Jacksonville City Council approves plan to steer spending into oldest neighborhoods

The Jacksonville City Council on Tuesday approved a plan designed to steer nearly a fifth of the city's capital budget on infrastructure improvements within the old city limits, which is home to some of the city's most aging and neglected neighborhoods.

The plan encourages the Mayor's Office to budget 17 percent of the city's capital improvement plan on projects like water and sewer lines, stormwater drainage, roads and street lights in Jacksonville's pre-consolidation boundary. The measure would also require the Mayor's Office to publish an annual report about its infrastructure spending and would expire after five years.

The plan's sponsor, Councilman Matt Carlucci, said it was a step the city could take at keeping promises city leaders made to residents of the old city during the 1968 campaign to consolidate with Duval County. While the plan is non-binding and party symbolic — the city has already met this threshold in recent budgets — Carlucci said it would encourage future mayors to continue investing in the city's oldest neighborhoods.

The city's 1968 decision to consolidate with the county expanded the city's borders to include its fast-growing suburbs — along with the wealth — but required the city's Black community, which was growing close to becoming a majority of the city's population, to give up their growing political influence.

City leaders won widespread support within the old city by promising to use the newfound tax revenue to make improvements in the city's oldest neighborhoods. However, many of those communities remained neglected and lack basic services, including water and sewer service.

Carlucci had the backing of Curry, but he still encountered skepticism from council members who questioned its necessity and said the plan would leave behind struggling neighborhoods that fall outside the old city limits boundary.

Councilwoman Brenda Priestly Jackson tried to amend the plan that would encourage the Mayor's Office to spend 33 percent of the city's capital budget on infrastructure projects in all 14 council districts, using a calculation based on the number of people living below poverty to allocate the funding.

Carlucci said the amendment went against the spirit of his bill, which was intended to improve neighborhoods in the old city. The council defeated the amendment before approving Carlucci's plan in a 14-5 vote. Priestly Jackson, Rory Diamond, Aaron Bowman, Joyce Morgan and Scott Wilson voted no.