JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Eastside is a step closer to collecting on the $4 million earmarked for the neighborhood from a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) born out of the Stadium of the Future deal with the Jaguars.
The money is ready to be spent.
But who decides where the money goes is still up in the air, and two separate Jacksonville organizations with the same name have been debating over the best way to approach creating a CBA board that will distribute the funds.
The deal between the Jaguars and the city includes $75 million from the Jaguars over the next 30 years, plus an additional $40 million from the city through 2032.
The $2 billion city budget for the coming year will permit those funds to start rolling out this year.
“It’s gonna be $4 million going directly to the Eastside for these programs that the new board will be able to disperse,” Councilman Jimmy Peluso said.
But there has been debate over how that “new board” would be chosen.
One of the Eastside advocacy groups wanted community members to have the final say in who sits on the board to ensure community input in the distribution of the funds.
The other group wanted the city to have more control, concerned about the possibility of favoritism.
In the end, a compromise was reached on Wednesday to create a hybrid model.
The board will follow a Cultural Council model with nine members and a nonprofit managing the fund.
“Essentially, what we’re going to do is we’re going to create a board, and the nonprofit model will be managing the dollars. They’ll be determining how those dollars get used in the community based off the board’s decision,” explained City Councilmember Raul Arias Jr. “This empowers the community to actually do the work to get the money across. Right now, currently, we have $4 million on the table for the Eastside that has not been used, and so the best way to use it is by having community input decide on how those dollars get used. However, we have to have some guardrails to make sure that the dollars are being used fiscally responsibly and managed by the city.”
Of the nine voting members, two will be appointed by the council president and approved by the council, one will be appointed by the mayor and approved by the council, and one will be a current employee of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who does not require council approval.
“What we had to do is compromise,” explained Arias. “One route was opioid, one route was going to be Cultural Council versus regardless of taking one or the other, what we decided to do was say, Okay, let’s hybrid them. Let’s merge them. The best route to have more accessibility to funds would be going to Cultural Council model. However, let’s have some guardrails that the opioid model has that we can now appease both parts of the community. So we decided to go that route to make sure that both parts of the community know that they should trust each other and work together.”
While some community members say they support the structure, they’re still cautious about how board members will be chosen.
“I think that the nonprofit model, the Cultural Council model, as they keep calling it was the correct way,” said Eastside resident Nigelle Kohn. “I’m not quite sure if I’m in support of how they’re choosing to do the board, but I think the structure is the correct structure to go in.”
Others said they just want to make sure the Eastside is protected.
“We didn’t have a problem with the coaching Council model, you know, we just wanted to make sure that the east side was safeguarded from vultures, and that when people come in, they understand that you have to abide by certain aspects,” explained Together Eastside Coalition Inc member Latavia Harris. “So today was one of those 50-50, things.”
The remaining five members will be representatives from the Eastside community, one from each of the five neighborhoods within the Eastside. But those members will be chosen by the city through an application process.
“If you live out there, you have a voice. You know more than I do, first of all, so you should be able to determine how those dollars should be used,” Arias said. “If you have a business that resides Out East, you are a subject matter expert. So at the end of the day, my criteria are very simple. You live out there, you work out there on any given day, you have more say over what I think should be out there.”
Arias explained that now that the board composition has been settled, the committee must address amendments to the legislation and then take it before the full City Council for a vote.
He hopes to have that finalized before the end of the year.
The next special committee meeting will be on November 13, 2025, at 10 a.m.
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