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Four councilmembers walk out of meeting as Rory Diamond’s ‘Big Beautiful Budget Amendments’ is discussed

  • September 10, 2025

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Four Jacksonville city councilmembers walked out of a city council meeting during budget amendment discussions Tuesday night, sparking drama and prompting the sergeant at arms to intervene.

The walkout occurred after a split vote on the city’s millage rate, during a contentious debate over the “Big Beautiful Budget Amendments” to the budget proposed by Councilman Rory Diamond.

RELATED: Jacksonville City Council split on millage rate proposal

Councilmembers Rahman Johnson, Jimmy Peluso, Ju’Coby Pittman, and Reggie Gaffney Jr. all walked out during the discussion of Diamond’s proposal.

Ju’Coby Pittman criticized the amendments sharply, calling them a “bullying tactic” that undermined the transparency and trust built during weeks of budget deliberations.

“It was snuck in after several weeks that we all worked very hard and deliberated the budget — which I feel undermined the process, the transparency and most of all the trust,” Pittman said. “It was a bullying tactic, self-serving and it wasn’t governing. And I want to say — enough is a doggone enough.”

Councilman Rory Diamond defended his amendments, rejecting accusations of racism. He said the amendments explicitly state the city will not discriminate based on gender, race, or family status.

“It literally says we are not going to be racist — we’re not going to spend money on treating people different based on their gender, their race or who they go home to — that’s what it says, that we will not be racist,” Diamond said. “Instead I get called racist. I didn’t throw out any names — I didn’t hear any substantive arguments against this. Give me one good reason why we should spend 1 dollar because we like one race or one gender more than another? I don’t think we should.”

After the walkout, the councilmembers returned to reconsider the vote.

On social media, the councilman called the council’s failure to strip the amendments out of the budget a “Big win for Jax,” adding that the vote tally was 8 (against) to 10 (in favor).

“An effort to strip our Big Beautiful Budget Amendments out of the budget FAILED 8-10 tonight,” he said. “Conservatives stood strong. We kept our BAN on spending on DEI, illegals, or abortion.”

The millage rate vote itself was also contentious. It took three rounds of voting to reach a 9-9 tie, which meant the motion to keep the rate at 11.3169 mills failed.

Councilman Terrance Freeman changed his vote, and Councilman Ron Salem said he would vote differently in two weeks to avoid prolonging the meeting.

The council is required to pass the millage rate by the end of the meeting, but the final vote on the full budget is scheduled for about two weeks from today.

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