3-year-old girl with autism drowned <\/a>in a retention pond near Waterside Townhomes on Jacksonville’s Northside.<\/p>\nGaffney said the two deaths have made the need for action more urgent.<\/p>\n
“As a legislator, I can’t continue to sit back and not do anything,” Gaffney Jr. said. “I want to be proactive and make sure we do something about this before we get a call next week about the same incident.”<\/p>\n
Gaffney Jr. said he wants to gather feedback before drafting any proposal, noting that safety needs may vary from one neighborhood to another.<\/p>\n
“In some neighborhoods, it might be fences. In some neighborhoods, it might be gates. In some neighborhoods, it might just be buffers, trees,” Gaffney Jr. said. “I think every neighborhood is different, but at the end of the day, I want to hear from the community.”<\/p>\n
Mayor Donna Deegan’s office said the administration is heartbroken for the families who have lost children in accidental drownings and welcomes discussion about how to better protect children from unsecured bodies of water.<\/p>\n
The city said it uses vegetative buffers around city-owned ponds when the Public Works Department maintains the landscaping. However, the mayor’s office said the two recent drownings happened on private property, where property owners are responsible for safety barriers.<\/p>\n
Gaffney said Tuesday’s meeting is intended to help shape a meaningful solution.<\/p>\n
“Let your voice be heard. Bring solutions,” he said. “Let’s work on this together and let’s come up with a meaningful solution.”<\/p>\n
The meeting is open to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Jacksonville City Council member is seeking community input on potential safety measures around retention ponds after two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[152672,116,4040,118,117,1415,152673,152671,132119],"class_list":["post-380356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-gaffney-jr","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-city-council","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-sheriffs-office","tag-lynwood-roberts-room","tag-member-reggie-gaffney-jr","tag-retention-ponds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380356","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=380356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}