{"id":304188,"date":"2025-10-15T02:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/304188\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T02:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:17:14","slug":"jacksonville-city-council-rebuffs-call-for-duval-schools-general-counsel-but-a-path-forward-remains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/304188\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville City Council rebuffs call for Duval Schools’ general counsel. But a path forward remains."},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jacksonville City Council<\/a><\/strong> isn\u2019t giving the green light to more legal autonomy<\/a><\/strong> for the Duval County School Board<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

By a 8-9 vote, the legislative branch voted down a resolution to back a local bill in Tallahassee that, if passed, would give the board its own general counsel, sending a message to the state legislature should this bill get taken up in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

The Duval Delegation will get to vote on the bill next week and potentially carry it forward anyway.<\/p>\n

The local charter would have to be changed to make this happen, given the city\u2019s foundational document stipulates the general counsel as the primary legal authority.<\/p>\n

While the school board would still have access to city lawyers, the move was supposed to make DCPS more competitive with\u00a0 other districts and more able to get a lawyer who specializes in educational issues.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Debate ahead of the vote was heated.<\/p>\n

In support of the bill, Republican Chris Miller<\/strong> said the vote was to back \u201cthe elected officials who know what they need \u2026 to be able to operate more effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican\u00a0Rory Diamond<\/strong>\u00a0said that this was an effort to fix one of the \u201cproblems of consolidation\u201d and allow it to \u201cevolve with the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican\u00a0Raul Arias<\/strong> chided General Counsel\u00a0Michael Fackler<\/strong> for not hiring a lawyer for the school board that they wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake their recommendations 100%,\u201d he advised.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI see you all as my co-equal,\u201d said School Board Vice-Chair April Carney<\/strong>, advocating for the bill and noting board members are elected just like the Council.<\/p>\n

She went on to say that the school board reports to the Board of Education, and that \u201cit\u2019s really unfortunate that 57 years ago this was not brought up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrat\u00a0Jimmy Peluso<\/strong> agreed with Diamond that consolidation had flaws, but the decennial Charter Review Commission is a better way to deliberate the proposed change.<\/p>\n

\u201cA J-Bill ain\u2019t the way to do it,\u201d Peluso said, calling this a move toward \u201cdeconsolidation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBad precedent. Bad policy. Bad move,\u201d said Republican\u00a0Ken Amaro<\/strong>, who opposed the move to give the board a \u201cprivate attorney\u201d in two committees.<\/p>\n

Republican\u00a0Matt Carlucci<\/strong> denounced the \u201cstrike at the very heart of our consolidated government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a key in the lock of deconsolidation,\u201d added Democrat\u00a0Rahman Johnson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the vote and on behalf of the Mayor\u2019s Office, Mike Weinstein<\/strong> expressed concerns about lawsuits still being the province of the OGC, creating a \u201cmanagement issue.\u201d He also suggested future school boards could use city government, or vice versa, to hash out disputes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe General Counsel\u2019s office is exactly why consolidation works,\u201d Weinstein added.<\/p>\n

After the vote, some members discussed ways to give the school board more autonomy in getting input on legal representation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jacksonville City Council isn\u2019t giving the green light to more legal autonomy for the Duval County School…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":304189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,113978,3188,723,7310,13113,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-304188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-duval-county-school-board","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-jacksonville-city-council","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\/115375783570513304","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304188","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=304188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}