Well, crap. The U.S. Department of Transportation apparently does have access to the internet and figured out the Jacksonville Transportation Authority wanted to spend a $147 million federal grant on sidewalks to end racism. So, they canceled it.

The anti-racist sidewalks are part of the Emerald Trail, a 30-mile-long, network of pedestrian paths connecting some of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods, iffy downtown neighborhoods and one or two not so dangerous neighborhoods. Mayor Donna Deegan told us the trail’s purpose is “making good on the broken promises of consolidation,” because building new stuff cause the old stuff was built by racist liars, dismantles pretend structural racism via connecting people.

Back in May, Eye on Jacksonville reported the Trump Administration issued an executive order terminating all “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the federal government, under whatever name they appear.”  

Read here:https://eyeonjacksonville.com/fed-dot-eyes-jtas-dei-slush-fund-grants/

The executive order forced Sean Duffy, secretary of the DOT, to review all federal transportation projects and either cancel or renegotiate anything involving DEI, climate change, gender ideology, as well as infrastructure for bicycles, EVs and charging stations.

It didn’t take long for Duffy’s team to realize spending $147 million on walking trails around some of Jacksonville’s most violent and rundown neighborhoods will not dismantle pretend structural racism, prevent climate risks, build affordable housing, or create “a more resilient city,” as Mayor Donna Deegan has claimed the Emerald Trail would on our behalf.

On July 4^th the ax fell. President Trump signed his so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” canceling Jacksonville’s $147 million grant.

JTA and COJ’s sidewalk slush fund was doomed, and they knew it.

Deegan gets it. What Biden giveth, Trump taketh away. And what Trump taketh away, political tradecraft can giveth back.

“We are told this administration’s priority are economic development. And we can reapply under an economic development grant and perhaps get some of that money ack,” Deegan said to Anne Schindler, host of WJCT News 89.9’s First Coast Connect.

Deegan basically said Jacksonville only received the grant because COJ and JTA made up a bunch of racist nonsense like hundred-million-dollar sidewalks through the hood magically creates wealth and prevents weather.

“Obviously, every grant is written for how your told you need to, to, to write it, to, to win. And um, to the Biden administration, the whole equity diversity and inclusion piece was a big deal. To this administration [Trump], the exact opposite. So, so it is, it is important now for us to turn our focus to uh, and making the economic development argument and see if we can get some of that money back,” Deegan said.

Switching tactics from race-based revenge development to economic development takes time. That’s something Schindler doesn’t want Deegan’s administration to squander.

“Does it seem a little bit, um, I don’t know, kind of like wasted time to have to reapply, just changing the language so that you downplay what would be, you know, inclusive language, of like perhaps, community equity, and sort of change it to economic development?” Schindler asked.

“Well, you know the interesting thing is we had done that. We had gone back in, um, cause the grant was still in process, we had gone back in and tried to, you know, make it uh, make the economic development argument, because that is a very strong argument,” Deegan replied.

“Either way, we’ve got the gas tax money that will continue to fund the Emerald Trail.” the mayor said.

The city received the cash after the Biden Administration created race-based federal grant programs called Neighborhood Access and Equity and Reconnecting Communities Pilot; to give away $3.3 billion to city governments so politicians could pretend to reverse nonexistent transportation-based racism still disenfranchising local marginalized communities today.

COJ and JTA agreed to build the Emerald Trail after a local radical nonprofit, Groundwork Jacksonville, begged the city for years to build it. COJ agreed to spend $36 million from the gas tax’s $136 million cookie jar on the trail.

Groundwork Jacksonville is the local chapter of the national Groundwork USA. Groundwork USA is a silly national nonprofit touting the ridiculously stupid idea mother nature excludes black and brown people from going outside. The group is committed to “undoing the legacies of poverty and racial discrimination” by trying to create a future where every neighborhood is “green, healthy and resilient.”

In a totally unrelated story, Groundwork Jacksonville began under former Jax Mayor Alvin Brown’s administration. In August 2022, President Biden nominated Brown to serve on the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. September 2023, JTA and Groundwork Jacksonville applied for the $147 million grant from the DOT and selected as a grant recipient in March 2024. By December 2024, Brown worked his way up to Vice chair of the NTSB. Unfortunately for our former mayor, DEI gang colors don’t belong in neutral territory. Brown lost his position in May, falling victim to the president’s Big Beautiful Bill DEI overhaul.

Anyways, Kay Ehas is the CEO of Groundwork Jacksonville. The Emerald Trail is her DEI baby and cash cow. Ehas’ nonprofit was set to receive $3.5 million out of the City’s $147 million for “staff” and “community engagement.”

“That’s a major hit just to our organization and the work we do,” Ehas said. And by “work” she really means spending other people’s money pretending to “prevent displacement” and “increase prosperity” for poor people who don’t look like her, living along the Emerald Trail.

Since May 2024, displacement has been prevented and prosperity increased for those living along the recently completed 1.3 mile 14-foot-wide concrete trail called the LaVilla Link.  The trail features “signature points of interest” at which we are supposed to “pause and reflect” focusing on all the past and present racism being eradicated by the multimillion-dollar sidewalk.

The completed Emerald Trail is 30 miles of connected trails with an estimated price tag of $183 million and counting. That is incredible to think about. At $6.1 million per mile, that sidewalk better lead straight to the Emerald City.