There\u2019s a shakeup with the CBA.<\/p>\n
The Community Benefits Agreement, which was agreed to in conjunction with the Jags Stadium Renovation deal, will seed $40 million from the city into Jacksonville\u2019s Eastside over seven years.<\/p>\n
But major changes may be coming to the way those dollars would be disbursed, with the city\u2019s Inspector General telling council members the current plan is a \u201crecipe for disaster\u201d in a Tuesday workshop.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Nine members of the city council attended that meeting and got an overview of the current bill that would establish a framework for disbursing the CBA funds.<\/p>\n The dollars have to be spent on programs, projects, and initiatives related to affordable and workforce housing, economic development, and homelessness.<\/p>\n During the meeting, Inspector General Matt Lascell raised red flags about the current plan to give a non-profit control over how and to whom that money would be awarded.<\/p>\n He warned that while the city would have oversight of the non-profit, the city\u2019s ability to oversee individual grant recipients would be greatly diminished.<\/p>\n He called the model \u201cripe for fraud, waste, and abuse\u201d.<\/p>\n Lascell and Councilmember Ron Salem (R-Group 2 At-Large) both expressed support for a city-run board that would be staffed with city employees.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Salem explained that it would give the city direct oversight of award recipients.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got city employees monitoring the system, making sure the grants are awarded correctly and the grants are monitored correctly so that the entity that gets the money does what they said they were gonna do. That\u2019s the key part of it,\u201d said Salem.<\/p>\n But Councilmember Jimmy Peluso (D-District 7), who represents the Eastside, argued community members who live on the Eastside have expressed support for the independence and efficiency offered through the non-profit model.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a real opportunity to kind of create something independent and long-lasting and built and made for the community. So, like that\u2019s what made this an exciting possibility,\u201d said Peluso. \u201dThere\u2019s a lot of concerns that were had and made by members of the community about, okay the city has said they\u2019re gonna do a lot of things. The city hasn\u2019t come around in years.\u201d<\/p>\n The CBA bill is set to come up for a hearing in neighborhoods next week.<\/p>\n In that meeting, Councilmember Salem plans to introduce a substitute bill that would replace the current non-profit model with a city-run framework.<\/p>\n The Council President said it\u2019s his hope to get a final version passed in time to get a board together by March 1st.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a shakeup with the CBA. The Community Benefits Agreement, which was agreed to in conjunction with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[16006,65834,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-134278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-cba","tag-councilmember-ron-salem","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}