Jacksonville inches forward, then takes two steps back
By Nate Monroe
Posted at 12:12 PM
... For the personal, partisan glory of our city’s mayor — a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida — and for the sake of a small number of people potentially making money, City Hall is opening Jacksonville up to enormous risk of disgrace, unpaid bills, illness and exposure to the divisive currents coursing through the nation. And it will, no matter what, erode the credibility of City Hall at a time when it needs its citizens to believe local government is responsive to major concerns about police practices and inequality.
Jacksonville’s key qualification appears to be the simple fact that it’s one of the only cities in the United States of any significant size foolish enough to actively campaign to host the event ...
The only reason the RNC is up for grabs now is because Charlotte, N.C. — the only city that actually submitted a bid to host the convention in the first place — is unwilling to commit to allowing the president the jam-packed arena he desires for his nomination speech because of social distancing measures designed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The RNC, according to a recent report from Axios, was looking for a city willing to “bend over backwards” to make an event that normally takes about two years of planning happen in about two months ...
... since Jacksonville does not have enough hotel capacity for an event with up to 50,000 people, some of the biggest beneficiaries of the RNC will likely include hotels in Nassau and St. Johns counties, who will benefit from the bed tax revenue of the large event without bearing any of the burden of actually hosting the event.
https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20200610/nate-monroe-jacksonville-inches-forward-then-takes-two-steps-back
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People from Jacksonville think it was done as a positive. 
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