Council questions Deegan's proposed $150 million for community benefits in stadium deal

The early reaction from City Council members to a proposed stadium deal brought questions from several council members and outright opposition by council member Rory Diamond to the city committing $150 million for a "community benefits agreement" that Mayor Donna Deegan touts as a key accomplishment from her negotiations with the Jaguars.

The community benefits agreement assembled by Deegan and the Jaguars would use $150 million from the team and $150 million from the city to pay for developing and enhancing city parks, revitalizing the Eastside neighborhood and doing countywide programs for affordable housing, workforce development and reducing homelessness.

It would be the biggest community benefits agreement ever done by a franchise in the history of the NFL.

City Council members say they also want to get more information about Deegan's proposal for how to pay for the city's share of the stadium renovation.

"I will study it all, including the mayor's suggested financing mechanism," City Council Finance Committee Chairman Nick Howland said in a statement posted on X. "If taxpayers are the quarterback, I'll be the left tackle. I won't let them be blindsided."

City Council President Ron Salem said overall, he thinks the proposed agreement creates a framework that council can work with to get an agreement with the Jaguars.

The heart of the proposal put forward by Deegan and the Jaguars is $1.4 billion for renovating the city-owned football stadium. The city's share of the cost would be $775 million, or 55% of the expense.

"I think it's about what I expected," Salem said after hearing Deegan and the Jaguars present highlights of the proposed deal on Tuesday. "I think the percentage of the city's contribution was maybe even a little bit lower than what I expected, frankly, and I love the idea of the Jaguars (being responsible) for cost overruns. That's a big deal."

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Salem said he plans to set aside time for a series of City Council meetings to examine the details of the proposal with an eye toward council voting June 25.

"Number one, we're going to get every question answered," Salem said. "If we can vote at the end of June on this, I would love to see that occur, but not at the expense of people still uncomfortable with the deal."

The community benefits agreement, which is a side agreement to stadium renovations, quickly emerged as one of the places where council members will have questions.

The Jaguars would make a $150 million commitment and in a twist from such agreements done elsewhere, the city would make its own financial commitment for the community benefits agreement in a $150 million amount, bringing the total amount to $300 million.

Diamond called it a non-starter for the city to pay anything in the community benefits agreement.

"Donna Deegan is great at a press conference but terrible at negotiating against the Jaguars because this deal is exactly the same as it was last year, except now we have a new $150 million of spending that has nothing to do with the stadium," Diamond said. "It's absolutely ridiculous. The council is going to have to take that out."

City Council member Jimmy Peluso praised the community benefits agreement,.

"Let's be honest," he said. "The community development agreement has a lot to do with parks. These are public parks. A lot of them are going to be marquee parks that are going to be a place where everyone is going to be going. It's going to be on TV when people see the city of Jacksonville."

He said workforce development likewise "will touch every part of the city" and "not just one group of people."

Jaguars President Mark Lamping said that during negotiations, the team proposed $100 million and the city responded by saying, "We'd like you to make it bigger and we want to invest along with you."

Lamping said the city's commitment of $150 million covers many of the same areas Jaguars would focus on such as neighborhood revitalization, workforce development, affordable housing and homelessness. He said the clincher for the Jaguars is the city would use part of its $150 million to develop and improve the chain of riverfront parks for Riverfront Plaza, Shipyards West Park and Metropolitan Park.

"That commitment to do the park system downtown was a very important part of our decision to raise our community benefits agreement from $100 million to $150 million," he told council.

How would $300 million be used in community benefits agreement?

The Jaguars commitment of $150 million would be paid at a rate of $5 million per year over the course of the 30-year term of the lease to use the stadium. Half of the Jaguars money would be for countywide programs for workforce development, affordable housing and programs to reduce homelessness. The other half would go to those same programs focused on the economically-distressed Eastside neighborhood that borders the sports complex.

The city's $150 million, which would be paid out over about five years, would direct $50 million toward countywide programs for workforce development, affordable housing and homelessness and another $30 million for those programs in the Eastside neighborhood.

The city would earmark $10.04 million for Riverfront Plaza, the park being built on the former site of the Jacksonville Landing, and $24.7 million for Shipyards West Park on a tract of vacant riverfront land. The city would apply $12.5 million for enhancement of Metropolitan Park. All those parks are along the downtown riverfront and would be connected by a future extension of the riverwalk.

The city also would spend $14 million for countywide improvements to parks and recreation activities.

Rounding out the city's share would be $8.76 million to convert the flex field, which is part of the complex that includes the Daily's Place amphitheater, into an exhibit hall for events. The flex field originally was built as an indoor practice facility for the Jaguars but that's been replaced by the nearby Miller Electric Center.

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Salem and Howland said the city's annual budget process could be a better way to decide whether the programs in the community benefit agreement warrant city support.

"I'm concerned that it's additional spending on top of historic spending," Howland said.

Salem said he expects if the city didn't contribute anything to the community benefits agreement, the Jaguars would revert to making a $100 million commitment for the agreement.

Council wants analysis of Mayor Deegan's financing approach

Deegan's proposal for financing the city's share of the stadium renovation costs also will undergo review by City Council. The city currently is on track to end the Better Jacksonville Plan's half-cent sales tax at the end of 2026, at which time a separate half-cent sales tax for accelerating paydown of the city's massive pension debt would kick in.

Deegan proposes to keep the Better Jacksonville Plan until its legally authorized end date at the end of 2030 and use the revenue collected from those four years to pay cash for about $600 million of Better Jacksonville Plan projects and similar projects rather than borrowing money to do them. That would create borrowing capacity for the city to finance its portion of the stadium renovation costs.

Diamond said the city should stick with ending the Better Jacksonville Plan early so it can start pumping sales tax money into the pension funds.

"We went to voters a couple of years ago and said let's extend this (sales) tax so we can take care of our police officers and our firefighters in their retirements, and now they want to put that off for four years," he said. "That is both dangerous and dishonest. We can't do that."

Mike Weinstein, the lead negotiator for the stadium deal, said when voters approved the half-cent sales tax for pensions in 2016, they were told the tax would start after the Better Jacksonville Plan ended in 2030. He said the proposed financing plan for the stadium still will enable the city to use the sale tax after 2030 to fulfill its pension obligations as promised to voters.

Salem and Howland said they want to see a breakdown of how much it will cost the city to fully fund the pension obligations if the accelerated payments from the sales tax start in 2031 rather than in 2027. The more money the pension funds have to invest, the faster they can build up the assets that will foot the bill for checks to retirees.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville City Council gives early reaction to Jaguars stadium deal