8. The City of Jacksonville should establish a fund to match the incentive money to be paid to successful teachers working in low-performing public schools through the privately-funded program called Creating Opportunities that Result in Excellence.
13. The Jacksonville Human Rights Commission should continue to strengthen relationships with its partners, such as the Jacksonville office of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Jacksonville Legal Aid, Inc., in their efforts to provide fair housing enforcement.
9. The Jacksonville Economic Development Commission should strengthen its policies that require businesses receiving incentives to meet targets for racially diverse participation by:
14. The Northeast Florida Board of Realtors should aggressively partner with the Jacksonville Housing Partnership and the Jacksonville Urban League to ensure that all Jacksonville residents have the widest range of possible housing choices available to them by:
z
z
adding a penalty clause to ensure that companies comply with racial diversity goals and nondiscriminatory practices or provide substantive evidence of a good faith effort; and reporting on the progress of participating businesses towards meeting racial diversity goals in their contracting or employment.
10. The Jacksonville Economic Development Commission, in cooperation with major lending institutions, should take the lead to remove obstacles to economic development in minority communities by: z z
z
identifying the degree to which racial discrimination is a barrier in lending practices to minority companies; creating a micro-loan fund to assist new and undercapitalized businesses that do not qualify for conventional financing; and encouraging practices to improve access to capital for economic development in racial minority areas.
11. All public contracting entities, including the City of Jacksonville, Duval County Public Schools, and the public authorities, should revise their minority business contracting programs, based on principles of flexibility and fairness, to include: z
z
z
monitoring closely the structure and operation of disadvantaged business participation in contracts to eliminate "pass-through" contracts that do not substantially advance disadvantaged businesses; establishing mentoring programs, independent of procurement programs, between established businesses and disadvantaged businesses, to enhance the latter's chances of success; and encouraging the development and expansion of apprenticeship programs that will develop and strengthen minority businesses. The study committee considered but did not reach consensus on additional steps to modify the City of Jacksonville's minority business contracting policies.
12. The Jacksonville Housing Authority should locate Public Housing and other types of affordable housing in non-minority areas in numbers of units beyond those required by the Justice Department consent decree.
z
z
z
15. The Duval County Health Department should work with area health-care associations and institutions to ensure that they educate their members on current racial disparities in health-care outcomes and treatment and to train medical professionals in best practices to improve health-care delivery for all people. 16. Communities in Charge Jacksonville, a community coalition organized to generate solutions to the problem of the medically uninsured, should continue its leadership role in convening public and private health institutions to ensure adequate medical care for all and to decrease the disproportionate racial gap in medical coverage. 17. The Florida Medical, Pharmaceutical, and Dental Association, Northeast Florida Medical Society, Duval County Medical Society, Duval County Health Department, United Way of Northeast Florida, and American Cancer Society should work together and with area health-care institutions to offer an annual health summit to provide comprehensive health screenings and education targeted to the black community. 18. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, State Attorney's Office, Clerk of the Courts, and Public Defender's Office should continue actively to recruit black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American employees to deploy a criminal-justice workforce that reflects the diversity of the community. Creative efforts should be used to identify and attract these recruits. Each organization should report annually its progress toward achieving racial diversity. 19. The Chief Judge of the Fourth Judicial Circuit should require that: z
z
26
Beyond the Talk: Improving Race Relations Study
tracking and reporting home sales by race and location to determine if prospective buyers are being steered to certain neighborhoods based on their race; encouraging increased communication among real estate agents to ensure that race is not a factor in which homes are shown to particular clients; and working with neighborhood associations and CPACs to reduce prejudice and fear of housing integration.
all adult and juvenile diversion programs in the criminal or juvenile justice systems track and report participation and outcomes by race; and the Clerk of the Court track disposition of all cases by race.