Exercise 6.2: Meeting Stories

Jacksonville’s City Council approves sales tax increase, disapproves relocation of cemetery

An increase of sales tax, which will raise nearly $400,000 per year for the city of Jacksonville, Florida, was approved by a 5–2 vote Monday night at the city council meeting.

The vote will ensure the job security of many workers, and it will enable the expansion of several city services. It will also increase the average family’s taxes by $75 per year according to the city treasurer, Joe Black.

Black was in agreement with councilwoman Wilma Rudolph, who first proposed the tax.

“The city desperately needs this money,” Rudolph said, “or there is a chance that we’ll have to start laying off workers next year.”

Mayor Ray Sadecki, however, cast his vote against the tax, believing that the citizens are taxed sufficiently already.

“I don’t believe they want this,” Sadecki said. “I think they want to look at our budget and see where we can cut back.”

The council also voted 5–2 against a proposal to relocate the cemetery on the 2800 block of Forbes Street. Local developer Carl Erskine is looking to build a supermarket on the property, according to the Metropolitan Zoning Commission chairman, Bobby Thompson. Erskine offered to cover all of the costs necessary to move the cemetery over to Peaceful Rest Cemetery, just a mile away from the current location.

“I think rezoning will be good for the neighborhood and good for the city. There’s not another supermarket for at least a mile and a half in any direction,” said Erskine.

In response to the council members’ questions for the crowd of over 200 people present, several citizens spoke in disfavor of the cemetery’s relocation, while few approved it.

Walt Dropo, president of the Forbes Street Residents Association, said that the cemetery has some of the oldest graves in the city, perhaps even of some of the city’s founders. The crowd applauded his promise to “mount a campaign to recall any council member who votes for this thing.”

At the end of the meeting, the council voted 6–1 to table an additional proposal from councilman Bill Mazeroski, who was looking to license the city’s morticians for extra revenue. There was wide disapproval among the morticians at the meeting for the proposal.