“I guess if you’re drinking, the city’s not that bad” — and other pearls of wisdom from Jacksonville’s Hitler (aka musician Goliath Flores) in this must-see short.

– Posted by Anne Schindler

As pressure mounts on the city to fire Turner Construction Company as prime contractor on the new Duval County Courthouse, the company’s public relations arm did its bit to quiet the clamor with assurance the company is doing everything it can to keep illegal workers off the job.

A total of 19 undocumented workers have been arrested at or near the construction site since September, including four the Folio Weekly first reported were arrested by Border Patron on Monday morning. Additionally, 100 employees gave the city false information on forms verifying their legal status, the T-U reported Tuesday.

Turner said that in addition to requiring all employees provide extra documentation, it is using the Internet-based system E-Verify to check the status of all employees on the site. E-Verify is a U.S. government site that connects to Social Security and Homeland Security databases. The PR statement didn’t address how a third of employees seemingly slipped by the E-Verify check. The company didn’t respond yet to emailed questions.

Click below to read the complete letter sent to the media Tuesday by Turner Construction Company’s public relations office.

— Susan Eastman

(more…)

Turner Construction won the contract to design and build a new Duval County Courthouse because it guaranteed the company could do it for $224 million. When the company put out bids for 21 subcontractors to do the work, it weighted bids heavily in favor of those who quoted the best price. But it seems as though their frugality may have encouraged the hiring of illegal workers. 

On Monday, U.S. Border Patrol arrested four undocumented employees on their way to the courthouse construction site. Since September, a total of 19 employees from the courthouse job have been arrested for being in the U.S. illegally. Also Monday, the Florida Times Union reported that 100 courthouse construction employees provided the city with false information when it tried to collect additional documentation of U.S. citizenship, permanent resident status or the possession of work permits.

After the arrest of 15 illegal workers from concrete subcontractor United Forming in September, the city required that all 240 employees at the site reapply for city badges by filling out a new form documenting their status. But the discovery that almost a third of those workers gave false information indicates the problem continues. And not even the city’s threat to cancel Turner’s $350 million contract over the use of illegal workers has been an effective deterrent.

Jobs for Jacksonville, a coalition of area construction trades workers, asked the city in October to require contractors use E-Verify, an Internet-based employee verification system run by the U.S. government. Turner and United agreed use the system to check the status of new employees, but it wasn’t clear Monday if E-Verify had in fact been implemented.

The lure of cost cutting has troubled several Better Jacksonville Plan projects, including the Baseball Grounds and the Veterans Memorial Arena in 2002. According to John C. Parker, business manager of the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association AFL-CIO, Local No. 435, undocumented workers tend not to complain about, or even know about safety standards, building code requirements and fair labor laws such as paying overtime. Unionized trades workers are educated about construction and labor laws, but the city didn’t want to contract with local labor unions to construct the courthouse. “We offered the city a project labor agreement that guaranteed local workers, who are legal, at a fair market rate, that didn’t discriminate against anybody, whether union or not, and the city flatly refused it,” says Parker.

(Pic of Courthouse site from downtownjacksonville.org)

— Susan Eastman

Appalled that the annual Veteran’s Parade was hacked during the Finance Committee’s budget sessions, private donors rushed in with the dollars to make it happen. To some libertarian-leaning council members, that’s the way government ought to work. The community cared enough about the Veteran’s Parade to fund it privately. And if no one had stepped up? So be it. Hobble on without. 

But Dristrict 5 City Councilmember Art Shad balked yesterday when District 11’s Ray Holt proposed forced volunteerism on kids attending the city’s summer camp programs. The children do attend summer camp for free and most receive free daily lunches — Holt merely asked them to give back. He offered an amendment to the Children’s Commission budget requiring kids in camp programs at city parks to pick up litter two hours a week. It’s a way to pay back for all the “enrichment” they’re receiving, said Holt, and for the city to impart the lesson that good citizenship requires community commitment.

To Shad, however, it said it sounded more like the city was forcing children to fill gaps in city services.  “I understand we decreased our parks budget,” said Shad. “But now we are going to be asking our children to maintain our parks? I would rather increase the parks maintenance budget.”

The amendment passed, much to the chagrin of Annie Egan, chairman of the Children’s Commission. To anyone who’s encountered used hypodermic needles, sticky condoms and other potentially germ-and-virus-laden detritus in city parks, she thought the city should think twice about sending flocks of children skipping out to pick up litter. “I think it’s a profound safety and health issue,” she said.

— Posted by Susan Cooper Eastman

“The Sunshine State is shrinking.

Choked by a record level of foreclosures and unemployment, along with a helping of disillusionment, the state’s population declined by 58,000 people from April 2008 to April 2009, according to the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. Except for the years around World Wars I and II, it was the state’s first population loss since at least 1900.”

Read the full story from the Saturday NY Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/us/30florida.html?th&emc=th

… And he doesn’t care who knows it. In a surprise appearance on this morning’s Week In Review program on WJCT 89.9, Peyton blasted City Council President Richard Clark and the council’s Finance Committee, saying that budget discussion had descended into “chaos” and revealed “how little they [councilmembers] know about this process.” Peyton added that the council’s efforts were “shameful,” “ridiculous,” and “very disappointing.”

Although Peyton insisted the issue was “not personal … just a severe policy disagreement,” he railed against Clark for creating a Finance Committee interested only in “cutting for the sake of cutting” and said Clark was alone among the six Council Presidents he’s previously dealt with in his unwillingness to meet the Mayor halfway on budget matters.

“The [Finance] Committee was stacked to get this result,” the mayor said. “We’re getting what the Council President created.”

Peyton also mocked councilmembers for refusing to cut their own paychecks to balance the budget. They’re willing to cut things, he said, “except for their salary and benefits and the things they enjoy as elected officals — and that’s the irony I think.”

Budget battle getting uglier? Um, yes.

– Posted by Anne Schindler

A much ballyhooed new era of ethical oversight at City Hall came to an end Thursday when the Finance Committee voted 9-2 to eliminate the office of Inspector General Pam Markham. The cut would save the city $1.1-million, but it also eliminates the office that investigates complaints to the Ethics Hotline.

During budget hearings on August 20th, several Finance Committee members said Markham’s work duplicates  the work of Ethics Officer Carla Miller and the Council Auditor. It’s not over yet. The Finance Committee will vote on all proposed cuts before the budget goes to City Council for final approval, but it’s not looking to good for Government in the Sunshine.

Two years ago, a contrite Mayor John Peyton touted the hiring of Markham and Miller as a first step toward better accountability and transparency at City Hall. His announcement followed a series of embarrassing revelations where buddies of the mayor seemingly got special deals. Former Peyton chief of staff Scott Teagle received more than $500,000 in city information technology contracts, even though his company hadn’t been in business long enough to qualify to bid on the work.  Another friend won a $64,100 no-bid contract to help employees organize their desks.

Earlier this year, the Ethics Commission said that to be effective it needed to become an independent board with the authority to investigate complaints and mete out punishment. Members want an investigator and the city ethics officer as part of an ethics office as well as support staff. Given the city’s dire financial situation, it might not be the season to spend more money on ethics. But it is Machiavellian to use the cover of the financial crisis to eliminate the toddling stage of oversight the city has managed to put in place so far.

Next Thursday morning, the Finance Committee will take up the budget of the Ethics Office. It’s rumored that a member of the Finance Committee will propose eliminating that office, too. This rumor has the Finance Committee handing the job of enforcing the city’s Ethics Code to the Office of the General Counsel. The justification would be, again, to eliminate duplication.  In that twist of irony, city attorneys would both investigate ethics complaints and represent public officials accused of violating ethics laws.

Posted by Susan Eastman

Aside from being selfishly bummed about the fact that Worman’s Deli is closing, it’s also very discouraging to see how little notice employees were given of the closure. According to the folks I spoke to there this morning, Thursday’s staff meeting was the first they’d heard that the 70-plus year old restaurant would be no more. Since the restaurant’s last day is tomorrow, they’ve got little time to process the change, much less plan for it.

Not that employees are blaming the owners. According to Lester, who’s worked at the downtown store since the San Jose Boulevard location closed several years ago, co-owner Pearl Worman Leibowitz-Sederbaum had a stroke a few months ago. And her brother Morris Worman apparently told employees they just couldn’t make ends meet.

Linda Weeks, Worman’s longtime cakemaker, noted that the restaurant wasn’t even buying supplies in the final days. “We’re all out of side dishes,” she said. “I have a few more cakes to make for orders — birthdays — but that’s it.” After that, Weeks says, she planned to open her own cake business in Arlington.

Weeks’ mother and grandmother both had their wedding cakes made at Worman’s, and her grandfather used to buy Worman’s desserts for a restaurant he had on Forsyth Street downtown, so she feels a special connection to the place. After tomorrow, that connection will be severed.

“It’s a piece of history,” said Weeks. “This is very emotional for everyone.”

– Posted by Anne Schindler

Mayor John Peyton really wants you to get this whole Fix It Now budget thing. So he’s hosting another town hall discussion regarding the budget crisis and how he plans to, well, fix it. The next town hall meeting is held this evening, Monday, Aug. 3 at 6:30 p.m. at Ribault High School media center, 3701 Winton Drive, Jacksonville, 924-3092. Lunch with the Mayor is also held on Thursday, Aug. 6 from noon-1 p.m. at Pablo Creek Regional Library, 13295 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville. 992-7101.

Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton announced at a press conference this morning he has vetoed last night’s City Council vote to freeze the millage at 8.48 mills. It is the fourth time Peyton has vetoed a bill in the six years he’s been in office, he said.

The City Council could override the veto, and City Council member Clay Yarborough said several weeks ago that he would propose an override if Peyton vetoed the lower tax rate. But any Council action would have to take place by August 4, in seven days, in a special meeting called by Council president Richard Clark. With a tight vote of 10-9 last night, it’s doubtful there would be the votes to override the veto. August 4  is the city’s deadline by state statute to set a tentative millage rate.

If the city fails to agree upon a millage rate by the deadline, it will be set at the “rollback” rate of 9.27. The rollback rate is the property tax rate required to raise the same amount of money raised this year. With falling property values, property owners would pay about 9.3 percent more in taxes with a millage rate of 9.27. The final millage will be set when the City Council adopts the budget in late September.

Peyton praised the nine Council members who voted against flatlining the 12 percent tax increase he proposed, as he called the 10 member who not to raise the property tax, “irresponsible.” “We have nine members who showed courage. They did not yield to the temptation of the day to do what is politically expedient,” Peyton said

The 10 Council members who voted for the 8.48 rate, Peyton said, put the Council in a position where it would have to cut $50-million from a budget that has already been chopped by $40-million in cuts. Instead Peyton advocated setting the tentative millage rate last night at the 9.5 mills he proposed, and then lowering it if the Council identifies more cuts during budget hearings. In rejecting his proposal, the 10 members limited the tax rate without examining the budget in depth or identifying what they would cut to address the $50-million hole, he said.

In luncheons, town meetings and media appearances over the past several weeks, Peyton said $50-million  can’t be cut without cutting core government services — closing community centers and libraries and fire stations, shuttering the Ritz and the Equestrian Center.

At last night’s Council meeting, Council member John Crescimbeni said he believed there was a lot of waste still to be rooted out in city operations before cutting core services. At the press conference, Peyton challenged Council members to find the fat. “If  they see waste,  they need to take action,” he said. “ Peyton pointed out, as he has been since introducing his budget,  that the city is already lower in spending on parks, police, recreation and public works than other major Florida cities. “We’ve been on the cheap for awhile,” he said. Now Council members who want to freeze the millage will be looking for $50-million in cuts so that the millage can be cut back to 8.48. It’s going to be a brutal budget season.