The “Vendetta over vision” led to the failure of the Lot J deal.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. Hours after Jacksonville City Council rejected a proposed deal to build a large entertainment complex in the shadow of the Jaguars Stadium, Mayor Lenny Curry said personal vendors against him and his administration they were the culprits.

“Last night you had vendetta for vision,” Curry said Wednesday morning on 1010XL sports radio. “You had board members with personal flesh who voted no. You have one that said to the organization recently yesterday that it was a yes and then said no. “

Curry seemed to reference his ongoing public cow with Councilman Garrett Dennis.

Dennis was one of three board members, including Joyce Morgan and Randy DeFoor, who voted last week to advance the bill out of committee and take it to a full council vote only to vote against development on Tuesday night, surprising some.

Morgan told News4Jax that he felt the deal was not over.

Council members Danny Becton, Matt Carlucci, Al Ferraro and Council President Tommy Hazouri also voted against the deal, which fell 12-7. A minimum of 13 votes was required to approve the project.

“How are we going to go about when you have votes for people to want to be mayor, or they want to run for office for the next 10 or 15 years, or they have personal vendettas against me,” Curry said. “We’ll have to figure out how to navigate this, or this city is going nowhere, downtown.”

Curry later spoke to reporters Wednesday afternoon about his disappointment.

“Anyone who saw that meeting last night was able to see that it’s pretty clear that there were no votes on personalities, and that’s really unfortunate,” he said. “It’s a loss for Jacksonville. It is a loss for what would have been a transformative project in the city center.

During an interview Wednesday on “The Morning Show,” Dennis placed the failure of the deal at Curry’s feet.

“I think there will have to be an olive branch spread out on both sides, but that deal collapsed because of the mayor, no one else,” Dennis said. “I mean he negotiated a bad deal and took it to the town hall. And so we had to act in the best interest of the taxpayers. Therefore, I do not regret my vote and I do not think that the other six who voted against this agreement regret their vote.

Dennis said he supported the idea of developing Lot J, but said the deal was bad from the start: that it was secretly concealed, that it was rushed, and that it “baffled” taxpayers. He and other board members have also drawn up comparisons between Lot J and JEA’s attempted sale.

“Council members said this was being negotiated in secret. That’s a lot of, ”Curry said. of jobs in our city “.

When asked if he cared that voting for the deal would lead to Shad Khan and the Jaguars leaving town, Dennis said this is always on the table.

“What does that say about the Jaguars? A factor, a concrete development is your decisive factor to leave the city? “But again, I don’t think that agreement is indicative of whether they’re leaving or not.”

Jacksonville Jaguars president Mark Lamping said the team will now focus on negotiations related to the shipyard development.

“We will go through the process of the shipyards that will pass [the Downtown Investment Authority] and then we’ll see how that goes, ”Lamping said Tuesday night.

This surprised Dennis.

“Mr. Lamping started talking about shipyards when, you know, the big elephant in the room is the stadium, “Dennis said.”[Lamping] he told the registry about a month ago that in 2023 they will return to the city to talk about renovating or building a new stadium before talking about extending the lease. Therefore, in my opinion, I think we have to deal with the stadium before dealing with the shipyards or any other development ”.

Curry used a sports analogy to say it’s not over.

“A real test of an individual and a real test of a team is what you do when everything doesn’t go well,” he said. “I told my team last night that I was incredibly proud of the work they did the deal they put in. They fought to get that to the finish line, and it didn’t happen. “

.Source

Share this:

Related