Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan[1] is defending[2] a much-criticized[3] holographic image of herself[4] at the local airport, saying her counterparts in other cities have functional equivalents.
The “new, cutting-edge holographic communication platform,” per a city press release, was added in 2024.
Deegan said at a town hall this week that “people love it” and that the expenditure was not an example of wasteful spending as Republicans maintain.
“It’s the one thing they keep going back to. She spent, you know, $50,000 or whatever it was on a photo box,” Deegan said. “If that’s your example of government waste, I think we’re probably doing probably doing okay.”
“Deplaning passengers will see and hear the mayor deliver the message from inside a large, physical box that’s situated just outside airport security in a central courtyard before travelers descend to baggage claim. The message is also delivered in Spanish and multiple other languages,” the city’s announcement noted when the device debuted.
Deegan said this week that “at every airport in the country, the mayor greets people when they come into the airport, either on a monitor or over the loudspeaker.”
CFO Blaise Ingoglia[5] was one of many prominent Republicans to mock the device.
“I considered doing this presentation as a hologram. But I wanted to save taxpayers’ dollars,” Ingoglia quipped when he came to town to claim the city could cut property tax by 1.19 Mill and not “skip a beat” as it cut $200 million of spending, or 1/10 of the roughly $2 billion budget.
Gov. Ron DeSantis[6] said the city had room to cut as well, and likewise couldn’t resist Deegan’s doppelganger as an example of fiscal waste.
“I do know they spent tens of thousands of dollars to create a hologram of the Mayor to put at Jacksonville International Airport. Do you want to pay property taxes to fund that? I mean, probably not, I think most people would say,” the Governor said in Apalachicola.
Deegan’s remarks about the hologram were part of an extended extemporization about how Ingoglia’s probe offered “no math,” was “all hat, no cattle,” and that cuts to the property tax (which would be a 1/8 Mill reduction if Council has its way) “would be insane.”
“And you think you complain now about not getting your potholes done,” the Mayor said.
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References
- ^ Donna Deegan (floridapolitics.com)
- ^ defending (www.youtube.com)
- ^ much-criticized (floridapolitics.com)
- ^ holographic image of herself (floridapolitics.com)
- ^ Blaise Ingoglia (floridapolitics.com)
- ^ Ron DeSantis (flgov.com)