Remember these? Jacksonville's top (some weird) news stories for … – The Florida Times-Union
Indictments and exonerations made headlines in Jacksonville this year, along with implosions and ugliness, reversals of fortune and achievements that were years in the making.
You’ve probably forgotten some of the news from politics and courts, sports and health care, nature, development and the rest of the stream of pursuits that shape life in Northeast Florida.
But remembering can be fun. So as the days run out in 2022, here’s a recap of some of the moments that gave flavor and texture to life across Jacksonville.
Once among the highest-paid figures in Jacksonville’s government, former JEA CEO Aaron Zahn and his chief financial officer were indicted for what prosecutors said was scheming to pilfer millions more.
Zahn and ex-CFO Ryan Wannemacher were charged with conspiracy and wire fraud in March after a two-year federal investigation that followed the spectacular implosion of a campaign to put the city-owned power and water utility up for sale.
Jacksonville’s top stories from 2021: A year of gains, losses and struggle
The two were accused of working to create a performance incentive program that could have paid JEA executives hundreds of millions of dollars — at public expense — if the sale had gone through.
The indictment said other unnamed JEA officials helped craft bleak financial scenarios and that Zahn and Wannemacher worked “to falsely and fraudulently project that JEA was in a ‘death spiral’” so the utility’s governing board would support selling out.
The accused men have insisted they’re innocent and their lawyers have vigorously pushed back on the charges. Zahn’s attorney asked a judge last month to move the trial to Tampa, citing reasons including “scathing and widespread pretrial publicity” and the personal stake JEA customers will feel deciding Zahn’s fate.
For now the trial is still scheduled for Jacksonville with the potential for sentences up to 25 years behind bars.
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Dozens of political candidates were left recalculating 2023 campaign plans after a federal judge ruled boundaries for half of Jacksonville’s City Council districts had to change to correct racial gerrymandering.
“Here, the racial gerrymandering at issue dates back 30 years,” U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales wrote this month in an order changing boundaries for the seven districts north and west of the St. Johns River.
The NAACP’s Jacksonville branch led a lineup of civil rights groups and Duval County residents who sued the city in May over council decisions in an every-10-years redistricting process meant to account for neighborhoods’ population changes.
The plaintiffs argued the results had illegally packed excessive numbers of Black voters into just four of the council’s 14 districts (the 19-member council includes five at-large seats) that had odd shapes and sometimes stretched many miles. Doing that, they said, minimized Black political power in the rest of city government and violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
A year in headlines: 2020’s top stories from Jacksonville had pain, hope and triumph
Howard told the city in October to draft new lines to use in next spring’s city elections, but this month said problems with the original redistricting “remain firmly embedded” in a remedial plan the council approved in November.
Because elections officials said they needed final boundaries by mid-December to get ready for the campaigning, Howard chose one of three alternatives the plaintiffs had offered instead.
Unless an appeals court overturns Howard’s order, the new boundaries will be used in the 2023 voting and the court case will continue to decide what boundaries should be used until the next redistricting in the 2030s.
Duval County voters chose a new sheriff in November, earlier than anyone expected, after learning Jacksonville’s last sheriff had quietly left town.
Mike Williams announced his retirement from the Sheriff’s Office in June after facing a wave of criticism for moving to Nassau County the year before. Jacksonville’s city charter requires the sheriff to live in Duval County.
Williams pointed out that state law hasn’t required sheriffs to live in their counties since 2010. But before the retirement announcement, city General Counsel Jason Teal had drafted a legal opinion that said the city charter takes precedence and that the sheriff’s job should be considered vacant.
Williams was already scheduled to leave office next year, so five candidates hurried their 2023 campaigns into a special election that ended in a November runoff win by T.K. Waters, a 31-year law enforcement veteran who had been chief of investigations under Williams.
The win only secured the sheriff’s job until June 30, so Waters will be on the ballot again in the springtime.
After almost 15 years, a landmark eyesore on Jacksonville’s downtown skyline vanished in seconds when skeletal remains of the never-finished Berkman Plaza II condo tower were imploded in March.
The 18-story building had loomed unkempt over the Northbank waterfront since the parking garage being built beside it collapsed in December 2007, killing construction worker Willie Edwards III and injuring 23 others. In January, Mayor Lenny Curry got the council to approve $1.2 million in emergency funding to demolish the building, which engineers had deemed unstable.
A development company, PB Jacksonville Riverfront Revitalization, last year bought the 2-acre building site along Bay Street for $5.5 million and has discussed a few potential uses for the land.
Another long-discussed change to downtown happened in March when the former Navy destroyer USS Orleck arrived on the Northbank to try to attract visitors as a museum ship.
Navy history enthusiasts in Jacksonville had tried to corral a suitable ship since the 1990s, with interest in the Orleck growing after bids to preserve the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga and destroyer USS Adams failed.
The 1945-vintage Orleck, which saw combat during the Korean and Vietnam wars followed by a second career in the Turkish navy, had already been displayed by groups in Texas and Louisiana before the Jacksonville Naval Historic Ship Association acquired it in January to teach visitors about the science of warships and the U.S. role in Vietnam in the 1960s and ‘70s.
It’s open for tours Wednesday through Sunday at its current location off Coastline Drive, but another move is expected to happen in 2023. This month the City Council approved legislation for work to start on a permanent mooring site a few blocks east in the old Shipyards property.
After years of legal wrangling, former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown pleaded guilty in May to lying on her taxes, then ran for a 13th term in Congress in a district more than 100 miles from her home in Jacksonville.
Brown, a legendary figure in local Democratic circles, took a plea deal that ended a prosecution dating back to 2016 that had put her in prison until an appeals court overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial.
The same judge who handled the original case sentenced Brown to time she had already served after she pleaded guilty to a single charge of interfering with the administration of internal revenue laws. In return, the government dropped 17 other counts, most involving fraud, that she would have faced if the new trial had happened.
Without prison hanging over her head, the next month Brown declared herself a candidate for the 10th Congressional District seat in Orlando, an area that Brown noted she once represented when her old Jacksonville-based district stretched across the state through narrow, winding tentacles. Although she had been convicted of a federal felony, that’s not legally a barrier to running for Congress.
Despite running again, Brown couldn’t recover the winning formula that had kept her in office for 24 years.
In August the 75-year-old finished fourth in a 10-way race won by 25-year-old Maxwell Alejandro Frost, scheduled to be seated in January as the first Gen Z member of Congress.
Another sign, proclaiming “Put Monuments Back,” highlighted Jacksonville’s unfinished debate over memorials to the Confederacy when it trailed behind a plane circling TIAA Bank Field in November.
The message from the group Save Southern Heritage, which opposes removing memorials like the 19th-century Confederate soldier statue that the mayor had carted from James Weldon Johnson Park in 2020, echoed one side of a “community conversation” that City Council members voted in January to hold but didn’t follow through.
Others on the opposite side, critical of memorializing a rebel government that embraced Black slavery, have delivered their message at City Council meetings and events like the bicentennial celebration where people carried a banner reading “200 Years of Racism in Jax.”
“Remove Confederate monuments,” Northside Coalition of Jacksonville President Ben Frazier said as he was taken from the City Council chambers by police in December, charged with trespassing and resisting arrest.
Whether anyone is listening to other sides of the debate remains to be seen.
Jacksonville celebrated a bicentennial in June, although it was more an anniversary of an idea than a city.
The anniversary that brought thousands of people to downtown festivities marked (roughly) 200 years since the 1822 day when about 60 people living around a St. Johns River crossing called the Cowford asked officials overseeing the new American territory of Florida to apply a name honoring Andrew Jackson, who was briefly the military governor of Florida after Spain relinquished its possession.
Although the naming request was rejected and the town of Jacksonville wasn’t incorporated for another decade, city officials spent 2022 rejoicing in turning 200.
What a difference a year has made, finally.
After two years of amassing the worst seasons in the National Football League, the Jaguars headed to the end of this year chasing a spot in the playoffs.
“You gotta respect us, first,” safety Rayshawn Jenkins told reporters this month, after returning an interception for the game-winning touchdown that defeated the Dallas Cowboys at TIAA Bank Field.
Despite struggling through parts of this year, many analysts say the team is headed in the right direction under head coach Doug Pederson, whom the team hired in February.
Pederson’s aggressive play-calling and calm demeanor won praise as the team increased its win total and quarterback Trevor Lawrence delivered on his potential.
“The guys are starting to believe in themselves,” Pederson said.
Duval County voters decided to give teachers a raise, approving a property tax hike in August that reserved 65% of the revenue for boosting teacher salaries.
The hike, raising annual property tax bills by $1 for every $1,000 of taxable property value, was projected to raise $81.8 million per year, which backers said could fund bonuses averaging $5,000 per teacher, although details of pay are subject to negotiations between the school district and the teachers union. Duval County’s average base teacher salary ranked 40 out of 69 school systems statewide, a level advocates said didn’t encourage well-qualified instructors to stay in town.
Besides the money used for raises, 12.5 percent of the property tax revenue was committed to arts and athletics; 12.5 percent to charter schools; and 10 percent to school district staff.
Two years after former Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels was arrested and removed from office over the handling of an episode involving his former mistress, jurors acquitted him of charges that carried a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Daniels had been accused of destroying evidence and knowingly giving false information to deputies after he reported in 2019 that ex-girlfriend Cierra Smith had stalked him on Oakleaf Village Parkway. Smith, a Jacksonville corrections officer who had worked under Daniels before he became Clay’s sheriff, reported she had arranged to meet Daniels to return some CDs but he drove past her and she followed.
Although no one was charged in the original stalking report, the call spurred gossip in Clay County and calls to politicians until the Florida Department of Law Enforcement opened an investigation. Daniels was arrested in August 2020 and removed by Gov. Ron DeSantis the week before voting for a new term in office that was won instead by current Sheriff Michele Cook.
But two years later, when Daniels finally stood trial in September, a jury that heard three days of testimony needed less than three hours to find Daniels not guilty of any charges he’d faced.
The next day, Daniels issued a statement that said: “If this abuse of power by government entities can happen to a duly elected sheriff, then it can happen to anyone.”
Northeast Florida caught some breaks during hurricane season, but Tropical Storms Ian and Nicole reminded people twice, first in September and again in November, that nature’s reach still makes itself felt across the First Coast.
From Jacksonville’s Ken Knight Drive to Davis Shores on Anastasia Island, flooding harmed hundreds of homes and caused damage estimated in the tens of millions of dollars.
Storm surge eroded shorelines too, taking an estimated 1.2 million cubic yards of sand from Jacksonville’s Beaches alone and forcing emergency repairs to part of Florida A1A in St. Johns County washed out by Nicole.
Although almost trivial compared to harm inflicted in other parts of the state, including scores of deaths due to Ian in Southwest Florida, storm damage compounded challenges in neighborhoods that in some cases face flooding or storm impacts season after season.
But the damage happened alongside renewal, as work to undo harm from earlier storms unfolded as it has for years. In July the Jacksonville Beach Pier reopened after three years of rebuilding to fix damage caused by Hurricanes Matthew and Irma in 2016 and ’17.
