32] and bringing us the JTA story and we are very grateful for the work that you put into.

[00:01:37] Thank you very much.

[00:01:39] And welcome back the fourth time to Mike's onite.

[00:01:42] Thank you very much, Mike.

[00:01:43] Mike and Mike always a pleasure to be here and talking to you guys about the business

[00:01:47] of City Hall.

[00:01:48] Because among the four of us, you are the only one that knows what they're talking

[00:01:51] about.

[00:01:52] We just make it up as we go along.

[00:01:54] You're right.

[00:01:55] Mr. Toler, kick it off for us, please.

[00:01:57] Yeah, David, thanks for coming back again and before we get into the budget discussion,

[00:02:02] I want to ask you about a recent article you wrote that the City May back away from

[00:02:07] its foreclosure lawsuit against the developer owner of the Lower Street Trio.

[00:02:14] So it's like we've been suffering with the Lower Street Trio mouth of decades.

[00:02:18] What in the hell is this all about?

[00:02:20] What's going on?

[00:02:22] Yeah, it's really follow the bouncing ball in terms of the, it's on again.

[00:02:26] It's off again and on again, off again and on again.

[00:02:27] I think what the change is that Steve Mackins, who owns the Lower Street Trio,

[00:02:33] has got a new financial partner in the founder of Live O'Con,

[00:02:37] tracking.

[00:02:38] And I think that's a change in terms of the money they can be brought to the table,

[00:02:43] given that they have this new amount of funding available privately,

[00:02:48] they want to reopen negotiations with the City.

[00:02:51] And they still would like a deal in terms of Steve Vattkins,

[00:02:55] that's out these development corporation and also the Live O'Con trading.

[00:02:59] So I think there's always been a desire to get a deal really on both sides.

[00:03:03] It was just that they can get one done after repeat of series negotiations

[00:03:07] and you can assign blame however you want on that.

[00:03:11] But the idea is that if they do want to have some more negotiations,

[00:03:14] which it seems like both sides do give into there's this change in terms of the ownership structure

[00:03:19] of the Lower Street Trio, they would want to be able to do that without having a foreclosure lawsuit

[00:03:26] hanging over the proceedings.

[00:03:28] Everyone feels confident that maybe it's a matter of weeks, not months or years,

[00:03:31] that they can have some deal that can actually come up for a vote before City Council.

[00:03:36] We've heard that before as you well know Mike, but could it be different this time?

[00:03:39] If it is because you have a new investment partner at the table and a real desire

[00:03:45] on the part of some City Council members to get a deal done as well as I think Mayor Dica

[00:03:50] would really like to see that trio restored.

[00:03:52] No, we follow up just for a second here in S with that new influx of funding.

[00:03:56] Is that going to mean that Hattkins will be putting in less of his own money or will

[00:04:00] mean that the city will put in less of the money we plan to an appropriate torture?

[00:04:05] Yeah, the idea would be the city would have to put in less money

[00:04:08] because there would be less of a gap to close in terms of being able to make a financially

[00:04:12] viable.

[00:04:14] And there could be some changes too in terms of the structure of how the money is the timing

[00:04:20] of it maybe or who controls the funding as it goes in.

[00:04:24] That is a big two-part and a week, that was a big sticking point in the previous negotiations.

[00:04:30] Who is it?

[00:04:31] So it essence is, Acton's is sharing the partnership or sharing the ownership.

[00:04:37] Is that what this says?

[00:04:39] The way it's described to me is you can think of it like a joint venture.

[00:04:42] I don't think that's all as I understand that everything's been actually ironed out in terms of

[00:04:47] exactly how that ownership, partnership is formulated in the legal way.

[00:04:55] But yes, he's taken on a partner.

[00:04:57] It's not just so he's got somebody who's lending a money.

[00:05:00] He has a partner now on this at equity partner who is able to bring

[00:05:06] its own money and also bring in other lenders to that extent that's good news for the

[00:05:11] law history, trios, prospects for being redeveloped.

[00:05:15] But look it's still going to be a lot of city money involved I think it is

[00:05:18] and that could be a sticking, that could cause some council members to say

[00:05:22] it's just too much.

[00:05:23] Should have opted the budget.

[00:05:25] They were to start with a tutorial, remind us of what Mayor Digan has proposed in mid-July for the

[00:05:31] budget. Where are we and when will the council vote?

[00:05:36] Great questions Mike, basically the big picture look is there's no property tax rate in

[00:05:41] Greece that's going to stay the same.

[00:05:43] No increases in tax and fees those are going to stay the same.

[00:05:47] The city has been benefiting from a really strong real estate economy.

[00:05:53] So there's more money coming into the city from from just keeping the millage rate where it is,

[00:05:58] so when the Mayor Digan made her budget address she proposed a budget that is Mike was saying was

[00:06:07] right about $1.9 billion, as she $1.92 billion dollars and the council's finance committee has

[00:06:16] gone through that and through extensive budget reviews they have reduced that to $1.88 billion.

[00:06:24] So it's about $40 million less than what the Mayor's proposal was.

[00:06:30] Mayor Digan had proposed using $47 million from the council's operating reserve,

[00:06:36] from the city's operating reserves to make it a balance budget.

[00:06:41] The city council finance committee really walked at the idea of going into the operating

[00:06:46] reserves to that amount so they're at about $7 million as what they would use out of the operating

[00:06:53] reserves in order to balance the budget and that's the broad shape of where things are.

[00:07:00] And then it becomes a question what did they cut?

[00:07:04] And they did cut some funding that the Mayor had proposed for affordable housing and for taking

[00:07:12] on homelessness. And so there are those are things that still could have some council members try

[00:07:19] to get that money back in. There will be a final vote on the budget, the final Thursday,

[00:07:27] final Tuesday of this month which I think is the $27 or something.

[00:07:33] And that's when the city council will vote up or down on it and make any last minute budget amendments.

[00:07:40] David, I know that the Mayor is here per budget was $165 million more than last year but

[00:07:47] given what you just said, what seemed to be the bond of attention there was that she wanted to use

[00:07:53] $47 million of operational reserve per net. Now so before we so we get into this,

[00:08:01] so we put this into correct context, given what we have now in operational reserves,

[00:08:08] are we not talking about in excess of $325 million plus another 125 for emergency,

[00:08:17] which is one reason why it gave us a two point increase in our rating. So what they did was

[00:08:25] is I think the expression was they're trying to save taxpayer money, the two issues that

[00:08:31] have taken out is homelessness and affordable housing. So those are I guess they're saying

[00:08:38] or not things that Jacksonville needs. The argument from the finance committee

[00:08:45] that they would make is that the amount of money in the operating reserves

[00:08:51] is enough to cover about two months of operating expenses for the city. And there are

[00:08:56] you ing that's where it should be. Mayor Deacon is arguing that the operating reserves are

[00:09:02] far above what is required of the city and why just stockpile money, there's needs out there,

[00:09:09] let's use that money today rather than stockpiling it. And yes since the place where

[00:09:16] you know a lot of the things that the mayor proposed did get approved by city council's finance

[00:09:21] committee, there's a big increase in there for University of Florida Health,

[00:09:24] there's going to be a big pay raises for sheriff for police officers, firefighters and

[00:09:32] corrections officers including big jumps and starting pay. That's going to get through city council.

[00:09:38] The idea of using $city dollars to for an affordable housing program,

[00:09:44] they said no to that. So that is where some of the friction point has been exactly right Mike.

[00:09:49] And this it's a question of do you take that money out of reserves and argue that does have a

[00:09:55] pay off down the line or are you basically taking away the ability of the city to respond in

[00:10:04] the future if and when as we all know it will, this real estate market cools off. And instead of housing

[00:10:10] prices going through the roof, they start to go down and then you have the tax base doesn't grow

[00:10:16] the way it has. One reason there's so much money in the reserve funds, this has been a gusher of

[00:10:20] property tax money coming into the city because of the siege increase. There have also been a lot

[00:10:25] of federal dollars that have come into the city too which frees up a lot of local money that

[00:10:29] doesn't need to be used. So doesn't that then roll into the operating or reserves as well?

[00:10:34] It could. Yeah exactly. And that federal money is basically right out. There's really very little

[00:10:40] of the stability spent. David, Mike, my October talked about this I think a couple of shows ago

[00:10:46] but whatever money from last year's budget is not used. My understanding is that if it is not

[00:10:54] used or spent in the fiscal year of the year, it's proposed that it rolls back into reserves.

[00:11:01] Is this not correct? And I understand you somewhere between 20 30 million dollars has got a roll

[00:11:06] back in before our October one. I'm not sure what these, the amount of that is but that's exactly

[00:11:12] how it works. You have a budget, it's an estimate for what you're going to spend and almost every

[00:11:16] year at the city ends up spending less than its budget and then those that amount just rolls back

[00:11:24] into the reserve fund. So that could be an argument. We've got this money that we can count on

[00:11:29] coming in each year and that gives us a cushion to be able to go into the reserves because we know

[00:11:35] it's going to get replenished. And if I do not mistaken, is the 10 million that they have pulled out

[00:11:41] for affordable housing was going to be matched with another 30 million from the community foundation.

[00:11:49] So there was 30 million that was outquote left on the table that they could use plus the money that's

[00:11:55] not going to be used in the previous year that's going back. So is that this great responsibility?

[00:12:01] Is that just political gainsmanship and artists in sniping? It could be all of the above. Politics is

[00:12:09] policy, policy is politics. The city's used to reserve, it's gotten into reserves in the past and

[00:12:15] it's been over the last decade about nine million dollars a year and the mayor comes as we want to

[00:12:21] do $47 million that a reserve's this year and the council says no and I presumably the mayor

[00:12:27] could come back and say I'll agree to cut this amount of my budget or could have come back with

[00:12:32] the budget that didn't require taking $47 million that a reserve and still did $10 million for

[00:12:39] this housing trust fund. Or I'll tell you what, we'll take the million dollars per district that

[00:12:43] was going to be in this proposal. That each of you 14 district council members were going to receive

[00:12:49] and we'll use that money for the affordable housing program and take it from there. No net loss,

[00:12:55] I think what'll happen is the ticket. That's $50 million. Is it going to be in the budget that

[00:13:00] it could vote it on? But the council has told said if you want to do it, bring back a separate

[00:13:06] piece of legislation later. At that point if the reserves have grown to a certain amount maybe

[00:13:12] there's an argument you can make look. We have even more reserves and even you have said we need

[00:13:17] and so it's financially sound to take that $10 million dollars out of the reserves. To get into the

[00:13:25] one go below the line or is there going to be cut from the budget because that's a big difference.

[00:13:30] If it goes below the line, it's still there you just can't spend it until you get it. It's a

[00:13:34] pay go kind of thing. But if it's actually taken out of the budget from the mayor is that she is

[00:13:39] committed to putting 40 new police officers on the GSO and also another $28 million for fire stations.

[00:13:45] Is it safe to say that those two items are sang crocinct? When it gets. Yes. Yeah, those are definitely

[00:13:51] going through and the public safety will have a very good budget this year. I think you're so.

[00:13:57] Yeah, I want to go back to the reserves just a minute. Correct me if you found wrong David,

[00:14:04] went on the $10 million for affordable housing. That was being approached as alone

[00:14:11] so that it would eventually be repaid to the city. And then you had the $30 million from the community

[00:14:18] foundation to match the 10. Am I correct all that? That was the idea that there would be this

[00:14:25] true public private partnership between the city and nonprofit and then the argument was that

[00:14:31] it would actually grow over time to $120 million in new multi-family rental housing.

[00:14:38] That's really what's left on the table right now. It's not just 10 million dollars being cut,

[00:14:43] but there's a whole lot of money being left on the table. And I'm curious as to two people,

[00:14:52] Roy Diamond and Ron Salem who seemed to be so adamant about this. I know that Salem has been

[00:14:59] telling everybody who will listen and that he's going to run against Digan from Mayard and that we

[00:15:03] hear their Roy was to run for Congress. What do you think is their motivation for doing this? Is it just

[00:15:09] their idea of fiscal responsibility or is it political or irresponsible?

[00:15:16] So I haven't heard Ron directly say to me, you got to look at Roy's question of what is political

[00:15:22] future is. It's always been he's interested in serving after his current term in Zonkownsol. He's

[00:15:30] he dances around the idea of his going to run for Mayard or not. But it's interesting if he is

[00:15:36] talking to others about potentially running for Mayard. It could be that it positions,

[00:15:42] we would position him in a way saying politically the city council can say, look, we kept this

[00:15:47] mayor in check from spending all this money. So maybe there's some political aspect of that.

[00:15:54] On the other side of it, there are some concerns council members have about future deficits

[00:16:01] about having the ability to handle a future slowdown in taxes. And at a collective

[00:16:11] bargaining agreements that were agreed to by the Digan administration are going to add some

[00:16:17] cost to the city in the next couple of years. It's the combination of pay raises and higher starting

[00:16:22] salary, it's going to be about $50 million more in cost for the budget this next year than yet another

[00:16:30] $25 million on top of that 50 the following year than another $25 million on top of that

[00:16:36] the third year. That's a pretty, that's a big chunk of money. And so they're looking at that and

[00:16:41] going, that's going to squeeze out some of the funding that we would have for some of these programs.

[00:16:46] But are they taking into consideration the revenue that would be generated from all of the new

[00:16:50] housing that is being built and all the property that's being developed? All of that's going to be

[00:16:54] paying at the norm taxes on that property. And it's going to be revenue that they don't have now.

[00:16:59] But it will be because of the new construction. You have my understanding David is not that

[00:17:04] that long program for which is a long is and I think Mike Trobbert talked about a pump

[00:17:10] witch go. It would we're looking at 35,000 possibly new housing units out there down the road

[00:17:17] to what Mike Miller just said at war sounds a partisan politics for my Republican colleagues.

[00:17:23] Yeah, obviously, I cover city hall and I've not heard anybody say outright. This helps us

[00:17:29] politically and they're not going to say that. There is a question of, is there a line to be

[00:17:34] drawn on how much you take out a resource? If the mayor came in said I want to take $100 million

[00:17:38] at a reserve, it's at too much. What is the right amount? What should the policy be of

[00:17:43] drawing down many out of the reserves? Like I said in the past, it's been about average of $9

[00:17:49] million a year. It's come out of reserves. And then they know at the end of the year,

[00:17:53] they're going to end up being able to replenish that because they always end up

[00:17:57] standing less than what they bring in. And you talk about $47 million. That's a pretty big change

[00:18:03] in policy and if that's something that the city council agreed to do then that would be

[00:18:09] have some ramifications down the road. But on the, and like I say, there's still a moment will

[00:18:15] sure that there is still going to be some legislation at some point brought forward by the

[00:18:21] administration if they're not able to get the $10 million as part of the budget and there will

[00:18:26] be a big debate and discussion over that at that point. My memory of that reserves goes way back

[00:18:33] somebody correct me if I'm wrong about this. But when John Payton became mayor in 2002, I think it was,

[00:18:42] he brought Walt the SIL over. Walt was the head of J.E.A. for years and he brought Walt over

[00:18:49] and Walt recommended to John because of money issues that they use and reserves. They invest

[00:18:57] some reserves and spend reserves and people went absolutely crazy about it. I don't know what

[00:19:03] the, I can't remember what the outcome of that was. But reserves have always been the hot item

[00:19:08] with every council I've ever been around and this is no different. Yeah, and there's emergency reserves

[00:19:14] which are set aside and can't touch it. That's just, it's there. It's definitely there if there's a

[00:19:19] hurricane or something. That's an excess of 125 million dollars correct. I believe that's right.

[00:19:27] My concerns to the amount of money this in reserves politically you have a city council is for

[00:19:32] public and controlled. I don't think that they perhaps have the same sort of policy agreement with the

[00:19:44] housing and homelessness. Absorbed Ron Salam were able to, we're running for mayor. You can look back

[00:19:48] and say, look, I took a stand and stopped some of this spending from going out of control. And

[00:19:54] maybe there's a political benefit to that. The, the affordable housing would be one of those cases

[00:20:00] where it is public private partnership and it brings a lot of nonprofit money to the table which

[00:20:06] is really leveraging tax dollars which is on the other hand with city council members always say they

[00:20:14] choose the has really deter downtown from growing and enhancing has been the crime that's been

[00:20:21] affiliated with the homeless there. And if you go back to John Delaney, when we put in the new

[00:20:27] library which unfortunately has become daycare for the homeless, the new library downtown.

[00:20:33] When you're talking about a quality of life and you're talking about those issues that we want

[00:20:37] downtown to grow or what young people to be there, the homeless issue is an issue that is

[00:20:43] tied just so much of it. To me, it's, I get a, this was a response to the years, it's just to me,

[00:20:51] it is nitpicking but it's got, we're talking long term, it's about a quality of life and where

[00:20:56] we are city wants to be. And one of the issues that is throughout our community is homelessness

[00:21:03] because it's affecting downtown and the growth of downtown and affordable housing. And so if

[00:21:08] somebody's going to run, are they going to say, I stopped that from happening or when I win,

[00:21:13] I'm going to do something about it. But then the question is, why did the hell do you do

[00:21:17] something about it when you were in charge of the money? Which I was starting to dig and I'd be

[00:21:23] saying that as somebody runs against me. As my colleagues know, homelessness is one of the few

[00:21:27] issues that I really dig into because it is so visible. We are seeing citizens property insurance

[00:21:33] company possibly moving out of downtown and they're blaming it on the homeless and the threats

[00:21:39] against their employees. But, and I've read through the mayor's 12 point plan and I hope at some

[00:21:45] point we're going to be able to talk about that in depth here on the show. But I still walk away

[00:21:50] and say, but you have a, do you have a solution for the homeless? We're putting plans together,

[00:21:56] but when you take a look at this, I don't want to be oversimplifying things, but keep in mind that

[00:22:01] you go to a sales blocker center for breakfast. Then they tell the people, you got to leave because

[00:22:06] we've got to get ready for your lunch or for your dinner or whatever. So these people don't just stay

[00:22:12] there and they don't have a gymnasium to go to and they don't have a workout room to go to.

[00:22:16] They're told they've got to leave and where do they go? Wherever you can find yourself a place

[00:22:20] to go. Then they come back for another meal or to spend the night. But it shows hours from seven

[00:22:26] o'clock in the morning, eight o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the afternoon,

[00:22:30] where they're most visible downtown, where they interact. Unfortunately with those who are working

[00:22:36] in have a legitimate reason, not that they don't have a legitimate reason, but they've got

[00:22:40] to working reason for being down there. And even with the formative action, and I'm not

[00:22:45] affordable housing. Like I said, I don't want to get too deep in this thing, but affordable to

[00:22:49] a homeless person means zero because they can't afford even a reduced rent even four or five hundred

[00:22:56] dollars a month that they don't have jobs and they're not able to those on the street now.

[00:23:05] What good is it going to be when we come up with more programs until we can find a place for people

[00:23:09] to go during the day so that they feel like they've got a life to live and not have to be on the

[00:23:17] street stride. Is that making any sense at all? Probably not, but I tried. Yeah, no, it does

[00:23:23] my concerns of what they're trying to look at doing. And how do you actually

[00:23:27] reach the really hard core homeless population? And again, this is still going to be not resolved

[00:23:34] completely by this particular budget. I think there's going to be continued legislation and look at

[00:23:40] continued appropriations for that program. So I think it's to be continued in terms of that

[00:23:47] particular aspect of really tackling that issue. One of the things that this budget, my understanding

[00:23:52] is the Mr. Diamond, Mr. Salem, in Mr. Friedman decided one of the ways that they were going to

[00:23:58] balance the budget was by cutting Mike Weinstein's budget. Now his salary, if I understand Mike Weinstein

[00:24:06] is probably, it's probably one of the most experienced and it's probably one of the longest

[00:24:11] track records of people who understand finance goes back to Ed Austin Thaese when he was the

[00:24:22] coordinator for our super bowl and we even made money on this and how he's coming up. Here

[00:24:27] is a guy who understands finance probably better than anyone else. And so here are these three

[00:24:33] dudes who are one to cut the one person that understands finance, which says to me my

[00:24:40] observation is if you get rid of the guy who understands how finance works then maybe this

[00:24:45] administration will have a tough time for the next two or three years until they go into election.

[00:24:50] That's my observation but you go back and look at the salaries that Kuri was paying his

[00:24:57] vote and then you look at this. I think some people have got their priorities wrong and it just

[00:25:04] maxed. Harsen petty politics from my perspective. What is that stand down David? What is it? What

[00:25:10] is the status of that then attempt to get rid of Weinstein's salary? Yeah so they held in the

[00:25:20] report in response from the full city council. So I think that's been considered and disposed

[00:25:24] of through the committee process. There is still this continually debate on the position of the Mayor's

[00:25:30] office, the office of diversity and inclusion. I think it is that he harbours a med holes where they

[00:25:39] said we're going to zero out funding for that position and there still will be a

[00:25:45] that's still something that has to be resolved and decided upon one where the other I think

[00:25:50] what I wonder about going back to Weinstein for a moment. Mike, high tower is

[00:25:55] if you were going to try to target the mayor because of political considerations,

[00:26:01] why are you going after that Republican that's in her administration? Like Weinstein's a Republican,

[00:26:07] he always has been a Republican. When I worked for him at the JEDC, he was a Republican. So why

[00:26:12] go after the Republican who's got such a high position in this Democratic administration? Why aren't you

[00:26:18] going after perhaps one of the Democrats that are working for the mayor? I mean, you're a

[00:26:24] roi-domin and you say an easy target to get ahead line. It's a, and since Roy has employed his

[00:26:31] resume and he can't see and he's terribly disingenuous, I don't think we should expect anything else

[00:26:37] from Roy Diamond. One, if I could just ask for it on this budget thing, real quick, David,

[00:26:43] again, I'm 500 miles away but I get this rumor that there are members of the council who

[00:26:48] were looking at ways to backpattle a little bit on the 56 million dollars for the parts,

[00:26:54] which was part of the negotiation the mayor did with the jab wars, which was a key,

[00:26:59] which was a key component. And now I hear that behind the scenes that they're

[00:27:04] chinkering with that is that. Am I correct? There's been some discussion, this is all part

[00:27:09] of that community benefits agreement, which has been fluid and who knows how that's going to

[00:27:13] find the end up. But I think there's they wanted to take a closer look at why the cost of these

[00:27:19] three riverfront parks have gotten so much higher about what anybody had previously said they were

[00:27:24] going to do costs. But I think basically that community benefits agreement is going to have the

[00:27:29] 56 million dollars for the parks and it is going to have 94 million dollars on top of that

[00:27:35] for Eastside neighborhood, for countywide initiatives and workforce housing and workforce development

[00:27:45] and homelessness and $14 million for parks, countywide. I think that's been really resolved

[00:27:51] my concerns of that particular portion of it. Now there's some additional funding above and beyond

[00:27:56] that for parks that they have been looked at cutting out of the five-year capital improvements

[00:28:02] program and that did get cut. But with the administration support they said, yeah we think we can

[00:28:09] do without this $20 million dollars for pet park and for the shipyard's west park.

[00:28:14] On the CBA so you really believe that at the end of the day we're going to be able to go back to

[00:28:20] the jibbers and get their old one. If we put in our 150 we'll get 150 from them. That's what it

[00:28:25] looks like right now because the big issue was how quickly would the city need to commit to spend

[00:28:30] its portion of it. It sounds like they reached agreement with the jackwars and how to do that.

[00:28:36] But as we speak now, it still hasn't been approved by city council. There's still

[00:28:40] moving pieces. There's still could be some council members who say, oh we now

[00:28:44] we're done with the collector bargaining agreements are going to cost for police and firefighters.

[00:28:49] We've got to take another look at this community benefits agreement we can't afford all of it.

[00:28:53] It never gets easy folks. They just never get easy. This is where out of time but it's so

[00:28:58] grateful that he came back with us once again. Thank you so much David. Always going to have you here

[00:29:03] and we're not done yet with this thing. This is still got a couple more weeks before it needs

[00:29:07] to get completely passed so we'll see what happens. And we want to thank you all for joining us as

[00:29:12] well and remind you that we keep the cameras rolling in the lights on thanks to our friends at the

[00:29:16] jacks of our historical society. Alan Bliss and the wonderful donors who have helped and keeping

[00:29:22] us show running and we thank you very much for your support and hope you will continue to support us

[00:29:27] as we go through this year. And that's going to do it for all of us. Thank you all for joining us and

[00:29:31] we'll see you next week.