Jacksonville, Fla. \u2014 Jacksonville veterans may have more job opportunities available to them if a newly filed bill makes it across the finish line. <\/p>\n
Retired Navy Commander John Bear is CEO of Five Star Veterans Center, a local nonprofit that helps veterans who have fallen on hard times get back into the workforce.<\/p>\n
He told Action News Jax that it\u2019s not always an easy mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have the job skills already there. They have the discipline already there. So, it\u2019s just providing them that opportunity to show that they can do the work,\u201d said Bear.<\/p>\n
Now, Jacksonville City Council President Nick Howland (R-Group 3 At-Large) has introduced the Stand for Service Act, which aims to increase employment opportunities for local vets.<\/p>\n
\u201cVeterans are not problems to manage, they\u2019re assets to invest in,\u201d said Howland.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n His bill would require companies to make a good faith effort to fill 10 percent of new jobs they create with veterans or spouses of active-duty military members as a condition to receive financial incentives from the city.<\/p>\n Howland said the Office of Economic Development would be in charge of overseeing the hiring requirements and ensuring companies are in compliance.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen companies receive tax rebate incentives from the city to relocate or grow into Jacksonville, they commit as part of that to creating jobs. This is adding another layer on top of that,\u201d said Howland.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n Bear argued it could be a big help to organizations like Five Star Veterans Center and the veterans they serve.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving those incentives to help us help them get other jobs available creates that stability that we need to make our place successful,\u201d said Bear.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n And the bill appears to have a clear path ahead, with more than half of the city\u2019s 19 council members already signing on as co-sponsors.<\/p>\n \u201cVeterans are folks who have written blank checks up to and including their lives for our community,\u201d said Howland. \u201dNow, this is a way for our community to take care of our veterans.\u201d<\/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 Jacksonville veterans may have more job opportunities available to them if a newly filed bill…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":972961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,5229,390482,500,48502,362990,3188,723,184793,11561,7310,3005,390484,77156,390480,425,5502,295640,390483,390481,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-972960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-america","tag-baer","tag-commander","tag-council_president","tag-five_star_veterans_center","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-howland","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jake","tag-jake_s","tag-jake_stan","tag-john_baer","tag-local","tag-navy","tag-nick_holland","tag-office_of_economic_development","tag-stand_for_service_act","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972960","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=972960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/972961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}