I love me some Jacksonville (sorta)

What do the crack of dawn, speed dating, and Jacksonville politics have in common?

On Tuesday I groggily drug myself out of bed and sped like a stock car driver down Veterans Parkway just to barely make the bus (filled with my fellow classmates) on time. It was class trip day. To Jacksonville. Fun with Leadership Savannah.

Now normally, speed-dating-esque team-building exercises at 7:15am on a bus of full of morning people would not be my idea of fun. But it actually kinda was. So, I decided to quit my bitchin’ and take one for the team in the name of “leadership.”

I’d also like to point out, for the record, that Jacksonville (despite the nice skyline) has always kind of made me think of concrete and old people. Despite the NFL team and successful super bowl bid, the place always made me feel, “ehh.”

However, I decided it was time to put aside my negativity and preconceptions and suck it up. Everyone has something to offer.

And, I’m glad I did…because I enjoyed myself and I dare say I learned something.

The Jacksonvillians are coming, the Jacksonvillians are coming!

The cool thing about Jacksonville is their way of governing themselves. Jacksonville has one of those nifty “consolidated governments” that all us cities want for Christmas. All that means is that the county and the city decided to join hands and play nice, skip the courtship and get married. A shotgun wedding, of sorts…for governments. Or, technically speaking, “The city and county have been merged into one jurisdiction. It is simultaneously a city, which is a municipal corporation; and a county, which is an administrative division of a state.”

Why did they decide to take the plunge, you ask? Well, beside the glaring fact a consolidated government is (usually) overwhelmingly more efficient, in 1967 the citizens of the fair city of Jacksonville decided that they’d had enough and went postal. That is, they blew up their government. With a referendum.

The “good ole’ boy network” went BOOM, Jeffersonian style. Apparently, due to a piece of state legislation passed in the 1930′s, those crazy Jacksonvilllians had the power to kick out their government if they didn’t like it.

And, they didn’t like it. Public services were severely lacking, schools were becoming dis-accredited, racial tensions where skyrocketing.

In short, things generally sucked in Jacksonville.

So, they gave their politicians the heave-ho and installed a brand new shiny government.

One-stop shopping, government style

Appropriately enough, the person to school us on Jacksonville political and legal history, was in fact Jacksonville’s General Council, Richard A. Mullaney. Very impressive guy. Half Irish and half Arabic, his pithy opener was “I don’t know whether to have a beer or save money.”

At any rate, the General Council’s Office runs like a well oiled machine, and acting more like a corporate law firm than a government bureaucracy, the office handles all governmental legal affairs. From their website:

“The Office of the General Council, which operates much like a private firm, bills its many clients for services. Clients include a $5.1 billion dollar public utility (JEA), a school district with over 125,000 students, the Airport Authority, the Seaport Authority, the Transportation Authority, the Housing Authority, five constitutional officers (Supervisor of Elections, Property Appraiser, Sheriff, Tax Collector and Clerk of Court), the Mayor and 10 executive branch departments, 19 City Council members, and over 40 boards, commissions, and agencies.”

Not too shabby. Apparently (and according to former Mayor Ed Austin), the general council’s office is “the glue that holds the consolidated government together.”

Why is this cool? Well, for one thing, intra-government law suits cease to exists…because, well, they all have the same lawyer. And more importantly, for another, all the departments share resources, services, accountants, IT departments, etc, etc, etc. Instead of two governments, you have one. They share resources, funds, the whole kit and kaboodle. Cuts down on waste, duplication of effort and all around government foolishness.

Makes sense to me. Why don’t we ask for one this Christmas?

As it so happens, in 2000 a group of politico’s formed a committee to help investigate the possibility of consolidated government in Savannah. They mulled it over for several months, but in the end the group voted to not move forward with consolidation discussions…but by a slim margin. To the tune of one vote.

That’s not the only time Savannah has flirted with Madame Consolidation. As we all know (and have read), in 2004 the Chatham County and City of Savannah police forces took the plunge and got hitched. A move that was not without controversy and its share of pitfalls along the way, however in the end I think most would agree it was a good move. Change is usually not fun, and it often hurts. But sometimes its necessary.

How ’bout them indicators

As anyone in my office will attest, I’m a gigantic nerd. I get my brain jollies off of numbers and math and writing code. So it was no surprise that one of my favorite things about this trip was the presentation on how Jacksonville measures itself. And, despite the nerdery, it’s quite impressive.

In Jacksonville, they have a local think tank called the “Jacksonville Community Council, Inc.” (JCCI). Despite the boring name, it’s a pretty impressive group of folks. It’s basically their job to measure Jacksonville, identify problems, discover solutions, and shine the light on the city’s progress (or lack thereof.)

Their flagship “product” (or report rather) is something called the “Quality of Life Report” and it’s basically a report card. For the entire city. Complete with 111 delicious metrics and indicators. It’s like candy for policy wonks and number crunchers.

You gotta hand it to those crazy Jacksonvillians – they like their numbers. Since 1985 the JCCI has tracked different measures of “quality of life” in nine external environments: education; economy; environment; social wellbeing; arts, culture, and recreation; health; government; transportation; and safety.

What’s the big deal? It’s just a bunch of numbers? Well, yea, it is just a bunch of numbers. But it’s a quantitative measurement of how your community is doing, in relation to its past. Is your community doing better? Is it doing worse? In what areas? What are the benchmarks? Where could it improve? You get the idea. If you’ve got a benchmark, or a starting point, you can gauge whether or not you need to be patting yourself on the back or bringing out the whipping stick. All the indicators of progress, in one cohesive study. They also have a cool (albeit cheeky) system of “red flags” and “gold stars” – identifying those measurements that indicate problems that either need to be addressed or issues that have improved.

While their flagship report is their biggest and most involved, they have others as well. Among them “Air Quality: Energy Environment and Economy“, “Reducing Murder: A Community Response“, “Public Education Reform: Eliminating the Achievement Gap“, and one of the most provocative (and troubling) – the “Race Relations Report.”

At the end of Skip Cramer’s (director of JCCI) talk, all heads in the room were nodding and most were probably thinking “damn, we need one of those.” Apparently, you can have your very own “Quality of Life Report” for your city of choice, to the tune of $150,000. Although, I’m here to tell you I think it’s worth every penny.

And that’s not all

The two other talks that I won’t go into too much (I’m typed out) were also interesting. We got to schmooze with the head of their Regional Chamber, Wally Lee…a force to be reckoned with in his own right. They’ve got a nifty economic development collaboration called the Cornerstone Regional Development Partnership (7 counties and several other government authorities) that convenes to share prospects, ideas and efforts. We also heard from The Community Foundation of Jacksonville, their big philanthropic arm. It’s basically like a one-stop shop for philanthropy and giving. Have dollars, will give, as it were.

Yea, so what?

All in all, the trip was an eye opening one. The basic “theme” that I took away from it was one of collaboration and efficiency. Centralizing things to cut down on duplication of effort and maximizing joint efforts for a common cause.

Sounds great in theory, certainly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we got the pitch they make to outsiders, and not everything is as rosy as we may have been led to believe. Everyone has problems and politics are usually frustrating. But if you ask me, the proof is in the pudding. They have a consolidated government. They have a think tank that cranks out useful indicators and benchmarks. They have grown explosively. They’ve landed huge economic development projects as well as an NFL team and a super bowl for cripe’s sake.

For what its worth, I think the entire class enjoyed the trip and considered it an enlightening learning experience.  Don’t get me wrong, Savannah does many things exceptionally well. We wrote the book on quality of life in many ways. We have a port that kinda makes most look like a bunch of rubber duckies in a bathtub. Our historic district and downtown is second to none in the nation and we’ve got a thriving business community. But I think we can also learn from the way others (like Jacksonville) have achieved things.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Some more efficient than others.