The Duval County Legislative Delegation will meet at City Hall on Monday to elect a new chair and vice chair and to hear from constituents.
The Duval Delegation is a non-partisan office designed to serve as the liaison between delegate members and the local governments, community organizations and citizens they represent. Members of the delegation are the two state senators, Aaron Bean (R) and Audrey Gibson (D), and the six state representatives, Cord Byrd (R), Clay Yarborough (R), Tracie Davis (D), Kimberly Daniels (D), Wyman Duggan (R) and Jason Fischer (R), who represent all or part of Duval County.
This will be newly elected Rep. Wyman Duggan’s first Duval Delegation meeting as a member.
“First of all we’re going to elect a new chairman,” said Sen. Aaron Bean, the current chairman of the Delegation. “We only serve one year chairmanships. We try to give everyone a chance to serve as chairman of the delegation.”
Bean said he’ll open the meeting then the Delegation will take nominations and vote for new leadership.
“I’m not eligible because I’m stepping down as chair,” Bean said. “I know Representative Jason Fischer is a possibility to be the next chair.”
Fischer is the Delegation’s current Vice Chair.
Once voting is done, the bulk of the meeting will be dedicated to open mic time.
“Right now we’ll have, I’m guessing, between 60 and 70 speakers,” said Bean. “We’re limiting them to two minutes each.”
Those two minutes are for constituents to pitch ideas or projects that need money, a new bill, or to talk about an unnecessary law.
“We’ll hear from people like JEA, the airport authority, the port authority, city hall, the school board, UNF… anybody that has gotten state funds or wants to get state funds will come forward to state their case and kickoff the season,” said Bean.
Many people signed up in advance to speak at the meeting, but Bean said it’s not too late to participate.
“If you didn’t sign up already you can show up and sign up then,” he said. “We’ll make our best effort to give everybody a chance to come to the microphone and state their idea or state their case.”
The meeting will run from 9 a.m. to noon on Monday, December 10. The event will be held in the City Council Chambers at City Hall. The meeting agenda, including a list of speakers who have signed up, can be found here.
“It’s an exciting time,” said Bean. “It’s the kickoff of the legislative session that will officially commence in the spring, but committees will start next week as well in Tallahassee.”
Brendan Rivers can be reached at brivers@wjct.org, 904-358-6396 or on Twitter at @BrendanRivers.
