All seven candidates for Jacksonville mayor cast their vision for the city’s future on Wednesday night in a debate at Jacksonville University – Omega Allen, LeAnna Cumber, Daniel Davis, Donna Deegan, Al Ferraro, Audrey Gibson and Frank Keasler.
Here’s what they had to say about infrastructure needs, their Downtown plan, and the importance of the St. Johns River to the River City:
Investing in infrastructure
The biggest difference between the septet was where and how the city should devote dollars to addressing infrastructure issues.
Cumber, a Republican on the City Council, and Gibson, a Democratic former state senator, agreed Jacksonville needs to partner with the state and federal government to win grants.
“I know there are federal dollars in the infrastructure bill that we could leverage to match money that we have in the budget for projects, as well as draw down state money to be able to mix those funds together,” Gibson said. “(We can) do more than one area at a time, that’s my bundling concept that I will plan to look into, so that there is less cherry picking and the projects get done faster across those neighborhoods – particularly (the) Northwest side.”