Callahan's official filing for candidacy caps a yearlong campaign-exploration effort, in which he discussed Jacksonville’s future with its current leaders and listened to a host of resident concerns. According to Mr. Callahan, “the next four years will bring challenges of historic proportion to Jacksonville, and real leadership is needed if the City is to remain the great place I love calling home.”  Nick Callahan now begins actively campaigning and looks forward to listening to what troubles his neighbors most, so he can hit the ground running on behalf of his constituents after the election.  For more information on Nick’s campaign, visit his website at www.jaxdistrict3.com or follow him via Twitter at http://twitter.com/NickCallahanJax.

Richard Clark - Council President

To many who practice their professions outside the walls of a courtroom or a landfill, this week’s filing of a lawsuit to invalidate Waste Management’s recent contract settlement with the City may seem mundane.  However, in actuality it’s the most important legal action Jacksonville has seen since a Grand Jury was convened to examine City Council’s evasion of Florida’s Sunshine Laws.  The suit goes beyond the legal challenges and differing auditor reports; it raises serious questions on how special interest lobbyists influence Council Members and exposes the lengths some Councilmen go to hide that fact.

Looking back; a year ago City Council rejected the same contract they just agreed to, but this time around it will cost Duval County taxpayers $37 million more. City Council and the General Counsel’s office caved to the threat of continued litigation by Waste Management and their chief lobbyist, Paul Harden.  While doing so, they left gaping holes in the public record and fought multiple requests to provide an unfettered view into the negotiations that brought Jacksonville residents doubled garbage-fees and their most expensive no-bid contract in City history.

City Council’s pattern of behavior to ignore competitive bidding and shun procurement rules was consistent and almost predictable.  Days before the recent contract settlement vote, it was revealed Councilman Ray Holt’s 2010 campaign coffers were stuffed with Waste Management money.  Last April, Holt voted against the same contract he now supports, but only with a larger price tag.  Under the guise of Sunshine Law exceptions for pending litigation, City Council and The Office of General Counsel hid behind so called “shade meetings” and attorney client privilege to conjure up reasons why settling would make sense for the taxpayers of Duval County.

Weeks after the Trail Ridge vote, a Paul Harden led coup of Council leadership almost succeeded in putting Stephen Joost in charge of Council, after outgoing Council President Richard Clark mysteriously yanked his support for Jack Webb, literally overnight.  Jack Webb stayed the course and saw the disadvantages of Waste Management’s contract through both votes, making his unwavering sensibility a huge threat to Waste Management and their special interest lobby.  Instead of receiving accolades for his fiscal prudence, Jack Webb was greeted by the cold reality of a powerfully invisible hand sent to punish him for his misdeeds of not toeing-the-line for Waste Management.

When the complex legal pleadings of the latest chapter in the Trail Ridge saga are boiled down, the suit isn’t necessarily about the waste of taxpayer dollars; instead it’s about how City Council really operates.  It exposes an old pattern that City Hall observers are all too familiar with.  Special interests dictate the bending of procurement rules and Sunshine Laws are tossed out the window in a vain attempt to portray transparent government.  If City Council is to do its job as effectively as voters hope, serious sanctions need to be implemented for ignoring these laws and strong regulations need to be placed on Hemming Plaza lobbyists.  Open and sensible government is really what is at stake as this suit plays out.

A summary of the complaint filed earlier this week is available for download.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., June 1, 2010 -

Specifically, they have amended the complaint filed last year against the City of Jacksonville and the City Council to request that the Court declare the passage of Ordinance 2010-217 to be both illegal and void.  The several grounds asserted include multiple City and Council violations of Florida’s open government meeting (“Sunshine”) law.

The lawsuit further seeks to protect the public interest by asking the Court to force the City to correct violations of the public records law, which require government and officials to make records available to every citizen for review and copying.  The City has failed to create and provide minutes of a public meeting (related to Trail Ridge), and refused to make a Council member’s records of the official business use of his cell phone available to the public.

A press conference will be held at 12:00 noon on Thursday, June 3, 2010, in front of the Jacksonville City Hall, 117 West Duval Street, Jacksonville, Florida, by Victor Wilhelm, President of the CTDC, and John Winkler, lead attorney for the Plaintiffs.

The Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County Incorporated (CTDC), is a not for profit corporation and nonpartisan political committee dedicated to serving the community as a watchdog group, using public information to oppose corruption, waste, and “Sunshine Law” violations in government. Additional information is available at www.jaxtaxpayers.org as well from the author of this press release, immediate past President John Winkler, 904 384 9918.

It doesn’t take knowledge of rocket science to operate a landfill.  Whatever Waste Management (WM), Republic/Southland, or anyone else in the garbage disposal industry may want the people of Jacksonville and their City Council to believe, spreading out household trash and covering it with dirt really is something that anyone able to operate a dump truck and bulldozer can do.  While it may or may not be the kind of civic duty Jacksonville cares to perform using its own employees, there is nothing so special about the creation of a thousand-layer trash pile that it can only be done by giving exclusive rights to do so to one outfit, without competitive bidding, for the next thirty-five years.

Wait, you say, is this a rerun column?  The whole “bid the landfill” vs. “Waste Management Forever” debate was fought out last year, you remember, and won by the forces of light when City Council rejected the Mayor’s no-bid, 35 year, $750 million contract extension on running the Trail Ridge dump, right?  Didn’t the City then leap at the chance to litigate with Waste Management if need be in order to establish our right to either build our own trash mound or have the low bidder do it?  Yes, that happened, but suddenly there’s a new deal proposed by the  Jacksonville General Counsel that is a whole lot like the Mayor’s old deal.  Call it landfill redux, deja vu all over again, or lipstick on a pig – no matter how you slice the new proposed landfill contract, it’s still (at best) last year’s baloney.  Unlike last year, however, there is no time for a deliberative process at City Council.  The new proposed contract (Ordinance 2010-217) demands City Council accept it by April 30, 2010, as presented, with no changes allowed.

When a group of us at the Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County (www.jaxtaxpayers.org) sued the City last year to get a ruling that Jacksonville had to either bid out a contract this huge or do the work themselves, we pointed out several legal problems in the Mayor’s tentative agreement.  One provision of that proposal (still available for review at www.coj.net under Ordinance 2008-538) was an illegal clause which could have, under certain circumstances, forced the sale of the entire thousand acre Trail Ridge landfill site, and an adjacent “borrow pit” (dirt mine) site, from the City to Waste Management without any competition.  Another illegal aspect of the earlier version of the no-bid contract under state law was that it could have gone on for an indefinite period of years, since it defined WM’s right to spread garbage in terms of tons (42 million) rather than time.  Interestingly, the proposed contract now thrown in front of City Council avoids these two problems by leaving out the bargain land sale provision and defining a maximum number of years that Waste Management will have the exclusive right to run the City’s landfill(s).  The new proposal essentially allows no more than ten years as the period WM would have been running the existing landfill before it would have been full, another 19 years for WM to operate any expansions or new landfill, with another possible six year extension “upon mutual agreement.”  Not, in my opinion, coincidentally, this potentially 35 year agreement is the same length of time as the estimates on how long the Mayor’s earlier proposal would have run.

While the Concerned Taxpayer suit has been in abeyance since the Mayor’s proposal was withdrawn, the very serious issue of whether City Council has the right to waive the requirements of the City Procurement Code and proceed to give WM the exclusive right to operate any City dumps far beyond the scope of the 1990 bidding process remains undetermined.  We had hoped that City Council would retain the spine it grew last spring, see the WM litigation through trial, and obtain a judicial confirmation that the City does, in fact, have the right to seek competitive bids for landfill operations once WM buries another 5 to 7 million tons at Trail Ridge.  Unfortunately, City Council President Richard Clark, without waiting for either a financial or careful outside legal analysis of the new proposal, has already opined that it “makes good business sense” to avoid further litigation; this was one of the Mayor’s old arguments, unanimously rejected by the City Council less than a year ago.  Perhaps the less impulsive members of City Council will take note of the following flaws in the new proposal and reject (or ignore) Ordinance 2010-217 as a poorly conceived, badly executed plan to deprive the taxpayers of the benefits of fair and free market competition.

For example, I question what this language, in section 5.2 of the new “take it or leave it” proposed contract means: “Annual Adjustment of Fee.  On July 1 of each year, the then current rates shall be adjusted by a factor which shall be the product of one (unity) and a decimal fraction equal to 0.70 times the preceding twelve-month change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), said change being expressed as a decimal fraction. Adjusted rates shall be the product of the then current rates and the modifier and shall be expressed correct to the nearest whole cent ($0.01).”  The CPI required by the contract is the CPI-W, which currently stands at 212.544 using 1982-4 as a base of 100.

To explain, let’s say inflation is three percent in the first year of the contract.  On July 1, 2011, the new CPI-W is 218.920, or a change of 6.376 when “expressed as a decimal fraction.”  If that is what the proposal means, then 0.70 times 6.376 is 4.4632 and the “product” of “one (unity)” and 4.4632 is 4.4632.  On the other hand, is the change supposed to be the percentage, to be expressed as “.03,” which leads to an adjustment factor of .021?  In either case, if “the modifier” (not otherwise defined) is the same as the “factor,” the result is absurd.  The “product of the then current rates and the modifier” is either $10.58 per ton of regular trash in year one times 4.4632, or $47.22 per ton in year two, or $10.58 times .021, or $0.22 per ton.  If there is no change in the CPI-W, then WM works the next year for free, under either interpretation of the adjustment factor.  If prices go down in year one, the second year price becomes negative; does anyone seriously believe that Waste Management will pay the City for the privilege of burying our garbage?

Obviously the drafters of the new proposed contract, in their haste, used the word “product” when they meant “sum” and the word “modifier” when they meant “annual adjustment factor,” and they should have spelled out that the annual adjustment is going to be 70% of the annual percentage change in the CPI-W (assuming that is what they meant).  This is the same kind of incredible sloppiness in drafting contract language back in 1991 that created the present litigation between the City and Waste Management over what that contract really means.  Is this really the best that a battery of well-paid lawyers can do?  Disclosure: although I am a lawyer, no one has paid me a dime for any of the work I’ve done or am doing in connection with the landfill.

One more example of the lurking disasters in the proposed contract should suffice.  Section 5.6 calls for the City and Waste Management to “use reasonable efforts” to come to an agreement on using Waste Management to recover recyclables from the “current waste stream,” but if they can’t agree, “CITY shall be entitled to competitively bid the establishment and operation of such an operation.” [Yes, it really is written that way] The very next sentence says Waste Management “shall have the exclusive right to operate any such new technology requested by the City.”  So the City can bid out the recycling operation but only Waste Management can run the equipment.  Is it so hard to envision another lawsuit brought by WM against our town if it tries to actually use a different company to pull recyclables?  Count I: failure of City to use reasonable efforts to negotiate in good faith. Count II: request for injunction against the City, violating WM’s exclusive right to operate new technology at Site.

Alas, while I am confident that this exposure of the gross ineptitude displayed by the City’s lawyers in drafting the second “no-bid landfill contract” will result in more changes, I am not so sanguine about the City Council just doing the right thing, letting the 1991 landfill contract run out in five to seven years, and then either running Trail Ridge with our own local employees or bidding out operations on shorter contracts.

Last year WM’s competitors made lots of noise about how they could beat the Mayor’s deal if allowed to bid; this year they are (so-far) strangely silent.  But the citizenry needn’t be silent.  Call and email all 19 City Council members.  Sign the petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/bidtrailridge . Attend the City Council meetings April 12 and 26 to encourage your elected officials to do the right thing.  Already the City’s solid waste disposal “fee” is being raised because it is less than the cost of collection.  If the public doesn’t make the City restrain those costs by preserving competitive bidding, all of us and our descendants will be paying the price for decades to come.

John Winkler, Attorney

Jacksonville, Florida

Sheriff Rutherford and State Attorney Corey fielded numerous questions on how their offices are dealing with the seeming disparity of crime and misconduct that has plagued certain parts of Jacksonville.  Citing impressive reductions in arrests and reported crime, Rutherford and Corey detailed how they are working in tandem to strengthen neighborhood ties and improve Constitutional training for Sheriff’s Deputies.  In spite of encouraging statistics, both the Sheriff and the State Attorney, called upon communities to never forget they too play a vital role.  Councilman Crescimbeni backed their statements by pointing out that city residents “outnumber Jacksonville’s leadership by nearly 850,000 people and it’s the residents of the City who are the real force in combating crimes.”

School Board Member, Brenda Priestly-Jackson, addressed the many concerns expressed by parents of children in Duval County schools.  Declining literacy rates and increasing drop-out rates were the biggest issues posed to her during the evening’s moderator-led discussion.  Along with the usual accolades placed on existing programs, Priestly-Jackson called for a concerted effort to target 14-16 year olds, who statistics show are at the highest risk of falling through the cracks. She stated there needs to be an emphasis on GED programs, vocational training and optional school hours that will give these teenagers alternatives to traditional curricula.  She too, looked for the community to help educators do their jobs and urged every family member and neighbor to “ask the questions, and demand the results” so the school system has the chance to make a difference.

Although the turn-out of elected leaders was impressive, some members of City Council declined to respond to invitations or refused to appear, in fear of the event being “nothing more than a gripe-session.”  Notably absent were City Council’s two presiding officers Richard Clark and Jack Webb, both who have been recent targets of Ethics Commission complaints.  With this event in the books, and organizers looking forward to future Accountability Forums, it remains to be seen if this will change the tone of responsiveness in Council Chambers – or will it be status quo in the Council Districts that lacked elected representation at this meeting.

This year alone, two of the council’s presiding officers have faced ethics commission complaints and its newest member came under investigation for his involvement in local land deals.  Traditionally, incumbents could look to their past record and name recognition to vault them into another term but that may not be the case in 2011. The notoriety that some members of City Council have garnered may actually work against them as they seek voter approval for another term.

Fruitless trips abroad, six figure consulting fees for land brokerage,  no-bid contracts, earmarked emergency legislation and blatant conflicts of interest are not exactly the actions that endear incumbents to voters.   At a time when core services have been threatened and taxes increased, voters are apt to pay particularly close attention to the performance of their leaders.  Alienating veterans groups, unions and senior citizens with threats to their services and payrolls (while unquestioningly opening the City’s Special Events Fund to support one Jaguar’s game) may just leave some of these candidate’s regular supporters scratching their heads at the polls.

The recent track record of City Council has been under scrutiny by not only the State’s Attorney and the City’s Ethics Commission, but by the citizens as well.  Times Union reader reaction to the re-election bids showed that every comment posted online had a markedly common “throw the bums out” theme.  If reader sentiment is that unanimous 16 months before the election, assuredly a grass-roots movement for sweeping change in Council Chambers in 2011 is inevitable.

Constituent email is usually a harbinger of what is to come and it is beginning to sound as if the 2011 election may be a challenging one for many City Council incumbents.   Voters have not been shy about letting their representatives know exactly how they feel and they haven’t been kind.  Burdened with new taxes and fees, with fewer services to show for it, many residents have already vowed to make sure their message is heard on Election Day.  Lack of genuine response and representative apathy in many districts has further fueled the call to oust some sitting legislators; many with aspirations beyond Hemming Plaza.

When times are as tough as they have been for Jacksonville, constituents look to elected leaders for hope and guidance to steer the City through turbulent times.  Voters have begun signaling that having some of these leaders around for another term will only result in an even rougher ride for four more years.

Webb, who led the charge earlier this year to defeat the Mayor John Peyton's attempts to award the multi-million dollar Trail Ridge Landfill contract to Waste Management, took on Republic Services--the company at the forefront of the attempts to force the city to bid out the landfill contract--as a client. 

The rumors that Webb had a financial relationship with Republic Services had been flying around City Hall for several months, but last week, the Times-Union was finally able to verify that a relationship did indeed exist.  Webb, in defending the relationship, protested that his work with Republic Services had nothing to do with the Trail Ridge situation, and in fact, the work he had picked up for Republic Services wasn't related to Duval County at all.

To Duval County voters, however, Webb's protests fell on deaf ears.  For many, it only heightened the cynicism with which they look at local government.  The assumption among many seems to be that actions taken by local government officials are frequently designed to benefit their own interest, or those of their family, friends or business partners.  This distrust has been fueled by continual examples of behaviors that tested the ethical boundaries of what is right and wrong.

Much like the embattled politicians before him, Webb has been forced to resort to the argument that he has done nothing illegal.  And, it's quite likely that he hasn't.  But, is legal vs. illegal really the argument that public servants should aspire to?  After all, ethical behavior isn't always defined by what is legal or not.  In reality, it's what is right or wrong and there are a multitude of actions that while perfectly legal, may not be the right thing to do.  Representing a client with business before the Council, while it may not be illegal, certainly does not appear to be the right thing to do. 

Webb is certainly not the only council member who has skated along the line of activities that are ethical or not.  Another prominent member of the Council is said to personally benefit from contracts at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, yet this individual has been front and center in leading the charge to fund improvements at the stadium.  The issue of whether or not those improvements are warranted is not germaine to this conversation, but whether or not a public servant should push an issue that could potentially personally benefit them financially is.

Jacksonville deserves better from its leaders.  Instead of debating the legality of an action, isn't it time they started looking at things through the prism of what is right or wrong?  Many times the appearance of impropriety is just as damaging as any actual misdeed.  Our public servants would do well to keep that in mind.

Leggett was well known during his time on the Council for his willingness to speak out on issues that were important to him and his constituency.  In 1999, Leggett clashed with then-Mayor John Delaney and Fire Chief Ray Alfred over what he saw as their slow response in hiring enough firefighters to be able to respond to the city's rapidly-growing population, particularly on the Northside--an area that he felt was consistently under-served.  He was also fiercely protective of the needs of his district, even after he left office.

Last year, as JaxPort was promoting the addition of two major Asian shipping lines, Leggett--along with former Councilman Warren Alvarez--surfaced to share their concerns about what unplanned growth could mean for the City's Northside.  In a meeting with the Times-Union editorial board in April 2008, Leggett expressed his anxiousness over the fact that the city had done very little to plan for the massive flow of truck traffic the expansion at the port would generate.  In retrospect, Leggett's concerns over who would pay for new roadways to handle the increased traffic appear well founded.  The state's budget has contracted significantly over the last year and federal stimulus money appears to have been a one-time event for the foreseeable future.

Leggett's funeral will be held Thursday at 10:00 AM at the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville where he had been a member since 2003.

What was troubling about Cuba's statement is that it has certainly not been his first controversial comments during this heated summer of budget skirmishes.  Several months ago, Cuba called for a boycott of Gate Gasoline, which is owned by Mayor John Peyton's father, to protest the Mayor's calls for pension reform.

And, Cuba isn't the only one who has launched verbal bombs during the recent budget debate.  Name-calling and personal barbs seem to have become the norm over the past several months.  It's hardly the behavior we should expect from our elected officials.  Of course, elected officials (and union leaders) aren't the only ones guilty of lowering the standard of debate.

The summer of 2009 has frequently been referred to as the "Summer of Discontent", namely for the Tea Party protests and Town Hall Meetings/Protests that have swept the country.  Jacksonville has certainly had its share of controversial protests.  And, while protest is a valued American right, there's no doubt that we've observed a rapid deterioration in "acceptable" levels of dissent.  Legitimate debate of ideas and vision is an integral component of any democracy, but personal insults and the demeaning of political beliefs that differ from our own lends nothing to furthering constructive political discourse.

In today's charged political environment, it seems that too many of our politicians are taking cues from those who have made themselves millions by stoking the flames of animosity.  Jacksonville appears to be no exception to the rule.

It's time for Jacksonville's leaders to move beyond bombastic sound bites.  It is possible to debate the future of our city while maintaining an honorable level of respect for those whose ideas differ from our own.  After all, the very fact that an individual is engaged in the debate should indicate their concern for this wonderful city we all call home.

Perhaps we can lead the nation in moving from the "Summer of Protest" to the "Winter of Discourse."  Only when we learn to respectfully listen to the ideas of others can we be confident in our own beliefs.

This article originally appeared on November 20, 2008--the month of JaxPoliticsOnline.com's inception.  In light of the recent special elections, where voter turnout in Jacksonville failed to top 20%, the points remain quite valid.

Duval County voters turned out in astonishing fashion in the 2008 Presidential race. When all was said and done, roughly 78% of the county’s voters found their ways to the polls to make their voices heard. This sense of civic duty was rather remarkable, particularly considering voter turnout in the 2007 City Elections, which featured a race for Mayor and every single City Council seat, was not even 20%.

In all fairness, 2008 turnout was somewhat of an anomaly. After all, a hotly contested Governor’s race in 2006 only drew 42% of Duval voters, slightly less than the equally febrile 2003 Mayor’s race, which managed to pique the interest of 50% of Jacksonville’s registered voters.

According to the Grand Jury report released in the Sunshine Law Investigation, the Grand Jury found that Duval County residents felt a disconnect from their local government. While many might be quick to point out the obvious—voters who don’t bother to show up at the polls will never have any sense of engagement in the process—what we really need to consider is why Jacksonville voters believe their voice counts in changing the direction of government in Washington, DC, but feel powerless to affect government within their own City?

Turning out voters is not only the responsibility of the Supervisor of Elections. In truth, there are many things that could be done both within and outside of government to improve voter involvement in local government. Here are a few suggestions:

1. For starters, our current elected officials could take steps to ensure openness and access to citizens. In this day of cutting edge technology, it’s rather bewildering that a majority of Jacksonville City Council members do not offer the public access to their incoming e-mail. No members offer access to outgoing e-mail. Town Hall Meetings seem to be few and far between. In fact, in my district, the only time I have heard of my Council member being available at a town hall-style meeting was when there was a public hearing over a zoning request change. There should also be more consideration given to the location and time of Council meetings. Most of the voting public works and finds it difficult to rush downtown for the opportunity to take advantage of the public comment time in a council meeting. (Not to mention the dearth of appropriately lit parking slots available.) I have to wonder what an occasional rotating Council meeting held, say, on a Saturday morning at alternating locations throughout the City (Mandarin, Beaches, etc) would do to increase public interest in City Council deliberations.

2. Our local media also needs to fully embrace their role as public watchdog. The Florida Times-Union did a sensational job in uncovering and investigating several recent major stories, including the Sunshine Law Violations and allegations of corruption at the Jacksonville Port Authority. Many of the local television stations have had similar pockets of success and Folio Weekly has long prided itself on its investigative prowess. Where are these media outlets; however, when local races are on the ballots? Is it too much to ask for our daily paper to commission a poll on the top five issues voters see as crucial in upcoming city elections? Such a poll could then be followed up with a five week series leading up to Election Day exploring these various issues, sharing proposed solutions and highlighting where the various candidates stand. Why couldn’t competing candidates for the Supervisor of Elections post write dueling op-ed pieces that lay out the challenges they see within the office and discuss the direction they would like to take it? Why can’t local television stations catch people walking around the St. Johns Town Center on a Sunday afternoon and ask them to pose a question to candidates running for City Council? Why couldn’t all of the outlets do a better job of expanding their online capabilities? After all, how difficult would it be to reach out to local blogs and forums to draw in educated and lively debate on issues? Why couldn’t candidate debates be posted in online formats, such as YouTube or iTunes, to make them more accessible to the public that might not be able to catch a specific program?

3. Candidates---and the political consultants that advise them---need to embrace modern technology in their campaigns. While campaign websites seem to be (ever so slowly) becoming a staple of political life in Jacksonville, one recent candidate for City Council featured a website that was absolutely appalling in its archaic insignificancy. The site was nothing more than a vapid one-page billboard—-quite startling for a city-wide election in a major population center with nearly 1 million residents. Campaigns are expensive, certainly, but many of the methods of modern media are free. Hopefully, the success of the Obama campaign should have forever established the importance of such outlets as Facebook (free), YouTube (free) and blogs (also free). Local candidates wishing to engage the ever-elusive younger voters should explore these types of mediums to communicate their messages.

4. Local campaign finance reform is long overdue. For years, local fundraising has been dominated by a few industry segments (and individuals) who have opened their coffers and exploited loopholes to bankroll their preferred candidates, often leading to situations where a candidate can haul in thousands of dollars via one individual who also happens to have multiple corporations and partnerships. Several local activists, including former city council candidate Scott Shine, have worked to advance proposals that would ban corporate contributions to Duval County races. This is something the City Council should earnestly consider. Jacksonville is long overdue to return the responsibility for local governance to the voting public that pays the bulk of the property taxes in the City. Campaigns should be about a candidate’s vision for the City, not their ability to monopolize a select few donor sources to effectively overwhelm the competition.

5. Finally, and most importantly, voters need to realize that they alone have the ultimate responsibility to become actively engaged in the process. There are multiple tools available to the public to educate themselves on candidates for office. Google the names of candidates, find their websites, read local forums, blogs and the sample ballot from the Supervisor of Elections. And, for goodness sakes, show up to vote. In today’s world, where the two weeks before Election Day offer early voting, voting is easier than it has ever been.

Jacksonville has many things of which to be proud. Our river and our beaches provide scenic beauty that is only the beginning of the advantages we have over cities throughout the country. It’s certainly time that we add the active engagement of our voting public to that lineup.