Latest / The Jacksonville Jaguars Official Podcast Network / Press Pass | Mayor Donna Deegan, Jaguars President Mark Lamping React to Approved Stadium Deal, Discuss Next Steps

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Press Pass | Mayor Donna Deegan, Jaguars President Mark Lamping React to Approved Stadium Deal, Discuss Next Steps · The Jacksonville Jaguars Official Podcast Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Mayor, how are you feeling.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: I feel pretty darn proud and excited. This is a
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: historic day for our city. And I'm just as I
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: said to the council, this is what we can do
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: when we all rowe together and we focus on a
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: goal together. I mean, look at how fast we pushed
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: that through. This was a very a long term and
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: very intentional effort between our administration and the Jaguars. We
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: had a lot of things buttoned up. Counsel did a
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: great job of evaluating it and offering their input and amendments,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: and we're there. And I just think, you know, as
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I've said so many times, Jake, you let things go
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: too long, and you can they can fall apart, right
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: They didn't let that happen.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: And I'm very grateful. You feel like it's like a
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: reset with counsel.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's your narrative. I have never felt like
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: I needed a reset with counsel. I have felt like
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I have worked well with this council from the time
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: that I came in the door.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Here.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: We are not always going to agree. That's what ends
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: up making for good governance. At the end of the day,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: you end up with some things.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: You want and some things you don't necessarily want, but
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: it's probably a better thing.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: So so I'm grateful to this body, and I think
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: they did a good job.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: What's the one word you used to describe this day
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: for this moment, monumental? Monumental? I think it's generational progress?
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: Is there a lot of personal pride being a Jags fan,
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: growing up a jagspan to be the one who helps
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: push it through?
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I'm still pension myself that I get to do this job.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: You know, It's it's why, you know, when when we
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: first started to talk, we were both so focused on
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: making sure that we did this as well as fairly
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: and as quickly as we could possibly do it, because
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: we knew how important it was.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: We had a timeline.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And and we wanted the Jaguars to be able to
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: get to that owner's meeting in October and be able
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: to present a good agreement and and and I'm just gosh,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited as a Jaguars fan, as a Jacksonville fan,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I'm just thrilled.
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: You're about a year in, Uh, you know, you're about
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: a year in now, do you feel like this is
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: your almost like you're legacy this early on steel.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: You guys have been saying that since I got elected
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: that this was going to be the legacy thing, and
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I will no doubt say it is a generational accomplishment.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: I hope we have many more legacy items to attend to,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: and I think that Community Benefits agreement is one of them,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: and I hope we have a lot more of that.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: As I said when I when I was elected, my
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: goal is to lift every portion of this city, and
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I think that we can do that with this agreement.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I think we'll I think the stadium is a big
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: piece of that, but I think we can do it
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: by completing the rest of that CBA. So that and
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: and I hope we have much more to accomplish.
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: Last week I walked through some bols of Otte East
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: and saw some pretty terrible conditions for some of the
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: people who live out there. I don't know what was
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: promised to them in the past. They said things were promised,
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: But are those people who live in those conditions going
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: to get a portion of that money?
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Absolutely they are.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Well, you've heard You've heard Mark Lamping say they're going
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: to get seventy five million dollars from the Jaguars. You
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: you look at what this is proposing, and I think
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the reason that our portion is so powerful is ours
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: comes up front and that theirs follows through and sustains
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: that effort. And I thought one of the public speakers
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: tonight made a really good point that when we consolidated
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: this city, it was it was the investment from the
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: other parts of the city that have now been disinvested in.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: That created this city the way it is today.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And it's time to invest in those areas and to
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: pay that back.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Mayor. I know that this was just one layer, So
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: what's next? What do you mean, what's next? I know,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: like this was the approval, so I know will what
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: will be next in general?
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Well, well, hopefully as soon as council gets back from
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: their break on the seventeenth, we'd like to start looking
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: at the rest of the CBA. I would like that
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: to be passed separate from the budget as part of
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: this agreement. That's how we get matching funds, that's how
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: we move together to make sure that this is honored
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: for the entirety of the contract.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: And that's what I'm going to be working with counsel
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: on now. Could that number fluctuate.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Well, sure, council has a lot of control over the
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: dollar amount, but my hope is that we can pass
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: the entire three hundred million.
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: One hundred nineteen million as part of the CBA for
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: the Jaguars and then seventy five for the East side.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: Is that correct?
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's in the legislation right now is just over
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: one hundred and eighteen million dollars. And while the dollars
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: are specified, our original commitment, which we are going to
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: stand by and advocate very hard for, is that seventy
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: five million to that one eighteen goes to benefit the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: out East neighborhood. And that's that's is the exact same
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: amount that was in the total CBA package. As far
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: as the Jaguars are concerned, Mark.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: I think we started looking at this whole stadium thing
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: deal back in twenty sixteen, right, So is it almost
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: hard to.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: Believe how far you've come and how long it's been
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: and now that it's finally done. Well, it is.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And the reason we started on it so early is
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that we studied those cities that had problems with their teams,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and unfortunately there have been cities that have lost their
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: NFL teams, and they generally all have the same thing
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: in common. It's a smaller market, the team doesn't have
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: at least tying them to the city, and they have
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: an unresolved stadium problem. And SHOT's commitment from the very
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: beginning was to do everything that we could to ensure
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: that doesn't happen to Jacksonville. We started early on. We've
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: been spending a tremendous amount of time and resources, particularly
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: over the last four years, and you know, we're thrilled that,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you know, we could turn that goal. It was a
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: goal that Shod had and that the community shared to
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: keep the Jaguars here in Northeast Florida for generations to come.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: This evening, we've we've turned that goal into a reality
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: thanks to the mayor and her team. So the next
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: step is obviously take it to the owners in October, anticipating.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: That going smoothly, or are there any.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Issues that the league wants to Well, there's you know,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of questions and generally the league really
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: can't take these things up in their entirety until there's
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: no contingencies. So we leave here tonight now with no
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: contingencies as it related to the stadium deal. We've obviously
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: been keeping the league up to day throughout this entire process,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of questions, but we're satisfied that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: we will be able to effectively answer those questions and
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: look forward to getting this finalized in mid October.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: I want to clarify one hundred and fifty million dollars
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: that you guys were going to match for the CBA.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: Is that no longer going to be one hundred and
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: fifty million as it's currently run into this deals one
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: hundred nineteen.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Now, what we did when the city had to pause
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: on their one hundred and fifty million dollar commitment, what
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: we said was we will honor our original one hundred
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: million dollars and then we will match one dollar for
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: every three dollars that the city funds from zero to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: one fifty. Okay, they've put in fifty six. One third
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: of that is eighteen million, So that's how we've gotten
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: up to one hundred eighteen million, and we hope that
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: the city gets to the full one fifty, which would
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: mean that we would go from one eighteen up to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: one fifty.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: And that would come when that discussion on the rest
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: of the dollars come in July.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a real incentive for the city to
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: fund the entire community Benefits agreement, which you know, make
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: no secret about it, we wish they would have been
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: packaged together in their entirety. It became apparent that it
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: wasn't gonna happen, and now we're going to advocate as
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: hard as we can, along with the mayor, to make
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: sure that we get back to that full three hundred million.
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: Can the Jaguars grow to be as successful as they
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: want to be without the East Side growing to its
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: full potential? Do they need to coexist to reach both
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: of their full potentials.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Well, we've said many times, even going back to twenty
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: sixteen on the first State of the Franchise address when
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: we first brought up the stadium issues, that we've always
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: felt and one of the reasons we're so focused on
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: development downtown is that we've believed that as far as
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: downtown goes, so will the Jaguars. So this isn't just
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: total benevolence. We know that there's more people living downtown,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: more people working down to more people visiting. The Jaguars
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: will benefit from that, as will the rest of the community,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and clearly then that is just north of the stadium
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: is a critical part of that