Council President Elaine Brown has established a Special Committee on Fair Share, to review the fair share process. Brown has appointed Council Member Sharon Copeland, District 6, to chair the seven-member committee. Copeland has scheduled a series of meetings to be held the 2^nd and 4^th Wednesdays of each month from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber starting with March 9, 2005.

'Managing growth has been one of the biggest challenges facing our growing city,' Brown said. 'I know that reviewing the fair share process will be long and arduous, but how we handle this in the future will be essential to Jacksonville's planned growth. Council Member Copeland is the right person to take on this task.'

Copeland will convene three types of meetings, each with a specific purpose. The Committee will meet with experts to gather information on procedures and process; joint meetings will also be held with the Mayor's Task Force so that both bodies can work closely together towards a common goal; and other meetings will be scheduled just for gathering public input. All of this will be in the hopes of creating a process more responsive to the needs of the community impacted.

This special committee will be comprised of members representing three committees: Transportation, Environment and Energy; Finance; and Land Use and Zoning. Copeland's vice-chair will be Council Member Suzanne Jenkins. Rounding out the committee will be Council Members Daniel Davis, Lynette Self, Glorious Johnson, Art Graham, and Warren Alvarez.

At the committee level, fair share bills are currently reviewed only by the TEE Committee, but each of the three committees referenced above often has purview over other legislation (i.e. land use and zoning changes, roads and infrastructure funding, etc.), which directly or indirectly relates to fair share bills.

'We felt Councilwoman Copeland was such a good fit to chair this committee because she is logical and objective, has a background in land development, and a great deal of experience through her district with infill housing. She can see this issue from its many perspectives,' said TEE Chair Arthur Graham. 'We want to evaluate each aspect of fair share, determine how well it works, and then make sure that we implement the best possible process.'

Copeland concurs. 'Bottom line is that we want to see if there is a better way to assess and disperse fair share in the future,' said Copeland. 'By discussing procedure in these different environments, we can bring better ideas to the public hearings, where we can gather more specific issue-related information from the public.'

Copeland added, 'The fair share was initially established as an opportunity to ease traffic woes in areas where any proposed development compromised the level of service on the roads impacted to render them failed or beyond capacity.' Fair share currently works by collecting funds based on a set 'formula' of how many cars or 'trips' the applicant or 'development' would place on the road during peak p.m. traffic hours. 'We need to look at how, when and where we put this process into practice and make sure it is, whenever possible, responding to related growth,' said Copeland. 'We also need to look at connecting the dots within the Council, as many other matters have a direct correlation to certain fair share bills we review.'

For more information about this committee please contact (904) 630-1404. The meetings will be held in City Hall, 117 West Duval Street, on the 1^st floor in the Council Chamber. The public is encouraged to attend.