There were 100 faces behind Mayor Lenny Curry, Sheriff Mike Williams and City Council member Reggie Brown on Monday.
The faces were male, female, black, white, infants and teenagers, all with one commonality. They were victims of violent crime.
The Portraits of Hope display at City Hall is intended to honor their memory and serve as a stark reminder of the crime issues facing the Jacksonville community.
Yet, Curry, Williams and Brown were there to talk about another murder of a baby, this time 11-month-old Tedashii Williams.
The infant was shot and killed Sunday, one of three victims in a shootout at a food mart in Brown’s district.
Curry said it was unacceptable behavior for his city and he remains focused and committed to solving crime issues.
He’s done so by hiring more police officers, adding overtime funding and boosting the Jacksonville Journey with millions of dollars.
Curry’s first budget included almost $3 million more for crime prevention and intervention programs, up from about $2 million. Some of that money rolled over into this year, but he remains committed at about the $5 million mark.
However, despite the boost, there was some pushback the night council approved the budget.
Council member Scott Wilson wanted data on how the anti-crime initiative had performed in the 10 ZIP codes where funding was being dedicated. Parts of his Southside district, too, needed improvement.
Wilson wanted answers and his push to delay half of the Jacksonville Journey’s 2016-17 funding was a message heard.
On Monday, Wilson and his Neighborhoods, Community Investments and Services Committee heard some of the data.
Sunday’s shootings served as a stark reminder for the conversation.
When the Jacksonville Journey Oversight Committee rebooted this year, it evolved from serving mainly Health Zone 1, an area that encompasses much of Northwest Jacksonville. After evaluating Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office data, the 10 ZIP codes with the most incidents were chosen to start.
As time went on, there were concerns that focusing on those ZIP codes had flaws — some of the harder hit also had some of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods, which could skew results.
The ZIP code method might end up being tweaked or not used at all.
W.C. Gentry, oversight committee board chair, said the group will talk in January about refining what areas need to be reviewed.
However, the ZIP code data does show bigger cracks, he said.
For instance, he asked the school district for the 20 elementary schools that have the worst reading proficiencies. Data shows a child’s inability to read by the third grade exponentially leads to negative outcomes.
Gentry said results indicate nearly all of the schools that graded out worst were in the 10 ZIP codes.
An example of help could be working with the school district on those schools, much like the Journey did with funding for summer reading and camp programs for children in targeted neighborhoods.
Gentry went on to say areas with “explosions of gang activity” could be a factor for future consideration, too.
The goal, he said, is to use the data and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to further identify neighborhoods instead of limiting resources to wider geographic areas.
Brown said he understood his council colleagues’ concerns, but also wants to see city resources used in the priority areas rather than simply spread everywhere.
He also wants to see a review of the nonprofits the city supports in its anti-crime initiative. The goal, he said, would be to understand what groups are leveraging public dollars to expand their work and which are merely being sustained.
Curry said after the news conference he has heard the concerns of council members and will continue to work on the data-driven Journey model to help the city’s crime issue.
“We’re working every day,” he said.
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