As the Jaguars play a couple of games in London, their current hometown is a little nervous about the possibility that the Jaguars soon will be playing more than a couple of games there.
Jacksonville mayor Donna Deegan is trying to get people to not worry about the possibility of the team leaving town.
“Ultimately I will have the final say on our team,” Deegan told ActionNewsJax.com. “The buck stops with me. But then there’s [city] council. We’ll have to go through council and present that plan once we have it [and] see where that goes.
“I’m hopeful. I think everyone wants to see this work. I’ve had so many community meetings since I was elected and I hear over and over again. People don’t want to spend public money on the stadium. I know that the fans want it. I know some people don’t see the benefit of it. I see a lot of benefit from it, pride in this team and this city, relationships that we can build business-wise, but the bottom line is . . . 80 percent say [they] don’t want to spend the money, 80 percent don’t want to lose the Jags . . . . Those two things are simply mutually exclusive so an agreement must be reached. Hopefully we come up with one that we all are pretty pleased with.”
Far more than 80 percent don’t want to spend $1 billion on stadium renovations, based on recent polling. And, based on that same polling, far fewer than 80 percent don’t want to lose the Jags. In that double-sided overstatement resides a very clear message as to what the mayor hopes to do.
Basically, she hopes to not be the mayor who lost the Jaguars to London. Because, as she said, the buck stops with her. Which means the one billion bucks will start with her, too.