{"id":221508,"date":"2026-04-07T03:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T03:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/221508\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T03:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T03:54:07","slug":"committee-hits-pause-on-14-proposed-safe-haven-baby-boxes-around-jacksonville-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/221508\/","title":{"rendered":"Committee hits pause on 14 proposed Safe Haven Baby Boxes around Jacksonville"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Jacksonville City Council&#8217;s Neighborhoods Committee deferred a bill Monday that would fund 14 Safe Haven Baby Boxes, one in each council district, as some members questioned the demand for the devices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The bill is sponsored by District 13 Council Member Rory Diamond and would appropriate nearly $315,000 to the fire department for purchasing and installing the climate-controlled boxes at fire stations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The boxes allow parents to anonymously and safely surrender newborns up to 30 days old under Florida&#8217;s Safe Haven law, automatically alerting first responders when they are dropped off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Diamond argued that it&#8217;s a worthwhile investment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;If we save one newborn baby, it&#8217;s worth the money,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There are currently no boxes on the First Coast, with the nearest in Flagler County at Fire Station 25. That county recently saw a stark example of why they exist, with a Palm Coast woman indicted Monday for first-degree murder after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/florida-woman-kills-her-baby-150155775.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:allegedly letting her newborn drown;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;allegedly letting her newborn drown&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">allegedly letting her newborn drown <\/a>after giving birth in a toilet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">District 6 Council Member Michael Boylan didn&#8217;t oppose having the boxes, but proposed starting smaller with a four-box pilot program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I absolutely support the concept&#8230; I just wondered how we determined the need for it,&#8221; Boylan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He shared a letter from Adoptee Advocates of Michigan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;This proposal raises serious concerns about the allocation of a substantial portion of public funds toward a solution in a city that has not experienced a baby surrender or abandonment case in well over a decade,&#8221; the letter read in part. &#8220;At a minimum, it is difficult to justify diverting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, not including thousands more in additional ongoing maintenance costs, to address a problem that does not appear to exist in Jacksonville.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Diamond pushed back, calling the proposed reduction unbelievable, especially after the city approved $775 million for a stadium and hundreds of millions for downtown developers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;They won&#8217;t spend $300,000 for newborn babies,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s ridiculous. I don&#8217;t know what planet these people live on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The bill heads to the Finance Committee Tuesday, where Chair Joe Carlucci is expected to defer it again, Boylan said. That could delay a full council vote by two to four weeks, giving time to assess demand and the optimal number of boxes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">District 2 Council Member Mike Gay also commented on the proposal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I fully support the bill as originally filed,&#8221; Gay said. &#8220;The only change I will support is finding another funding source.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The measure was originally slated for possible full council consideration on April 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jacksonville City Council&#8217;s Neighborhoods Committee deferred a bill Monday that would fund 14 Safe Haven Baby Boxes,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[100368,3368,100367,4717,116,118,117,76126,18571,94653],"class_list":{"0":"post-221508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-council-district","9":"tag-council-member","10":"tag-district-13-council","11":"tag-flagler-county","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","14":"tag-jacksonville-news","15":"tag-michael-boylan","16":"tag-rory-diamond","17":"tag-safe-haven-baby-boxes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221508","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=221508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}