GET LUCKY

Can government protect us from our basest instincts?

It depends on whom you ask. In Jacksonville, there isn’t exactly philosophical consistency on the point.

Sometimes we embrace the enforcement state. And sometimes, the move is toward quasi-libertarianism, with politicians trumpeting free will.

Typically, that move happens when it benefits vested interests.

We’re seeing a quasi-libertarian momentnow,with a bill in City Council designed to push through a referendum to allow bestbet to put slot machines in its Regency location.

There is an economic case for it.

A study from The Innovation Group in New Orleans, which looks at these types of projects, is bullish.

The projection is that letting bestbet add the slots will create 1,500 direct jobs and 1,300 indirect jobs, adding 2,800 jobs to an area of town left in the lurch in recent decades. Revenue for the city and state is expected to be strong. Based on 1.5 percent of gross revenue, the city can anticipate $5.7 million a year in taxes. Additionally, the state can expect $128 million in taxes.

A win all around, right? And it’s people’s right to choose whether they go in there and play the slots, right?

Council will assert that it is.

They will say, “Hey, we’re just giving THE PEOPLE THE RIGHT TO SPEAK.”

They will, on this one bill, allow folks to grant themselves the right to bankrupt themselves on slot machines.

It’s free will. 

The question, in this case, is why bestbetis uniquely positioned to get this bill through.

Part of the reason is that bestbet has done a great job building relationships, with political contributions under its own name to more than half the council in the 2015 election cycle.

The Rules Committee chair and the Finance Committee chair both got paid. Four out of five at-large councilmembers likewise got donations.

The council president? Yes, it donated to him, too.

Now, this doesn’t mean the donation made their minds up on the bill. But what it means is that kind of established relationship will make someone listen a bit more closely.

People currently sitting on City Council are not inclined to say that. The mythology spun for public consumption is that there is no relationship between donations and bill consideration.

However, there are those former candidates who will say, off the record, how it works.

They will tell you of trips to bestbet to discuss financial support for their campaigns.

They will tell you that the company had plans all along to put slots in, as it is essential to the business model, especially with dog tracks fading away, now that popular sentiment has moved against all of the issues related to greyhound racing.

Will someone on Council ask questions about that during committees or in front of the full council?

Will a question along the lines of: “When did you guys want to put slot machines in?” be asked?

Will there be a larger discussion of the connections between relationships in this city and what legislation gets pushed through?

Probably not.

It’s in no one’s interest to say, for example, that it matters one way or another that Susie Wiles is representing bestbet. Wiles has been pivotal inside City Hall for a long time, formerly on the policy side and now on the influence side.

Wiles, managing partner of Ballard Partners’ Jacksonville office, is a pre-eminent lobbyist in the region. She is also co-chair of Yes For Jacksonville, the political action committee that’s marketing the pension tax referendum, and will be until the end of August.

And it’s in no one’s interest to say that one of the Curry Administration’s liaisons to Council, Ali Korman Shelton, is director of intergovernmental affairs.

In that role, asserts her COJ website bio, she “represent[s] the administration before the Jacksonville City Council, the state and federal elected officials and governmental agencies.”

It’s an important role.

She sits with Council at most meetings of the full body and of its committees, often making the administration’s case regarding projects, answering questions when asked.

In this particular case, she likely will not be answering those questions.

Her husband is bestbet’s president; her father, bestbet’s CEO.

The General Counsel’s office says there is no conflict to worry about. She isn’t voting on the bill, Council is.

And it’s not a bill the administration is pushing. A councilmember is, after all. All the mayor’s office can do is sign the bill or veto the bill.

No one reading this is going to expect Curry, who got political support from bestbet and affiliates, to do anything but sign the bill.

And those councilmembers who got donations from bestbet?

They won’t need to recuse themselves, either. Or even declare it.