A Republican member of the Jacksonville City Council wants answers on Mayor Donna Deegan’s trade mission to London, which included a visit to Italy on what her office called a “pre-planned vacation.”
“It’s time to throw open the blinds and let the sunshine in,” Terrance Freeman posted on X.
Freeman suggests that Deegan was “skipping out on official business,” which “raises serious questions” about the use of public funds on the now-annual international trip to recruit businesses while the Jaguars play games in the British capital.
The Councilman wants answers about costs to taxpayers, including “airfare, lodging, and meals,” about how many staff members and “accompanying guests” were on the trip, what other locations they went to, and whether “donation, reimbursement, and travel policies” were violated between Oct. 12 and Oct. 21.
Florida Politics can report that Mayor Donna Deegan stayed in Europe earlier this month after leaving London, where the city was on its vital yearly trade mission to London as the Jaguars played a couple of games in the city.
The first-term Democrat elected in 2023 had what spokesperson Philip Perry called a “pre-planned vacation to Italy” that occasioned a reshuffling of the schedule to shift priority events to facilitate the Italy trip.
JAXUSA, the offshoot of former mayoral candidate Daniel Davis’ Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce that handled a lot of logistics for the trip, was “aware of this and arranged the most important meetings and events on the days she was always scheduled to be in London, Oct. 12 to Oct. 15.”
Deegan found time in London to make news for other reasons, including a controversial interview with the London Times Radio where she told a foreign audience that she thought Donald Trump would set up “concentration camps” for illegal immigrants.
Freeman called that interview “inflammatory political statements” that distracted from city business.
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Publish date : 2024-10-28 16:49:00
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