JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Changes are coming to Jacksonville\u2019s Park Safety Council after an Action News Jax investigation.<\/p>\n
The group was created by executive order in 2020, following the 2017 death of Amari Harley<\/a> at Bruce Park in Arlington. The toddler died after falling into an unsecured septic tank.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n In May<\/a>, Action News Jax told you how the six-member volunteer group has been plagued by attendance issues for years, preventing it from doing the work it was created to do, reviewing park inspections and putting out reports so that your family can know about safety at local parks. <\/p>\n Chair of the Park Safety Council, Bruce Tyson, told Action News Jax the group has only put out one report since they started meeting in 2021. <\/p>\n Tyson said over the years, he has repeatedly asked whether the executive order could be amended to lower the quorum threshold to three instead of four, and whether the application process for bringing on new volunteers could be improved. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve made that request to several different people and entities, and so far I\u2019ve seen no action on it,\u201d Tyson said.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n After our report in May<\/a>, a city spokesperson told us they would consider amending the executive order to lower the quorum requirement. But earlier this month, a city spokesperson told Action News Jax they appointed a new member to the Park Safety Council and that they \u201cshould have a quorum\u201d for Monday\u2019s meeting. <\/p>\n In a statement, city spokesperson Phil Perry said in part, \u201cIt\u2019s our intention to see if these new positions smooth out the past quorum challenges before we look to update the executive order that created the Council.\u201d<\/p>\n The newly appointed member did show up for Monday\u2019s meeting, but only three people showed up altogether so the group still did not have enough members to conduct any official business.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Action News Jax Anchor Tenikka Hughes spoke with Tyson after Monday\u2019s meeting, and he said, \u201cI appreciate the city\u2019s efforts to get new members but would appreciate the mayor\u2019s office consider revising the executive order so that official business can be conducted in situations such as today.\u201d <\/p>\n Action News Jax reached out to the city to find out if the mayor will now make that change and a spokesperson said, \u201cYes \u2013 we will move forward with an amendment to reduce the quorum from 4 to 3 members.\u201d<\/p>\n We will keep you updated on the process.<\/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 Changes are coming to Jacksonville\u2019s Park Safety Council after an Action News Jax investigation. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[643,118484,14324,118483,118486,116,118,117,634,118485],"class_list":["post-354683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news_jack","tag-amari_harley","tag-arlington","tag-bruce_park","tag-bruce_tyson","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-local","tag-park_safety_council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354683","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=354683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}