Former State Sen. Betty Holzendorf may have entered the mayoral race later than the other candidates, but now that she’s officially announced her candidacy, she’s ready to define her platform and clear up any misconceptions about why she’s running. Holzendorf met with the editorial staff of the Daily Record Monday to discuss her campaign.
Question: Why are you running for mayor?
Answer: At first, I didn’t think I wanted to run in the race because there is a difference between getting in the office, getting to the office and then doing what you need to do when you’re there. But I really just thought about the issues that were constantly coming up in this race and about the background that I have.
Q: What are some of those issues?
A: Education, for example. What people don’t realize is that the laws affecting education are coming from the state level. From there, the laws come to the School Board who set policy to implement them and then they hire a superintendent to administer them. While we all have a great concern for education — it’s my passion — there is only so much you can do as mayor. The mayor can be an advocate and supply influence as the head of the city, but that responsibility rests with those seven elected people and that superintendent. Of course parents and teachers play a part as well. What I really wanted to do was get the mayor’s office and the candidates to start understanding that and start talking about the other things we can do with education. Where we have schools that are in areas that are depressed, the mayor can go in and help with that and make those areas not be depressed so kids who are coming to school feel like they’re coming to a quality educational facility. The mayor can do that. The mayor can work with the busing situation. The mayor can work with the Children’s Commission to make sure that every child that goes to school is ready to go to school by looking at day cares and assisting in that arena. Children should be starting equally at the first grade level. We can all work on that and set standards. We should also assist our institutions of higher learning to better train the teachers who are starting out so that they know what to expect when they get to the classroom. Ch. 7 is another great asset of the community. It should be promoted more so that children and people can see something other than other regular television. You’re not going force people to watch TV but you can enforce advertising and make it interesting.
Q: What other issues do you think were being left out of the campaign before you entered?
A: Health care. I’ve worked so hard with University Medical Center and I know that it is the only public hospital in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia for indigent care for patients. It is struggling and it always has been even today as Shands. The one thing that I have looked at ever since I have been in government is that Shands has gotten $18 million for indigent care. There has never been an outline. They still can’t tell what the actual cost of indigent care is. That’s what keeps that hospital in the hole. Uninsured people in this city don’t go the hospital until it is an emergency and that is going to bankrupt that hospital. It’s much cheaper to offer some routine some examination than to care for trauma patients. We can’t wait to deal with the situation we have here. We need a plan. They have 8,000 employees who need care. We can use them as a pilot group to show how to get proper health care and prescriptions. That is going to have to be worked on.
Q: Will the issue of downtown development factor into your role as mayor?
A: Everyone is talking affordable housing downtown. We have to be very careful that housing downtown does not become low income housing because you’re not going to get the mix that will make the area stable. We are all talking about what we need to bring to downtown to revitalize it but you can’t allow outlying areas to be neglected. People won’t come to downtown because they’ll believe that you are using funds that you could fix their areas with to fix downtown and that they’re being left out. Things around the city should be carried out on a parallel track, simultaneously, to avoid that. The mayor should recognize that to get things done. That’s why I’m running.
Q: How long have you been thinking about running?
A: Over two years.
Q: But you waited a long time to enter the race.
A: I did, but I was really just weighing my options to see whether or not I really wanted to get out here and do it. Some of if was triggered by Tommy Hazouri getting out of the race. In my opinion, he left a pool of voters that I could appeal to. I also thought about my base that I appealed to make me a viable candidate who can win this thing. I’m in it to win it. I think this city is wonderful. I’ve never lived anywhere else. I’ve never liked anywhere else. I have been able to, in my public career, cross the lines to work with the business community and the neighborhoods and the educational community. I feel like the mayor should have that. I’m not interested in having my name in lights or being the first of anything. I want to be mayor and I want to increase the quality of life here. That can be done if that’s your focus.
Q: What is your strategy? Having entered the race late, you’re going to have to build a broad a level of support.
A: I’m lucky to have a broad base in Jacksonville. I’ve worked with so many people in the city; not just the name brand people. For 10 years, I’ve worked with senior citizens and welfare mothers. I’ve worked with developers and TV stations. These people know what I’m capable of and how hard I’ll fight for this city. I fought for the insurance and banking industry when no one else would. At the same time, I was managing to get things done in education as well as in the social areas of children and families. I introduced the bill that got the juvenile delinquents out of HRS because we weren’t able to take care of many of the non-delinquent children who where in the system with them. Those are the kinds of things that I’ve been doing all my life.
Q: It’s no secret that you have a history with Sheriff Nat Glover. What role does him entering the race play, and would you run for mayor whether he got in or not?
A: My intentions were to run for mayor. I had planned an announcement and Nat announced before I did, so I pulled back. My announcement was to come out on Valentine’s Day because I love Jacksonville and that was going to be my theme. If I was not going to run for mayor I couldn’t have gotten it together that quickly. It takes time to do these things. My paperwork and everything had already been done, I just hadn’t turned it in.
Q: Where do you see yourself right now? First, second, third?
A: Climbing. Climbing on Jacob’s ladder.
Q: What can we expect over the next five weeks?
A: Intensive phoning, voter registration options, which I have only until March 17 to do, and contacting voters. I have pulled up a bank of citizens who are registered but have never voted. It’s because, I think, they’ve not had a candidate they wanted to vote for. And I’m trying to make sure that they understand that I’m that kind of candidate. We can’t continue to elect mayors with 27 percent or 35 percent of the vote. And it must be because the candidates are not talking about the issues that the people want to hear about. You have not heard any conversation, since I’ve gotten into the race, other than the issues. No one was talking about health care, no one was talking about economic stimulus for the intensive care neighborhoods. Mayor [John] Delaney has done a great job in going in and trying to clean up these neighborhood and plant trees and flowers and things, but now there need to be jobs in those neighborhoods. Everyone keeps talking about the mayor and the Super Bowl. I served on the Super Bowl board. They’ve got the Super Bowl ready. The Super Bowl and all the things the NFL want are going to be ready. The mayor has to get the city ready to accommodate for that. It needs to be a super city when all of our guests get here.
Q: For your campaign, will you use mass media? TV, radio, billboards? Is there a time for all that?
A: I don’t know that there’s time for the billboards. I’m going to use all that I can get between now and the next two and a half weeks. I am going to try to do TV and I know I’m going to be doing radio. I am going to do mailouts, and I am going to try to touch some neighborhoods too by walking and getting out there.
Q: Is Jacksonville ready for its first woman mayor?
A: I think so. And the reason I say that is because in Tallahassee, when Jacksonville had problems, a lot of those people came to me. And they always said I was the legislator for the skyline. I don’t think that there is any question in anyone’s mind whether or not I can do the job. A lot of people want to know that I can win it and it’s up to me to show them that I can.
Q: How do you appeal to the voter at the beach or Mandarin, two of the real high intensity populated areas of town that tend to vote at high percentage.
A: One of the things that I’ve been heavily involved in in the beaches community is the renourishment of the beaches and when they needed permitting for the pier. I don’t know how many of the Mandarin people remember the old Sunbeam landfills, but I was involved in its clean-up. I’ve spoken to some of their groups before because my district did cut through there a little bit. But I represented five counties when I was a state senator and I still haven’t learned to this day how to represent just a piece of the county. When people call from throughout the Jacksonville area, I always respond. No one has ever come to my office to hear my say, ‘Well that’s not in my district,’ but I do make a call to the district’s representative to say, ‘I’m working on this.’ Some people are like that, but I’m not.
Q: Some candidates have set themselves up to be an extension of Mayor Delaney. Will you be able to capitalize on his success?
A: I haven’t found any real fault with Delaney. If I had, I would have been more vocal. Most people parley my silence into my accepting him. I know that many candidates will use his name in their campaigns because of his popularity. I don’t want to trick anybody into voting for me or ride anybody else’s horse. I think I have the vision for this city and the ability to what I want to do. I also know I will utilize a lot of people in the community to help me. The mayor needs to pull in a good cross section of people, not just one segment of the population.
Q: How will you deal with the Better Jacksonville Plan if elected?
A: The people passed it and it’s there. The best thing we can do is monitor it and make sure we’re on time and on budget. That will be my role. We should also look at getting out of debt.
Q: Did you talk to Delaney about getting in?
A: No, maybe early on.
Q: Will you talk to him about it?
A: When I win, I will certainly utilize him during the transition.
Q: Would you try to get him to endorse you before then?
A: I wouldn’t put that kind of pressure on him. He’s doing the right thing by trying to move up the hierarchy of his party. We’ve worked together before and he’s OK.
Q: What do you think of Gov. Bush’s call to repeal the vote on classroom sizes?
A: I think it’s ludicrous. I really do. We should be moving into the mode of trying to implement it and move it up within the 10 years we have to do so. The repealing is not based on class size, it’s based on dollars. You’re going to have people saying, “if you’re going to send my son to get shot at in Iraq, you certainly can reduce the chance of him having a problem in an overcrowded class.” I think it’s a bad move, but I don’t advise the governor.
Q: What other issues do see unfolding in the coming weeks?
A: We have problems with housing. The City should develop a plan for affordable housing. I also see us looking at a strapped budget so we should be prioritizing what we need. Staffing will be a problem in terms of getting adequate staff to address the issues that are prevalent in the city. When a new mayor comes to office, he throws out everything and starts over. I think we have good people who should, maybe, be refocused. Reinventing the wheel reverses rather than continues. I haven’t heard anyone talk about that in this campaign, yet. You have dedicated employees who have their opinions on who should be in office and that’s their constitutional right. Their job should not be a part of that.
Q: So, if elected you wouldn’t change much in the mayor’s office.
A: I’m not saying that I wouldn’t change it. I might just refocus it a bit.
Q: In looking at a strapped budget, is there any fat that can be trimmed.
A: When I worked in the mayor’s office and I took the budget to City Council for eight straight years, there was always fat.
Q: What programs of Delaney’s are you most interested in?
A: I like the idea of saving trees and his intensive care programs in neighborhoods. Better Jacksonville is a good plan but I just wish that the City had more control.
Q: There are a ton of mayoral forums that have already taken place. Are there too many?
A: Yes, and I think that people need to get together and unite for one forum. I’ve been to three in the one week that I’ve been in this. From what I’ve seen, everyone brings their campaign workers so that no one leaves during the forum. When it’s over, you’ll see about 15 citizens who are actually interested and you wind up seeing the same people over and over. Time could be better spent campaigning. I have suggested to the TV stations that the candidates be given 15 minutes to just talk; not debate. Maybe it’s their time to make their money, but they are not interested in my suggestions at all. At a lot of these forums they will ask you about education and give you one minute to talk about it.
Q: Does it put you in a position where you feel like you can’t say no to any forum that invites you?
A: It does, but I don’t worry about it. If I have time, I go. If I don’t, you can say what you want.