PROTECT OUR PUBLIC LANDS AND WATERS

• Plank

Democrats believe in the conservation and collaborative stewardship of our shared natural heritage: the public lands and waterways, the oceans, Everglades, Great Lakes, the Arctic, and all that makes America great outdoors priceless.

• Local Priority

End JaxPort's free ride

Dredging St. Johns for JaxPort is a bad business decision, apart from environmental costs. Its justification is a 2013 plan, where growth depended on deeper draught vessels (Neopanamax) that didn't exist at the time. It assumed an $800 million dredging project, of which recent press reports show only $32.5 million is Federally funded. Plans are underway for a "$113 million base contract", which implies JaxPort-and hence the City-on the hook for the other $80 million, beyond the $87 million already on JaxPort's books (ironically, making dredging of our public waterway an assets owned by an entity that can be privatized, JaxPort, not the County/City per se).

JaxPort has done better than the 2013 plan imagined, in the indicator that would show a loss of competitive edge (Import TEUs); relative to most US ports with deeper channels, if the plan were right. Nor can dredging to 47 ft. be the end game since the 2013 plan stated (page 31) much of the Neopanamax trade "will require a 47 to 50 ft. shipping channel". Moreover, as McKinsey.com explains, digitization--not dredging--is driving change in ports, worldwide. Its related report on Container transport in 2043 concludes the future depends on "paying more attention to the dynamics around the end-consumer (as e-commerce disrupts retail and last mile logistics), building organisational discipline around monitoring the 'trigger points' behind different futures, and radically digitising and automating." More recently, as one industry expert explains, US ports are choked by "Congestion at the terminals, chassis shortages, driver and drayage capacity shortages, and rail service realignments." Making JaxPort first port-of-call, the goal of dredging, pales in importance compared to these current business imperatives.

Worse, and what most voters don't know, the County/City subsidizes JaxPort. It does so outright (grants of $23 million on page 52 of 2018 financials) but also by not expecting payments in lieu of property taxes like the $116 million JEA paid in 2018 (page 13). If either business ought to be privatized, it is JaxPort; but there probably wouldn't be any takers, precisely because JaxPort is misallocating County/City resources.

Solution: The City Council should have JaxPort prepare a new strategic plan. The 2013 strategic plan was (page 17), "designed to be a living plan that will be reviewed on a regular basis, incorporating new information and developments, and refining market projections, opportunities and economic realities" and stated (page 217), "As JAXPORT moves towards the 47 ft. channel, it is critical that the Port continually evaluates ... environmental costs, as well as the actual dredging and construction costs." Yet JaxPort proceeds as if the 2017 Ashar Report (summarized here) hadn't raised serious questions about the business case; and the St. Johns Riverkeepers hadn't detailed environmental issues that need attention. (Folio provides a good summary of it all.)

Keep our beaches public

Our beaches are clearly a key asset of our County but they opted out of the consolidated government that rules from the City Council.