JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Thursday night, Sporting Jax, a local soccer organization that could potentially ask for millions of dollars in city subsidies for a stadium, did not want to answer everyone\u2019s questions.<\/p>\n
Sporting Jax representatives refused to allow media into a community meeting with residents about a massive plan to bring the proposed 15,000-seat soccer stadium and entertainment district to Jacksonville\u2019s town center area.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve reported ongoing concerns from neighbors about traffic congestion, noise pollution and construction in places like nearby wetlands, which residents believed were off-limit areas.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n After not being allowed in, we did wait around until after the meeting\u2019s end to see whether residents were satisfied with what they heard and learned.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the feelings I got from them was that we\u2019ve had our time of peace and privacy and progress, it\u2019s time for progress,\u201d said Kathleen Perera, who has pushed back on this project since the beginning. Her main concerns are traffic and congestion.<\/p>\n \u201cOur neighborhood is going to be sandwiched between two major venues,\u201d Perera said.<\/p>\n Carla Medford, who\u2019s lived in the area for 8 years, left with more concerns than she came with.<\/p>\n \u201cRespectfully, the meeting sounded very much like someone on a sales pitch,\u201d Medford said. \u201cThe meeting, the residents brought up really key issues, concerns, they were worried about their properties, what would happen to their properties and all of that was brushed over.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Sporting Jax told us representatives at the meeting tonight were not available to answer our questions. They agreed to answer a list of questions by the time of our newscast. Some of the big questions were: <\/p>\n How is Sporting Jax addressing residents\u2019 concerns about traffic congestion?Can you provide a study to reflect claims that the project will bring economic growth?How will public comment be used in the process of moving forward?<\/p>\n While they did not answer those questions, a spokesperson sent this statement on behalf of Sporting Jax addressing questions about the closed meeting:<\/p>\n \u201cThis meeting is an opportunity for members of the community to ask questions and have an open conversation with us as this process continues. We are committed to creating spaces where neighbors can have candid, two-way conversations without the presence of cameras. We will continue to host both community meetings and press conferences, as we have been doing throughout this process.\u201d<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Residents like Medford say they simply do not want this project in their backyard.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean it\u2019s just overwhelming. The roads are not built for that type of traffic pollution,\u201d Medford said.<\/p>\n We reached back out to Sporting Jax to ask if we could expect a more thorough response to our questions; we have not heard back.<\/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 Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Thursday night, Sporting Jax, a local soccer organization that could potentially ask for millions of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,643,5228,7840,143516,14186,116,118,117,58888,103295,121323,634,143518,12160,121329,121322,143517,73406,7842],"class_list":["post-350779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-action_news_jack","tag-action_news_jacks","tag-ben_becker","tag-carla_medford","tag-jacks","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jasmine","tag-jasmine_butler","tag-kathleen_pereira","tag-local","tag-medford","tag-side","tag-sporting_jack","tag-sporting_jacks","tag-sporting_jax","tag-stalker","tag-tanika_hughes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350779","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=350779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}