JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville City Council President Ron Salem is working on legislation that would prevent the Mayor of Jacksonville from using private donations or any funding to remove monuments from city property without City Council approval.
This comes after Mayor Donna Deegan used her executive authority and $187,000 in private funding to remove a Confederate monument from Springfield Park on Wednesday.
The removal follows years of what Councilman Matt Carlucci says was inaction on the part of City Council to use $500,000 in budgeted funds towards the Women of the Southland statue in Springfield Park.
Carlucci believes the mayor was right for taking things into her own hands.
“The mayor took action that the council had four or five years to take action on, she took action, she took the right action," Carlucci said.
Before removing the statue, the mayor's office consulted the Office of General Council. Attorney Michael Fackler drafted a legal memorandum that concluded: “The mayor has exclusive authority over city parks…through the use of non-city budgetary funds, the mayor can remove and relocate a monument from the city park.”
During a Rules Committee Meeting held Tuesday, City Council President Ron Salem called the process flawed and brought up concerns that the decision was made based on a draft memorandum that was neither finalized nor signed.
Salem also argued that since the funding used to remove the monument was over $100,000 according to the city’s charter, it needed to be appropriated by the council.
"Clearly the CIP [capital improvement plan] language says anything over $100,000 whether in kind or not goes to the council and he tried to work around that, it's very clear," Salem said. “It should have come to the City Council, we appropriate the dollars, that did not occur, whether the money is donated, or in kind. It should have come to the City Council."
Fackler took questions on the draft memorandum during the Rules Committee meeting. He defended his conclusion, although said some of the language could have been changed.
“The value of the project was north of 100,000 absolutely, but the money didn’t come into the budget triggering the CIP analyst," Fackler said.
"The mayor does not have exclusive authority over parks, I think that was an overstatement in our initial analysis. She certainly has the day-to-day authority to implement the laws that this body passes. So exclusive authority I think is a little bit strong and incorrect. There are caveats. No matter what she does, she has to follow the code," Fackler said.
Also during the meeting, the Mayor's representatives were asked why the decision was not announced to council members before the monument was removed.
"It was an abundance of caution in taking this action particularly to protect the people who were working, doing the work. If there was an announcement earlier it would cause a bit of a furor and it could lead to a security concern," Bill Delaney, the Mayor's office communications representative, said.
The draft legal document also concluded the monument was “arguably not designated as a historic monument”. However, Salem argued that the monument had been categorized in past work as a contributing historical monument.
Multiple council members brought up concerns that this could happen again to other monuments around the city, something Salem is focused on preventing.
“Having a strong mayor is good, in my opinion, the mayor overstepped herself in this particular case and I think we can have that debate and all 19 of us need to be concerned about that," Salem said.
Salem says he will be introducing legislation on Wednesday that would prevent the city’s mayor from using donations or any funding for a city project similar to this without council approval.