Yesterday April 23rd Dana Perino, host of “The Daily Briefing”on Fox News, interviewed one of our local, home-grown developers and supporters of small business. Sleiman Enterprises was recognized as one of the “good guys” who is sacrificing for others during the COVID19 crisis.
Sleiman recently announced that 1,000 small business tenants will receive coronavirus rent reprieve for the months of May and June.
This is a generous gift to their tenants and will help them get back on their feet when Florida opens again.
It is sad and disturbing that the national news thinks this is a big deal and our local news does not. Eye wrote about this gift when it happened and we asked our Mayor to acknowledge it. We still hear crickets and that is shameful.
Additionally, the Mayor has installed a group of local leaders who will help him with decision making about reopening Jacksonville. The list is exactly what we expected and it started with the head of the Jax Chamber — the supposed one next in line for Mayor who has been crowned by the powers to be in downtown Jacksonville. He’s a nice guy but it’s not fair that Jacksonville’s downtown guys always choose the next Mayor.
That aside — Eye is curious as to why one of the largest City of Jacksonville property tax payers to the tune of $6 Million a year, hosts 1,000s of small business owners as tenants on their properties, and recently gave them a reprieve on their rent was not included on the list to help reopen our city.
And all the people know why. It’s because Sleiman Enterprises is not one of the downtown boys. The Mayor should have put politics aside at least this one time to include those who intimately know their tenants and have done their part to help them weather this serious storm we are all facing.
Even though the Mayor and the local media do not acknowledge this upstanding company who houses their home office in Jacksonville, let’s give them a shout out ourselves! We give an Eye WINK to Sleiman Enterprises and when Jacksonville re-opens let’s support their tenants. It’s the least we can do for our local, home-grown good guys!
