Nate Monroe

Feb 20, 2025 | jaxtrib.org | Nate Monroe

Jacksonville City Hall’s debt to the Police and Fire Pension Fund now tops $3 billion — one of the fund’s worst conditions in the past quarter century — a mountain of red ink that will require taxpayers to cover a record $201 million payment later this year. That payment will strain a budget already expected to be stretched thin by rising costs, expired federal money and expensive obligations.

Feb 17, 2025 | jaxtoday.org | Nate Monroe

Alex Sifakis sits atop a suburban Jacksonville empire: JWB, the company he co-founded in 2006, is a real-estate investment firm, a home buyer and seller, and a property manager, overseeing some 6,000 rental properties throughout the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. And in recent years, Sifakis, a gregarious and formerly obscure figure in city politics, has amassed influence, in the process expanding his considerable holdings to a new frontier: Downtown.

Feb 13, 2025 | jaxtrib.org | Nate Monroe

Alex Sifakis sits atop a suburban Jacksonville empire: JWB, the company he co-founded in 2006, is a real-estate investment firm, a home buyer and seller, and a property manager, overseeing some 6,000 rental properties throughout the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. And in recent years, Sifakis, a gregarious and formerly obscure figure in city politics, has amassed influence, in the process expanding his considerable holdings to a new frontier: Downtown.

Jan 24, 2025 | jacksonville.com | Nate Monroe

This would have been my twelfth year at the Florida Times-Union, though I'm betting most of you became familiar with me, or, perhaps, began cursing me, only for the last six or so, when I became a metro columnist. That is, in one sense, not much time to spend at a place.

Jan 23, 2025 | jacksonville.com | Nate Monroe

Sam Mousa, a fearsome, chain-smoking city administrator, sometimes liked to lean over the fourth-floor railing in City Hall and peer down into its hive-like atrium like a bird of prey, or a conquering king. Once, I saw a rumpled and particularly disfavored city employee recoil back into a hallway when he looked up and saw those perceptive, judging eyes staring directly at him.