This is the same Sheriff Mike Williams who recently submitted a $513 million dollar budget proposal to that same city council, an increase of $29 million from last year.
If you ask any financially struggling local small business owner, or any local renter who is behind on rent, or any local homeowner in danger of losing their home, they would say, and they have been saying, all over social media and around our city today, it was misappropriation. Some have said it was outright theft.
Those are the people that the CARES Act funding was intended to help. Those are the people that help was taken away from; small business owners, renters and homeowners unable to pay rent/mortgage and others with Covid related expenses that were not covered by FEMA.
The Jacksonville City Council decided rather than help people struggling to get by they would take the remaining CARES funding and spread it around to agencies and groups.
The city council also approved a $21 million incentive package for Dun & Bradstreet moving its headquarters from New Jersey. The city council doesn’t have money when it comes to helping our citizens, or our local small businesses, and rather than spend Federal money that was provided to help our citizens and local small businesses, the city council gives that money away, and then drops 21 million on an out of state business!
The city council is okay with spending 21 million on a New Jersey business but refuses to spend the $4.6 million that the Feds gave the city for local small businesses, on small businesses!
The Jacksonville City Council voted unanimously Tuesday evening to pass the legislation reallocating $19.9 million in federal CARES Act funding.