Predicting Jacksonville's Next Moves: Stadium Stakes and Election Races with David Bauerlein

[00:00:00] Mike's on Mic, a conversation about politics, government and Jacksonville. With 50-year opinionators Mike Tolbert, an award-winning broadcaster and longtime political observer, Mike Miller. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Mike's on Mic on Mic Miller and Mike Hightower's with me here in studio.

[00:00:22] Mike Tolbert is out at the farm and it's great to have you with this. Mike's on Mic brought to you by the Jacksonville Historical Society, which is located inside the Jacksonville History Center.

[00:00:32] And we thank Alan Bliss and the Fine donors and supporters of our program for their help and their encouragement, which we love that as well. Our guest today is veteran Florida Times Union reporter David Bauerlein, who joined the Times Union staff back in 1998.

[00:00:48] David covers Jacksonville City Hall and government authorities, including the J.E.A., which we might touch upon a little bit later on. David, thanks so much for being with us. This is great to be with you. Great to be here. Thank you very, very much.

[00:01:00] Just after the first of the year David came out with a story that struck me and I called the guys right away and said we've got to do this. David wrote an article about the eight news developments in Jacksonville to watch in 2024.

[00:01:14] And that's what we want to talk with him about today. First of it, you called the biggest story to watch in 2024, the negotiations between the city and shotgun and the Jaguars. The mayor says she wants this on her desk or at least entered by spring.

[00:01:31] And it's my friend Mr. Heith Tower pointed out before the show, you know, spring is already here. Mark's 19th June 20th. Right. So what's the status of those negotiations? Are they going to meet? She's going to meet that deadline.

[00:01:47] It seems like she's confident that they will be able to meet that deadline. So I think they're, they meet regularly. It's Mike Weinstein representing her, Mike is a veteran of City Hall and it was actually part of the team that negotiated way back when the Super Bowl,

[00:02:05] when Jacksonville in the Super Bowl, he was part of the team that negotiated when the Jaguars came to Jacksonville as a franchise. So he's a veteran negotiator in this regard. And of course Mark Lamping is leading the negotiations on behalf of the Jaguars. They're negotiating regularly.

[00:02:21] I think that sounds like they are making progress. And the mayor every time she has these press gagels, she's really stuck with that idea of having something. At least a framework is the way she describes it by April or May.

[00:02:36] And then they would go out into the public and get the back from the public. Here's what we're looking at. Here's kind of the design. Here's what it looks like. Here's what the cost would be.

[00:02:46] Those kind of big picture things to see what people feel about moving to the next level, which would be then taking the city council. And that could happen in the summer. So you know, obviously these negotiations, you know, there's always the final 10%, maybe it's a 90%.

[00:03:03] There's a lot of issues and it's not just the stadium yet to remember. It's also the lease itself. That's a very complicated thing. What if the Jaguars are to leave before the lease is up?

[00:03:15] You know, what's the penalty to them in terms of the cities, re-couping that cost? You know, how is the property around the stadium going to be used or not used for economic development? So there's a lot of those issues that are really big.

[00:03:31] And in the mayors also made a big point that she'd really like to see any deal have some benefits to neighborhoods near the stadium, specifically the Eastside neighborhood, it's also called out East now, which is on the other side of that elevated expressway to the Matthews Bridge,

[00:03:45] which kind of feels like it's close but so far away from stadium complex and finding ways to sort of create some economic development as well for that neighborhood,

[00:03:56] in conjunction with what all these investment, which is a massive amount of money the city would be putting into the stadium. So what you're looking at is during the next 90 days of framework and then a community conversation. Pretty much, yeah.

[00:04:10] Some of the what the Jaguar did last time. The hot lightings, community huddles, except this would be the mayor leading those conversations. I think the main things are, you know, the stadium is really the focal point of the negotiations.

[00:04:24] There have been talk earlier about doing some sort of big entertainment district as part of it. That really that part component of it doesn't really seem to have advanced very far in the go-to-should. So you look into the stadium, which would be great.

[00:04:39] I agree Mr. Tolver has waited. It's really like about $1.4 billion, I mean just a huge amount of money for the stadium itself and then the big question is how do you split the cost? You know what percentage is, child-con putting up, what percentage is the city putting up?

[00:04:58] And that I think is still an added negotiation so it's all about the money. It's about the money in terms of the definitely who's paying and how much? And the other part is to what extent are the Jaguars?

[00:05:15] How does the lease affect the team in terms of if in the future it ever left? How does that affect the city taxpayers? Does it get about the money? Doesn't all of this though still have to go to the NFL for approval? It does. So there's two routes.

[00:05:32] One of us to city council obviously in the mayor, but the NFL also has to sign off on it. So that's there's a committee there, the owners have to support it. So you have two audiences for this.

[00:05:48] You know that it would be hard to see that the Jaguars would reach a deal with the city and then go to the NFL and say, And then if owners were to say no to it, on the other hand the Jaguars probably are.

[00:06:00] And they said this publicly that they need to deal that they can get a yes from from the owners. So that's a factor there and so that's why a lot of the comparables are to what of the NFL done in the past for these type of stadiums.

[00:06:13] Another city you want to handicap it? Is it what's going to happen or what's it going to cost? This. Yeah, so I think it'll be about a $1.4 billion stadium.

[00:06:24] I mean, there does not seem to be anything that is emerged as far as we understand it at this point. It's a different design from what the Jaguars unveiled last summer. It is. So those renderings you saw that seems to be kind of what they're working off of.

[00:06:39] And that is about a $1.4 billion renovation and then for the for the cost breakdown. Yeah, that's a good question Mike up until now a lot of these deals have been 50 50 between the city and the like on the amphitheater.

[00:06:55] That was a 50 50 deal on the the sports performance center, which is basically their practice stadium and the middle of electric field or electric field. There you go. There's that name Mike. I don't want it. I wouldn't mind good tickets but I don't want to stay down.

[00:07:14] I was going to talk to you about some good tickets. So that was 50 50. I'd be surprised if it's 50 50 this time. I mean that would mean the Jaguars we're putting up $700 million. We want 50% of every all the revenue coming right.

[00:07:33] Right, and so I'm you know, but that's just again that that would be probably the city's goal to get to a 50 50 on it.

[00:07:40] If the Jaguars could agree to that and there's a lot of different components than negotiations not just the money but the least what that looks like.

[00:07:49] Mike guess is that it's going to be the city picking up a bigger share of the funding for a city on stadium and then the Jaguars to Mr. Tolver. Yeah, David first of all thank you for your great work.

[00:08:03] Hey, and then day out we really grateful to you. Let let us know what's going on down there. I have a couple of questions. One of the regards Mayor Deagons. It gazed when in the process. I know she's got Weinstein and they hired her law firm.

[00:08:20] Tell us about the law firm. But tell us if she engaged or she depending mostly on her team do this. I think she's really depending mostly on her team to handle those day in and day out negotiations.

[00:08:33] I don't think she's at the table of any of these talks. The law firm that is working with Mike Weinstein, I think they're a firm out of Chicago and they have done these type of deals on other NFL franchises.

[00:08:48] So they've been there done that in terms of some of the things that you want to look at. I think that's a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing to do on include in these type of negotiations.

[00:09:02] But my sense is that Mayor Deagons has said this as well to us and some of these regular press gagels or availability she has.

[00:09:08] She has focused in her words less on the money part of it and more on the neighborhood benefit part of it, the community benefit part of it.

[00:09:16] So that's been very important to her and that gets to some of these things like how is it deal and how is stadium renovation going to positively impact

[00:09:24] the side neighborhood for example and that's been a big focus of a lot of nonprofit groups to try and break generational property there.

[00:09:32] So I would say at this point, for my understanding she has been delegated that authority to Mike Weinstein gets regular reports back from them, but she has not been actually at the table.

[00:09:44] Nor do my understanding as Shod Khan for instance been at the table on the heart of the Jaguars. It's been their representatives or high level representatives who've been doing the negotiations. Is the city council? If they got something to say. This was not. Great.

[00:09:58] Excuse me, I'm sorry Mike, I don't mean to interrupt you. No, no. Thank you, Mr. Chauva. I was just learning. Yes, but you know that city council at the table with him. There's nobody from City Council at the table. Okay. That was my question.

[00:10:16] And I will have me in a rupture. Go ahead and finish your thoughts, Mr. Tauva. Well, I had two questions and I got through one of them with. But. Apology.

[00:10:28] David, this is not the second question, but she sets up that that intrigued me and that is she's more focused on the neighborhood. It's around the stadium than she is on the money. And I can understand that and appreciate that.

[00:10:45] But I think taxpayers and voters are going to be more focused on the money than they are on the neighborhood. And I'm not so up in my hair and you're correctly. Yeah, I think the way she kind of phrased that that way.

[00:11:00] I guess you know how would best paraphrase it. Well, first of all, I do think she has focused on the money. In the sense that she wants to be able to have a deal that she feels she can.

[00:11:09] Bring before voters bring to city council justify and defend what the actual financial component of it.

[00:11:17] I think when I'm trying to convey or at least what I understood her to say is that in terms of where she is actually having some of her input most at this stage. Has been that she really wants to see a community benefit component to this deal.

[00:11:34] That's where she might so to speak try to put her stamp on it as mayor in terms of how the final deal emerges and what the outlines are of it. Now, but I absolutely I do think she is. I don't think she's she's. She's not.

[00:11:53] Blind or blightly dismissing the financial aspects of it.

[00:11:59] I hope that in convey that in terms of kind of my paraphrase of what she told us because that is the basic threshold question that she's going to have to answer is whatever amount of money it is that the city's putting into it.

[00:12:14] What is the return to the people of this city for that and I think part of it and this would be what is a community benefit how does the community benefit as result of having this.

[00:12:27] As she's made the argument over and over again, this she does feel like the jaguar is being in Jacksonville is a benefit to the city because she's faces questions that her town halls from people who say.

[00:12:37] You know, it the jaguar stay great, but I don't want to use a single set of taxpayer dollars to keep them here or other people who say I don't care about the jaguar's I'm not a football fan and I just don't care one way or the other and I don't see a direct benefit to me except that I can't get near downtown on a home game day right other net.

[00:12:56] Mr. Tolbert your second question. My second question and I guess this is a file one about this particular issue recently Weinstein throw to the notion that the city could pay might could pay its portion of the cost out of the pension.

[00:13:12] City's pension fund number one David can you explain what he's talking about and number two is that a pig that can really fly. But lipstick on. Yeah, Mike some might. Now I'll try to explain it Mike in terms of how it works.

[00:13:37] First of all, one thing that Mayor Deacon said when she talked to Mike Weinstein about it was she says she told Mike.

[00:13:44] I would like you to think outside the box as you're doing this and for those of us who know Mike Weinstein that's kind of like selling Mike Weinstein to be Mike Weinstein because he's always looking for different. Creative innovative.

[00:13:57] And so the idea behind it is simply this is that the the police and fire pension fund and the general employee pension fund and the correction officers pension fund.

[00:14:15] They have total about five billion dollars in assets and their job is to take those assets and invest them in a way that they get returns on those investments so that the investment income is in.

[00:14:30] There to be able to pay for pension benefits as city employees retire and and our paid those benefits. So that's their job. Their job is to find ways to invest this money.

[00:14:44] So what Mike Weinstein's argument is that there's a benefit to those pension funds if they were to take a certain amount of it and let's say out of five billion dollars you took 500 million dollars to that.

[00:14:57] And you essentially quote invested that in the stadium renovations with the city guaranteeing that over a multi year period of a few decades. The pension funds would get a return on that equal to what their targets are right now for their investments which is about 6.5%.

[00:15:16] So from that standpoint it's the question for the pension funds is does that make sense for them to do that. And because they're going to be investing it one way or the other, do they invest it in this way?

[00:15:29] Do they invest it in you know treasury bills where you have a much lower rate of return, do you go invested in the stock market where potentially you have a higher rate of return or maybe a lower rate of return.

[00:15:41] So the argument would be that the pensions would be benefited by this because they would get a guaranteed rate of return on a certain amount of their assets.

[00:15:56] And that is something that would be beneficial to them because the reality is every time they do a recalculation of what their assume rate of return is going to be based on actual returns.

[00:16:08] It doesn't go us because down each year and because they're constantly realizing that the actual rate of returns is not that great. So to put it in a way if you are a private investor and someone comes up to you and says,

[00:16:21] If you want to invest a certain amount of your portfolio and I'll guarantee you'll get a 6.5% return on it over 30 year period.

[00:16:31] Does that make sense to you? Is that a good deal for you with that makes sense for you to have that kind of stability and at least a portion of your assets because you know in this case that the city is good for it.

[00:16:43] I mean they'll just race, you know that's the that's the reason why it's good to have a city guaranteeing your investment is because they'll turn around and and after they'll just raise property taxes right.

[00:16:55] But that's the point the point that dear that I think we're going to hear is from those taxpayers are going to say, wait a minute here.

[00:17:02] I'm the one who's really on the hook for this thing if it all goes south and if they can't pay it back if we don't get the revenue we need to pay back the pension fund they're going to have to raise taxes.

[00:17:14] So now you're talking about raising taxes for the benefit of our NFL team and how is that going to play?

[00:17:21] Yeah, I'm just going to kind of use the hypothetical about why it is that it's a good investment to have a city backing your investment as opposed to you know investing and say real estate investment trust or something like that.

[00:17:36] The flip side for the city is okay the pension funds let's say the pension funds say you know what that's a good deal for us.

[00:17:42] We like the idea that a certain amount of our assets are going to be invested in a way that we get a guaranteed rate of return over a multi-year period. That's a stable source of income that we can then use.

[00:17:57] It's it just makes sense for us from an investment standpoint because you know otherwise from the stock market is up it's now on its all over the budget.

[00:18:05] Now from the city standpoint, let's say they were to go out right now if it's go out to the bond market. They could borrow that $500 million at a low interest rate like maybe in the high 4% to low 5%.

[00:18:22] So why would they then want to go and go to the pension funds and agree to pay them back at a higher rate of return. So that would be one question when I come up with what's the city's benefit?

[00:18:34] I mean the taxpayers are going to end up paying more interest by doing it this way.

[00:18:39] Weinstein's argument would be well what's good for the pension funds is ultimately good for the city because the city is in a position where it has to make good on those pension benefits which it's guaranteed to retirees and knows about your retire.

[00:18:54] So that's the basic thrust of the argument there and you know I've been talking to people who have been following this pension saga for a while. A lot of people's initial reaction was that's crazy.

[00:19:07] We spent all this time in effort to try and shore up the investments and the pension fund we got a half cents sales tax together the pension funds.

[00:19:15] Now we want to like take money out, raid the pension funds so that we can go build a stadium and I sort of get that initial reaction. When you go past a reaction it becomes a question of this.

[00:19:28] That money is going to get invested one way or the other. Dice it or does it make sense to invest it in the stadium with the guaranteed rate of return by the city or.

[00:19:40] Does it make more sense for the city to go to the bond market and borrow it in that way either way the taxpayers are on the hook to make sure that this gets paid back.

[00:19:50] You know to me it's local and you can watch your investment as you said up some downs at the bond market, you know. Plus the fact is what we're looking at what's the national debt what's the national debt at this point. Yeah, so I mean you know.

[00:20:11] I mean it was more when we started taping this show. I know that it was a thing is you look at it it's something local it's tangible. I mean I think we'll have a lot of what he called community huddles but.

[00:20:25] It's interesting to what you've explained it. I think to your point there's a lot of folks out there they're going to have to put that in a way that people understand what you just say.

[00:20:34] And the number of people who are invested in the stock market or investors at all that it's going to be a leap of faith and what that comes to. No doubt Mike and you think about the time it took me to explain it.

[00:20:47] The idea of an elevator speech. That's a big part of the building to get that elevator and have somebody's focus in on listening to that. It's an expi dating. Yeah, because you know the first thing I think is you know,

[00:21:03] you're rating the pension fund to do this stadium boom toggle and then you know that that would be the distilled criticism of it. The counter to it is a little more of a nuanced explanation about how the benefits are.

[00:21:21] The benefits and perhaps detrimental aspects of moving forward in that way. If speaking of rating, let's move on to the J.E.A. story. That as this is airing the trial now will be ongoing because this is the 20th that we're taping this on folks.

[00:21:39] Cherry spends selected tomorrow begins opening arguments so by the time this errors next Monday, they probably should be into the trial itself. So you have to kind of watch where we are at this point. What are you looking for out of this?

[00:21:53] Do you hoping to hear from the witnesses or if not hoping to hear is there anything that's going to lift an eyebrow or two? Do you think from the witness list that you see?

[00:22:02] You know, I've been following pretty religiously Nate Monroe's coverage of this and Nate has covered it so thoroughly.

[00:22:09] And so much of the testimony has been kind of aired already in certain forms in some of these pre trial hearings that I don't know that there's anything that would really come up with. And it's really come across to me as unexpected.

[00:22:25] Based on the expected witnesses who are going to be called kind of interesting how the government will pull it all together, they're going to have many days of witnesses and testimony. I would be very interested if either when the defense puts on its case,

[00:22:41] if either Ryan Wattamacher or Aaron Zahn who are the shoe defendants, the two former J.E.A. executives, take the stand and testify. I am interested when the testimony comes forward from Melissa Dykes, who was another high ranking J.E.A. executive during all of this,

[00:23:02] was not somebody who was indicted but will be a witness. I think our testimony is going to be really interesting to hear what she has to say. She was in the room during a lot of this,

[00:23:14] but that'll be an opportunity too for the defense to really go on the attack I think and ask questions about what she knew her involvement. So I think that should be a really interesting witness when her turn comes to testify.

[00:23:32] And we really have an heard a lot about what she will be testifying about. I think she could flip. There's nothing to flip because she's not being charged, she's not the charge. So she'll be interesting for sure.

[00:23:45] And then, you know, the timeline that the prosecution puts together I think is going to be critical because they're going to have to show the tissue conspiracy. They're going to have to show that it was a repeated pattern over a prolonged period of time.

[00:24:01] And that's going to be a challenge so have in turn so putting their case together. All right. I'm going to come back and ask second hand to get question.

[00:24:10] Since you and Nate had and by the way, you guys have been following this for years and you've done a great job. Thanks to the time, Junior. Want to hand it, yeah? We're going to end. Are there going to be convictions? What's your hand to get? Yeah.

[00:24:26] You know, I really can't even answer that question, Mike, because I don't have any frame of reference for this type of a trial. I mean, it's a conspiracy to steal millions of dollars from taxpayers.

[00:24:40] And that is really something that can resonate with the jury without a doubt, you know, that there was this, the government is saying there was this plan to secretly take hundreds of millions of dollars that should have been going to taxpayers.

[00:24:59] And it's a sale of their city on utility to enrich the people who were working as public servants with the judiciary duty to the utility. That's really compelling. I think in terms of the government's case,

[00:25:16] the flip side, though, obviously is that this never happened in the sense that it was sort of smoked out by the city council auditors office. And by the way, and by Nate. Nate was on it. A lot of people were on this.

[00:25:30] And so then it became a, it never materialized, right? So I think that's something that, you know, would I think make potentially your jury ask, well, yes, maybe there was, there was a lot being said and done. But at the end of the day, it didn't happen.

[00:25:52] And so was there really a crime or was it just, I think, name arose put in one of his columns or was it just a really bad idea that, you know, deserve to think the proposal to sell J, but doesn't rise at a level of criminal offense.

[00:26:11] I hear your question, Mike, but I don't really just don't know if that just has a take to even go out and handicap that. Because again, it's just a such a new type of thing for us to Jacksonville.

[00:26:26] It's not like some of the other corruption trials we've seen in people who were, you know, the government says they did something wrong and they got money.

[00:26:35] And here's how they use that money, the taxpayers we ripped off for this one, you know, the, however there was a lot of money spent on something that didn't go through.

[00:26:48] And I think the part of the government's case will be that the, the motivation for putting this community through that entire sales process was, was, at least in part, to set the stage for a big pay day. Mr. Tomman.

[00:27:06] Yeah, David, let's change the subject to a minute and talk about story you wrote about to search for the school board, the superintendent, a new superintendent.

[00:27:16] After the board foreshadowed Dr. Green to resign, they had a search for a new superintendent and it ended a knock total because not many people are nobody actually that was qualified applied.

[00:27:30] Now the school board is starting again, given the order of the, the older public education in Jacksonville right now, the climate. What do you think the likelihood is that more, the qualified applicants are going to step up this go around.

[00:27:47] Yeah, it's not just in Jacksonville, it's a floor to a lot of these big urban counties and for to have really had a hard time getting highly qualified candidates to come with sort of seems counter intuitive. I mean, you have a big urban district like Duvall County.

[00:28:03] So if you're a superintendent who wants to move up the ladder, here it is. One of the biggest urban school districts in the country.

[00:28:11] You have a half-cent sales tax that voters approved that is going to be pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the district so you can go out and actually make things happen in terms of improved school facilities. That would seem to be something that would attract a superintendent.

[00:28:28] The leaders approved a property tax increase in order to increase teacher salaries. So you kind of say, well, this is a district that seems to have had some popular support for making the public school system better. So you have all that going for it.

[00:28:42] And so that's why it is kind of baffling that they had such difficulty last time around attracting a real strong slate of candidates.

[00:28:50] Their explanation for that was a timing issue. You know, you know, you know, we're schooled superintendents. You know, I don't like to leave in the middle of the school years of pretty public process.

[00:29:01] So the idea now is they've circled the date, I think it's May 23rd, where they're saying we're going to have a new superintendent by then.

[00:29:10] But I don't know Mike, that's a good question. What has really changed in terms of the dynamic other than is the different time and the calendar to be doing this.

[00:29:18] This is going to get more qualified applicants to come into their pool. Well, and the one issue that we haven't thrown into this mix is the politics of it all, particularly what's going on in telehassy.

[00:29:29] Because I had heard that that was one of the issues that some of the candidates were having saying, listen, we don't know what these people often tell a has to do as far as once again stick in their noses into local public education.

[00:29:43] And we've seen what's happened over the last couple of years in that whole regard with the banning of books and banning of certain classes and topics and things of that sort. What really qualified superintendents candidates going to want to walk into that fire?

[00:29:58] Well, I was going to add to that there is a perception out there among a number of people that why the school board asked for her resignation.

[00:30:08] There was pressure from the governor's office to do that. And my understanding is this is not the only big urban area where the perception is the governor wanted another superintendent.

[00:30:22] So I think that's you take whether it's right or not, there is a perception out there. So, you know, if we. I think that's the only thing that we can do is to take a look at the state.

[00:30:41] But is whoever's pick going to be okay with the governor's office, that's perception. I mean, we don't know that perfect, but it's out there. The superintendent's on to the carpet about their decisions. I think they're Leon County superintendent was early had to like to keep his job.

[00:31:02] So there's out there for sure in that standpoint or kicking or endorsing school board members. And that's the other. And obviously Liberty deal right.

[00:31:12] So I think that's probably the other thing for school superintendent, if you're considering do fall count and you're looking at so seven member board that seven member board will hire me.

[00:31:23] But some of those members of that board may or may not be around over the next three, four years. So who is going to be my board and how might that change?

[00:31:38] Especially when you get these races are becoming more partisan in terms of even others know our D beside the name of the candidate. It's definitely become a more partisan thing at the governor endorsing some school board candidates over others.

[00:31:55] You know, he had some cases where there's been a change in a school board and he was Southwest Florida. They had a superintendent there who was by all measures doing a really good job. The board came to him and said, you know, it's time for you to go.

[00:32:08] And so, so if you're a board superintendent, you'd like to have some longevity in terms of being able to come in because.

[00:32:16] One thing about superintendent, this is when I was working as a reporter in Texas, there's a superintendent there in a small district, he told me whenever you're superintendent and you get hired. You start off with 100% of the people loving you.

[00:32:28] And every time you make a decision, you have a certain person. You don't love you anymore and they're gone. You'd go get them back. They may agree with your other decisions, but they still remember the time they disagreed with you.

[00:32:40] And so you lose that support over a period of time and then after five years, you move on. And so I think that's something if you're a superintendent to Mike's told me a question. I mean, yeah, you probably have in the back of your mind. Okay.

[00:32:55] The board's this board might be the one that hires me, but what's the board make up going to be that I'm going to be working with in the next two, three, four years of my time there.

[00:33:05] So David, there are five. I mean, there are four school board members out of seven. So we know of two, two of them or moms of liberty perception.

[00:33:19] So that's not until November. So you're going to we're going to pick a superintendent not knowing who their boss is going to be. Yeah, that's a good idea. I think that's dynamic.

[00:33:33] If you think about any kind of job where you get hired by somebody, you kind of want to, you know, work for that person and you know, and the other part of this is school board that hires a superintendent.

[00:33:45] They kind of have a vested interest in their judgment being vindicated, of course. And whereas if you weren't involved in an actual hiring process, maybe you come on to the board and you don't have that same kind of a buy-in in terms necessary.

[00:34:01] This is a mean, you come in as an automatic adversary, but you probably don't have that same kind of bonding.

[00:34:08] So to speak with the superintendent that you would if you're a part of the selection of that person and the hiring of that person. So those are sort of intangibles, but I think there's something that potential candidates would consider at the very least, which would be your first question of any candidate running is what do you think about the who superintendent that we've just hired?

[00:34:29] Yeah, exactly. Right exactly. You press, just to restate when they say what's the drop their date they're going to say what's the date they're going to pick a superintendent? So I think I think they talked about May 23rd sometime in late May.

[00:34:48] And so they really are really trying to stick to this schedule, which is we're going to advertise.

[00:34:55] We're going to get our candidates and they really want to have somebody on board. So that person then can be ready to go in terms of planning for the next school year. So it's really important for them in terms of the transition. We may have David back.

[00:35:10] Yeah, we may have David back. Well, it's a free to invite Steve Patterson. Just to use someone to cover the scene, we're going to have a great job of covering them and knowing what we love having the time junior here.

[00:35:20] Oh, the confederate statues is this a dead issue now. Do you think considering what's going on? And tell us what this is. Yeah, it really needs to be.

[00:35:30] You know, there were, you know, there were two bills, one in the house, one in the Senate. There were similar but by no means identical and they were each moving through the respective chambers.

[00:35:44] And it really sounds like the Senate is where it really hit the big wall because it got through a couple of committees.

[00:35:53] And so the next step would have been going to a third committee, but what happened was is some of the supporters came out for keeping confederate statues. And they used sort of rhetoric or language that was really off-putting to some of the senators.

[00:36:11] Yeah, I think that quote from Senator Jennifer Bradley was, you know, you make me want to vote no in terms of hearing, you know, why you want us to keep these confederate statues up. Right.

[00:36:23] And a scene of voting yes but I think that kind of made its way to the Senate president who then told reporters, you know, I'm not going to bring this legislation to the floor of the Senate. It's not going to get to this final committee stop.

[00:36:40] And so it's pretty much dead in the Senate, so you know, it didn't matter then what happens in the house and and it was kind of a weird thing where he had, you know, they, you know,

[00:36:52] it was not a neither of them were clean bills. It was neither of them was saying, okay, from this state forward, no historic monument can get moved.

[00:37:00] It was all this stuff about now you got to go back and restore monuments that had been moved and there's civil penalties.

[00:37:08] And at one point there was a threat that somebody a mayor who agreed to move the monument could get thrown out of office even though that was flies in the face of what this Florida constitution itself says is a dismissible offense for a mayor.

[00:37:22] It was just all over the place and so there was two, they were not in San Pateco at all. And so that makes it difficult. And you know, the legislature has a finite amount of time. Yeah, you know, many are called fewer chosen in terms of these bills.

[00:37:36] And so, you know, they got enough on their plate. They're like, this is more trouble. So putting the, you know, members and really uncomfortable positions. And we got other things to do. Another legislation, another loss to pass. So it does look like it's not happening this session.

[00:37:53] And, you know, this would be two sessions in a row that it hasn't happened. And usually if it's going to happen, it usually happens a second session because you kind of figure out what you did wrong,

[00:38:03] the first session if you're the low bill sponsor evidently didn't really figure out what went wrong. Yeah, as as the Senate President, President, almost said it became extraordinarily divisive. Well, you know, part of the two, I just don't forget that in the original bill.

[00:38:18] There was a section in there where the mayor responsible for removing any of these monuments could have been prosecuted and pay a fine as a result of it.

[00:38:28] That would have meant going against your former state Republican chairman, when he curry, who is the first one to remove or confederate statue. He would have been fined as well. I don't think that would have played well in a lot of Republican circles.

[00:38:41] Right, exactly. And there were different time frames like at one point the timeframe would have been we all the debate recently has been about these statues or removed from the monuments in Springfield Park. But depending how far you back, you would have had to have taken this obelisk.

[00:38:58] There was removed from James Weld and Johnson Park. But back in the park and then I guess you'd have to see if you can get the statue. There was on top of it from the family that now has it.

[00:39:09] So it's just almost like, you know, that's why I say it was really the way they put these bills together. It wasn't a clean bill saying, okay, from this point forward no more.

[00:39:21] Which I think Georgia did that. It was kind of like no more from this point forward. And by the way, we're going to reverse all these things you did in the past. And it just became so complicated in terms of how they were going about doing that.

[00:39:33] Yeah, plus the new speakers from Miami. Right. And I don't think that Confederate monuments are a big deal in date counting. No, but neither would a monument dedicated to Castro do very well. I think that's why I don't think that's my name. I don't think that's that.

[00:39:49] That one of the work that you speak here, I don't think is boring about Confederate monuments. No, no. You were going to mention something about one of the other issues regarding the airport. Yes, one of the things that you talked about was our airport.

[00:40:03] I've recently been out there. It is exploding. I mean, new concorts more parking. Why? I mean, what's happened? What's happened in the North Florida? Why Jacksonville? Yeah, I think there's an air traffic has been up everywhere, but especially in Jacksonville.

[00:40:20] I mean, they've really found a niche in terms of where they are on this spoke of the hub. And they're doing really well out there. And because they got to go to Tampa, Orlando, or Miami, that's why. Yeah, that's a lot of it.

[00:40:33] You know, you don't want to drive all the way there. And, you know, they work to get some more direct nonstop flights. I'm sure that's part of it. And they could do even more of that. What would happen at the airport is there's...

[00:40:44] They would add another concourse out there. And by having another concourse, you'd have more gates. So they can actually get more of these flights. So that would mean more choice. That's always good for flyers. And that's just certainly helped to drive up traffic because my point...

[00:41:01] It's driving Orlando's bad enough. Driving back from Orlando after you've got to apply. That's worse. I did that in the Phoenix. I didn't like that at all. And so, and so they're obviously need more parking yesterday. So they're going to be building a brand new parking garage.

[00:41:18] So there's going to be a huge amount of construction here. Now, we're not talking stating I'm renovation amounts. But when you look at the impact, it's going to have arguably more impact on people because you're going to have more choices for flights.

[00:41:32] More airlines being able to use checks and they'll... The potential then to have some more nonstop direct flights. And it's just, you know, this is a growing area for to.

[00:41:43] I mean, it's not that people are driving the Jacksonville necessarily to catch flights outside of their southeast storage and northeast Florida market. But it's a growing area. And that's reflected by the number of people are flying in and out of Jacksonville.

[00:41:57] What happens when Angie subs gets out there? Yeah. Well, let me say, kind of doing. You know, it's in the parking. I went out there. And it's not cheap to park. It's not in the grease parking. Wow.

[00:42:09] Mr. Tolford, you want to ask something about my old friends at FDRT, huh? Well, I do. David, the interchange at I-95 and 295, which started in 2016, has been scheduled to be completed in April. It's had delay after delay after delay.

[00:42:32] Do you think that April dates going to hold or say, go get moved? You know, it's a hand-to-hand contact as Mike Hytower who put it. I would not be surprised if he gets moved. I mean, the figures I've seen now they're talking about spring.

[00:42:46] So what is you mentioned Mike that spring has started and when is it end? So so I, I know. Right. Just a big season. And this has been astonishing. You think about eight years to do an interchange.

[00:42:59] I mean, it did not take nearly that long to build the interchange at I-95 and I-295 down in South Jacksonville for the Mandarin area and the south side. So what's happened is, you know, there's a lot of blame on weather delays.

[00:43:15] You know, it was a design builds project where one can, you know, the same company designed that this building is. Who wants that? I don't remember. I don't remember what the movie is.

[00:43:26] But, you know, I mean, it's one of those projects where there's a lot of earth and bankments. So, you know, maybe that's good. Maybe that's bad. But there's a lot of work that's been going on around those bank and bankments.

[00:43:40] And yeah, just it's the cost is not gone up. But if you're a driver who has had to go through that over and over again, you just kind of ask yourself what in the world does it take so long to complete

[00:43:54] an interchange project in this town on that side. Some of you may not know this, but if you haven't been on south side Boulevard since they've done all the reigning there in getting to gate Parkway from south side, it's a bear.

[00:44:07] It's just a mess of how you get around that and try to navigate that to get from south side over to East Bon Gate Parkway. Well, let me tell you what we talked about that is. That one forever. And my Talbrook into is 10 and 301.

[00:44:23] I mean, that's been going on for 10 years, at least. That's your neck of the woods, Mike. At that intersection down there at 10, 10 and 301. Mr. Talbrook. I had an hard time here to ask the question again, but let's move on. Okay, move on.

[00:44:44] All right, we'll keep this one simple. Former City Council member Brenda priestly Jackson is running this year against Angie Nixon, something that you called the Marky Wat and Matchup I think, Dave. I think so. Yeah, that's about this race. So I think it's a fascinating matchup.

[00:45:00] I mean, obviously Angie Nixon has carved out a place for herself as somebody who's sort of a resistance member in the Florida legislature willing to take stands more but you know,

[00:45:15] Brenda priestly Jackson will counter that she's able to quote get things done and then she has a track record there. I think it's going to be sort of two different styles of politicians in terms of how they appeal to voters.

[00:45:33] And I think it'll say interesting things about what voters in that district really want from their representative. Do they want somebody to go to Talahassee and maybe get a project or two?

[00:45:46] If it means sort of not being a thorn in the side of the Republican house leadership and calling them out on things that are being done, it negatively affect and their view their constituents. How do you balance those two things?

[00:46:04] And just they have just different political styles, you know, now Brenda priestly Jackson, the interesting backstory I thought was interesting was that at one time Angie Nixon considered running for city council against Brenda priestly Jackson decided to stay in the legislature.

[00:46:22] Now Brenda priestly Jackson is going to decide to not to run for city council after all is running against Angie Nixon and the legislature. So there's a there's that personal element. So it's interesting. Yeah, right exactly.

[00:46:34] I mean, they, you know, they kind of have sized each other up over time and deal like each is lacking in one area or the other and now our voters can respond to the different ways that they tailor those messages. Two different styles.

[00:46:48] Yeah, as a good friend of mine would say this is going to be worth buying the cheap seats to watch. So last question. What, what are the three things of why Jacksonville all of a sudden seems to be in this growth?

[00:47:04] I mean, we were like the second highest growth area in the state. Oh, it's called what's what's the three things that's caused all of a sudden Jacksonville to be the epicenter of growth and development.

[00:47:16] Well, I think my, you know, my assumptions would be number one that is a job magnet. There's there's been a lot of growth of jobs in the warehouse distribution center.

[00:47:31] Those are attracting people I was at a, at a grand opening of a distribution center and people are introducing themselves. So many of them said, yeah, I moved here from Texas, I moved here from Illinois, I moved here from New Jersey.

[00:47:45] I mean, there's a lot of people are moving from out of state to this city because of the jobs. I think that's being driven a lot by. In part by the financial services sector, but there's just a lot of transportation industry jobs that are here.

[00:47:59] So that's been a draw that perhaps isn't the case in the same level at other cities in Florida. You know, just being a fort city is in attraction.

[00:48:08] I think that helps in terms of how people sort of view the city and then our tax rate or tax rate. I'm very, very attracted. Sure, absolutely.

[00:48:18] And there's room to grow here, you know, it's got some room for growth and, you know, not just in Jacksonville in the, undeveloped areas here, but certainly in the outline counties.

[00:48:31] So I think all that has come together where it's sort of people are moving in and then obviously when people move in that requires place infrastructure housing for these fires. So I think Jacksonville has just been able to capture that part of it.

[00:48:48] Mike, I mean, I don't think it's that people are looking at Jacksonville at this point in saying, Oh, that's the mecca for some particular. Industry that's cutting edge. I mean, I don't think there is a cutting edge industry that's attracting people to Jacksonville.

[00:49:07] And you know, the idea of the downtown attracting people still a lot of mixed reviews in terms of what's happening downtown.

[00:49:16] So I think it's those broader things people are moving to Florida, Jacksonville's got the Florida angle and it's got some advantages within that that are, that are people that are going with the job sort. Which is Clay County, National County and Sage on Scunning. Right.

[00:49:31] Robert, you actually have the last question here and I love this question that you posted. Yeah, I'm sure David is disappointed to hear the this will be the last question. Oh, yeah, this has been fast. That's great.

[00:49:44] But you, David, you listed eight news events that we listed here to watch for this year. What did make the list? What could help?

[00:49:56] Oh, I got, that's a really good question. You know, I mean, one thing that I thought about putting on the list was Mayor Deegan's next budget. I was thinking, you know, that's going to be an interesting budget and it's going to be an interesting budget cycle.

[00:50:11] And I thought about putting in the ongoing study about a new jail, which. I was going to be a huge cost and and I had not sure that people really absorbed yet what that's going to cost.

[00:50:29] Now, at this point, there's a lot of numbers flying around about that Mike, but let's talk to Michael Boilin. He was saying a figure maybe is in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. Oh, whoa. Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to part, but those were two Mike that then.

[00:50:46] I thought about putting in. And that I think does for to be determined and they're going to grow as this year's for sure. Sorry about this. No, that's okay. There's a good time to lose your throw. That will take the sexier and the oxygen.

[00:51:01] Just to find it well, we don't have much oxygen left any out of be honest with you. All right, guys, we're going to have to wrap it up here, but David, fantastic to have you with us. Thank you so very, very much. Thank you.

[00:51:13] Thanks to you and your colleagues that's time to union, you guys do a great job. Yeah. And we're shaking it in there. Yeah, I want to thank you. Yeah, I want to appreciate that Mike definitely.

[00:51:22] And, you know, we want to thank our readers because you guys are the ones who follow us, especially people who are devoted to newspaper readers, kind of like the Marines, the few in the proud of the last few days.

[00:51:34] But we value you guys a lot in terms of the, you know, when you turn in your opinion pieces and just knowing that you're an audience out there, that means a lot to us. Well, we appreciate it.

[00:51:47] And for people who have called me by the way, I am not the Michael Miller from Ponta Viver, who writes letters to the editor. I got three phone calls on this last one from this past weekend. So I just want to make it a lady protest too much.

[00:51:59] Maybe it is you this writing that letter. It depends on the letter that's been written. I'm sorry. I'm a story there. All right, guys, thank you all very much and thank you for tuning in once again to Mike's on Mike,

[00:52:09] brought to you by the Jacksonville Historical Society in the Jacksonville History Center. Look for us on Facebook on our website, which is Mike's on Mike's dot com. You can find us on Spotify. You can find us on Apple iPod.

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[00:52:39] Mike's on Mike with Mike Tolberg, Mike Hichauer and Mike Miller can be found on your favorite podcasting platform, Facebook and YouTube. Visit the website at Mike's on Mike.com. Join us next time for more conversation with Mike's on Mike.