Not many folks know about the origins of the Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. Very briefly, in June, 1974, the Chamber of Commerce under the leadership of Fred Schultz, sponsored what became known as the Amelia Island Conference to establish goals and priorities for the City. of Jacksonville. The almost 100 delegates to the Amelia Island Conference were a diverse group of business and professional men and women, citizen activists and public office holders, representatives from organized labor and minorities. They spent three productive days establishing and prioritizing goals, which don't look too different from goals one might prioritize twenty-five years later. They included:

• downtown development
• educational excellence
• affordable housing open to all citizens
• comprehensive land use planning to emphasize environmental concerns
• adequate transportation including mass transit
• adequate utilities: water, sewers, electric power
• good jobs
• additional revenue to serve human needs
• improved race relations
• cultural enrichment

The conference also voted unanimously to recommend the formation of a representative citizens group to provide a continuing forum to dialogue on matters of public interest.

That group became the Jacksonville Council on Citizen Involvement, or JCCI, on December 10, 1974 under the leadership of James Jacqueline (J. J., or Jack) Daniel, probably the foremost community leader in Jacksonville’s recent history. In the beginning, JCCI had four basic goals:

• increase citizen participation in community affairs;
• strengthen and improve community institutions to better serve the community;
• develop basic comprehensive information about the community to forecast emerging trends and problems; and
• improve the quality of life and serve as a catalyst bringing together citizens, institutions and information to make community decisions.

JCCI’s history can be divided roughly into three parts. The first four years under the executive directorship of David Peebles and Dick Bowers, the next fifteen years under the leadership of Marian Chambers and the past six years with its current executive director, Lois Chepenik. The names of the executive directors are important because they have been the people who provided the continuity while citizen boards and officers rotated on and off as they established policies and priorities. While there have been outstanding board members and officers, none in their limited time of four years on the board or one year in the presidency had the impact of a Marian Chambers during her fifteen years as executive director.

The first years were getting JCCI started.. Under Peebles in the first year, thirteen community analysis teams followed up on study recommendations from a prior Commission on Goals and Priorities for Human Services. The Commission had just published a 13 volume, 1500 page report examining and making recommendations on just about every community need in the city. The new JCCI also sought to promote public dialogue with two public forums and two mini conferences. Meanwhile, staff provided technical support to 25 community organizations. On paper, it sounded like a busy year.

Dave Peebles left Jacksonville the following year and JCCI’s board appointed Dick Bowers as executive director. Bowers and the board introduced the year-long study concept, helped give birth in 1976 to Leadership Jacksonville in cooperation with the Junior League and Chamber of Commerce, and changed the name in 1978 to Jacksonville Community Council, Inc.

An early study of local government finance led to putting the city’s pension fund on a sounder financial footing. Another of housing led to the passage of a fair housing ordinance by city council.

A third of public education led to providing kindergartens and securing accreditation for all Duval County schools. A fourth of public authorities resulted in replacing the Jacksonville Area Planning Board with a city planning department under Mayor Jake Godbold.

There were also limitations. A study found that the desegregation plan for Duval County schools had not met its goals, but little was done about it. Recommendations for local control of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and the Jacksonville Port Authority went nowhere due to opposition on the state level. Proposals to add human sexuality education to the public school curriculum took twenty years to implement..

What clearly stood out from the beginning was the reality that not all study recommendations would bear fruit. Only when the targeted agency–city hall, school board or Duval legislative delegation–supported them could one expect change. After Bowers left JCCI in 1979, the board made a major policy shift to provide for implementation of study recommendations in the hope of achieving greater success.

Another limitation of this early JCCI was its ceiling of 200 members. These members were diverse in background. There were conscious efforts to recruit minorities, navy personnel and union members. Yet not everyone could join. The initial founders did not see the value of opening JCCI to all area residents. During the 1980s the board changed this policy and began recruiting all interested persons.

Dick Bowers left JCCI in February, 1979, and the board appointed the associate executive director, Marian Chambers, to replace him. That appointment may have been the best decision by JCCI in its 25 years. Marian was a remarkable individual, a person of extraordinary integrity, intelligence and independent thinking. In her fifteen years as executive director, Marian helped to shape JCCI largely to the organization of today.

• During this time, the board institutionalized the two-study system, one for human services and the other for community improvement with follow-up implementation of the study recommendations so that JCCI was not just a citizens think tank, but an advocate for the quality of life in Jacksonville as well.
• The board fostered the development of the Human Services Council, the result of a JCCI study, creating a coalition of service providers that initially included the United Way, city, and what is now the state department of Children and Family Services. During Marian’s tenure, the Council published periodic FOCUS reports prioritizing human service needs. The Council also expanded over time to include additional partners working together to coordinate human services.
• In 1984, JCCI initiated the Quality of Life Indicators providing Jacksonville over the years with a time line of major criteria affecting the city’s quality of life. The Indicators have brought JCCI substantial national and international recognition. In 1991, Marian established Targets 2000 enabling JCCI to set goals for what the community’s quality of life should be by the end of the century. They are due for review shortly.
• Marian helped to expand JCCI’s role in undertaking independently financed studies such as the path breaking and award-winning HIV-AIDS study in 1988, funded by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. It was followed by the creation of the AIDS Action Task Force.
• Also in 1988, Marian introduced a conflict resolution role for JCCI with its sponsorship of the first Locally Unwanted Land Use Conference (LULU’s).
• Further, Marian recruited outstanding support staff noted for their independence, integrity and capability of producing excellent work, standards that continues to this day.

But most of all, during her fifteen years, Marian helped to make JCCI an institution in this city respected for the quality of its work unmarred by partisanship in any form. Conservatives and liberals alike served on study committees and boards, and reached consensus on study conclusions and recommendations. One indicator of the respect JCCI developed during these years could be seen in the leading citizens from all walks of life who chaired studies, served on committees and became board directors.

But as outstanding as Marian was, JCCI’s influence remained limited to achieving goals that others could be persuaded to accept. For example, in the dropout prevention study, JCCI’s implementation team achieved the creation of the Communities in Schools program because

the School Superintendent Herb Sang liked the idea. More difficult was the sign ordinance. It was first passed with restrictive amendments, then undercut by state legislation, and finally passed by a charter referendum. Still many existing signs remained grandfathered into the original legislation so that the average citizen today has trouble seeing the results.

Less successful were studies of mass transit and Growth Management published in 1983 and 1984, respectively. To his credit, Mayor Jake Godbold appointed a citizens committee which reviewed and supported the growth management recommendations. But not much else happened with the result that JCCI will again study the issue this coming year.

Marian’s LULU conference also did not produce the intended results. Mayor Tommy Hazouri supported its inception and successfully resolved the Blodgett Homes site controversy using conflict resolution methods, but the process did not become a major part of his or succeeding city administrations.

These limitations aside, what stood out about JCCI in 1994 when Marian resigned was its stature as a citizens think tank and advocate in Jacksonville. It was not as widely known as it would like to be in many neighborhoods of the city. Still community activists from Myrtle Avenue to Mandarin, and from Avondale to Arlington and the beaches knew that JCCI was committed to improving the quality of life for everyone in Jacksonville. And these community activists made JCCI work serving as study participants, resource experts and board members.

Marian Chambers’ resignation as executive director in 1994 challenged the board to find a replacement. She clearly was a hard act to follow, but to its credit the board chose a person who has created a quality act of her own. Clearly one cannot compare Lois Chepenik’s six years as executive director with the fifteen years of her predecessor. Yet Lois with her own creative intelligence, good humor, organizational skills and ability to put listeners at ease has helped propel JCCI to new levels of achievement and commitment.

• Beginning in 1995, JCCI expanded its conflict resolution efforts with a series of training programs for several hundred area residents under the tutelage of Bob and Alice Evans from the Plowshares Institute in Simsbury, Ct. These programs led to one very successful intervention with the Duval County School Board which was then being sued by Planned Parenthood of Northeast Florida for its inadequate sex education curriculum. JCCI facilitation enabled a citizens group to propose and have accepted by the Board a comprehensive health education program which included human sexuality. Several other interventions followed, though this year the board voted to discontinue the program for lack of a secure source of funding.
• In 1996, in partnership with the United Way , JCCI created a community agenda with indicators for health and human services which has enabled that funding agency to link resources to programs effectively serving community needs.
• In 1997, JCCI introduced the Five O’Clock Forum to foster public dialogue on current issues, re-instituting an original program of the early JCCI.
• In 1998, JCCI responded to a Pew Partnership initiative examining 19 outstanding civic programs in cities across the country with the possibility of replicating JCCI’s model of citizen participation elsewhere in the United States or abroad.
• In 1999, JCCI established JCCI Forward involving a new, younger generation of active Jacksonville citizens in a conference at World Golf Village.
• Currently, JCCI is re-working its 15-year old Quality of Life Indicators to upgrade, develop linkages, and add new data for neighborhoods as well as regions. Clearly JCCI has continued to develop program under Lois’ leadership. It also has continued its major studies with positive results, particularly with regard to the Jacksonville Port Authority and the re-conversion of Cecil Field.

Still the question must always be asked: to what extent has JCCI made a difference in the community? Are there any measurements or like indicators to show its impact?

On one level, there are the hundreds if not thousands of citizens who have participated in studies over the years enriching their own lives, adding to our knowledge about the Jacksonville community and fostering change in government and private sector programs.

There is the legislation that has been passed by city council responding to JCCI initiatives in support of open housing, term limits, sign ordinances, zoning code changes, civil service reform, planning departments, and more.

There have been the coordination efforts by the eleven partners in the Human Services Council and by the Elder Adult Services Council, also created as a result of a JCCI study.

There are the new programs serving hundreds if not thousands of children over the years through The Bridge, Communities in Schools, neighborhood health clinics and in-school, after school programs.

And there has been the community awareness created by studies of issues affecting Young Black Males, teenage single parents, children with special needs, adult literacy and affordable housing.

Because of its achievements, JCCI ranks today among the premier institutions in the city. It partners with United Way, Chamber of Commerce, Children’s Commission, state agencies and private nonprofits in many ways. It influences public policy and private funding of human services. Community leaders not only serve and chair JCCI boards and committees, they listen to its recommendations. The media reports its actions. This leadership role puts tremendous responsibility upon JCCI to continue making a difference toward enabling Jacksonville to become a greater city.

Toward that end, what about the future? Clearly JCCI needs to find ways to successfully address the "big issues" in which it has been less successful in the past. The forthcoming Growth Management Study will be a good opportunity. So will implementation of the study in regional cooperation.

Further, JCCI Forward, providing opportunities for the community leaders of tomorrow, must establish its role. One need only remember that it took the original JCCI several years in the beginning to get its feet on the ground to recognize that JCCI Forward needs time to do the same.

Another direction might be to evaluate the results of past study recommendations and examine the record of prior implementations. There already are plans to review the Quality of Life Indicators’ Targets 2000. In the process JCCI might ask why certain indicators have fallen short of their goals? JCCI Forward could play a significant role in this process.

Finally, study committees might prioritize their recommendations for the benefit of the community and provide guidelines to implementation teams.

Regardless of the choices made for JCCI’s future, to fulfill its role as a community leader, JCCI must continually ask how can it make a difference in enhancing the quality of life in this city.

JCCI has a terrific history. Now it is up to its members and other civic minded citizens to continue JCCI’s role as a significant player, partner and leader on the Jacksonville scene. It must work toward Jacksonville becoming a great city, one that provides quality education, affordable housing, a vital downtown, health care for young and old, safe streets, good jobs, an enhanced natural environment, a rich cultural environment, improved race relations and equal opportunities for all of its citizens, as the Amelia Island Conference proposed 25 years ago. Jacksonville has not yet achieved that goal of a great American city. JCCI has the opportunity to play a major role toward achieving that end.

***

Dr. James B. Crooks is professor of history at the University of North Florida, author of a book and articles in Jacksonville history, and a former board member of JCCI

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