JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax is hearing Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s reaction to a debate between city council members over whether they will get free tickets to Jaguars games and who will be responsible for giving them out.<\/p>\n
Right now, the city\u2019s policy says the mayor\u2019s office has the power to distribute free tickets to Jaguars games for city council members and those working in the mayor\u2019s office. Last week, city councilmember Ron Salem filed a bill to change the policy so that city council members and the mayor\u2019s office can have power in deciding how the free tickets are given out every year.<\/p>\n
In response, city council president Kevin Carrico sent out a statement saying he\u2019s working on his own bill to eliminate the free Jaguars tickets for the city\u2019s elected officials, which he is naming after Mayor Deegan. In his statement, council president Carrico said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe proposal formally named the DEEGAN Amendment (Denying Elected Elites Gameday Access Nonsense) closes the door on elected officials using public dollars for gameday perks\u2026I\u2019m calling on Mayor Donna Deegan to back this reform and prove she\u2019s on the side of taxpayers, not perks.\u201d<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Mayor Deegan told Action News Jax she believes there are more pressing problems to deal with.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are so many important issues for us to deal with. I say we dispense with this and move on to those important things,\u201d Mayor Deegan said.<\/p>\n After Carrico sent out his statement, Mayor Deegan had sent out her own statement in response, saying:<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I\u2019m flattered this amendment was named after me, I\u2019m not the one asking for more tickets. I\u2019ve been a Jaguars season ticket holder for decades. I\u2019d be happy to return to my longstanding north end zone seats, which I still pay for. If the City Council wants to update the ticket system that has been in place for many years before I took office, I\u2019m all for it.\u201d<\/p>\n The mayor said she hopes that whatever policy is decided upon goes beyond just Jaguars tickets.<\/p>\n \u201cCouncil seemed to want to change that policy. And then now they want to change to a different policy,\u201d Mayor Deegan said, \u201cbut at the end of the day, I think that if we\u2019re going to do it for Jaguar tickets, we should do it for all city venue tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n Council member Ron Salem\u2019s bill is moving through committees and will be heard again next Tuesday. Council President Carrico said his bill will be filed sometime in the next few days.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax is hearing Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s reaction to a debate between city…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":161707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,5229,76541,13823,2451,48493,48499,93623,93626,13815,93621,46583,61251,3188,723,11561,7310,64082,48501,93622,425,12176,93625,93624,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-161706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-ax_news","11":"tag-chandler","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-city_council","14":"tag-city_council_president","15":"tag-degan","16":"tag-dinsmore_elementary_school","17":"tag-donna_deegan","18":"tag-everbank_stadium","19":"tag-finn","20":"tag-finn_carlin","21":"tag-fl","22":"tag-florida","23":"tag-jack","24":"tag-jacksonville","25":"tag-jags","26":"tag-kerrio","27":"tag-kevin_carrio","28":"tag-local","29":"tag-mayor","30":"tag-office_of_sports_and_entertainment","31":"tag-ron_salem","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-united-states-of-america","34":"tag-unitedstates","35":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","36":"tag-us","37":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}