{"id":245224,"date":"2025-09-22T01:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T01:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/245224\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T01:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T01:48:10","slug":"jacksonville-residents-prepare-to-speak-at-city-council-meeting-for-nearly-2b-budget-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/245224\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville residents prepare to speak at city council meeting for nearly $2B budget vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Ahead of Jacksonville\u2019s city council\u2019s vote<\/a> on a nearly $2 billion budget, Jacksonville community leaders gathered Sunday to ensure residents were prepared and understood the process.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s finance committee has spent months reviewing Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s budget proposal, making various cuts, edits and additions since its initial presentation more than two months ago.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are educating the public and preparing them to speak at the city council budget meeting on September 23rd,\u201d said Rose Mary McCoy of the Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighters, one of several community groups leading the preparation efforts at Avondale United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>Mayor Deegan defends lean budget, pushes back on CFO\u2019s tax criticism ahead of budget vote on Tuesday<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Local attorney Leslie Scott Jean-Bart emphasized the importance of public participation in the budget process. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe budget is for us,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s for the people and it\u2019s from our tax dollars that we help generate. We elect these individuals to act in our best interest, so it is our obligation as citizens to hold them accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the two-hour informational session, community members received detailed explanations of the budget process and instructions for public participation. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose is to make sure that those who want to speak at the budget hearing coming up on Tuesday have the information that they need to talk about the issues and to express how they feel within the time limits,\u201d Jean-Bart said.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s budget meeting begins at 3 p.m. Attendees are urged to arrive early, as the meeting is expected to draw a large crowd, complete speaker cards to participate in public comment and be prepared to respect time limits.<\/p>\n

City Council must pass the budget before the end of September. The proposed millage rate reduction is also on the agenda.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Ahead of Jacksonville\u2019s city council\u2019s vote on a nearly $2 billion budget, Jacksonville community leaders…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":245225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,5310,3188,723,7310,80,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-245224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-city-council","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115245436803714682","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245224","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=245224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}