It didn’t take long.
Mayor Alvin Brown announced a series of anti-crime initiatives targeting youths Friday at a packed Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast. Five hours later, the criticism began on the steps of City Hall.
Mayoral candidate Lenny Curry and Sheriff John Rutherford held an early afternoon news conference dubbed “too little, too late” to lambast Brown’s announcement. The one proclaiming centers being re-opened for after-school programming, expanding summer parks program and creating an Evening Reporting Center for juvenile offenders in Arlington.
Curry called it political, another photo opportunity “68 days out from an election” when crime had risen during Brown’s tenure.
Rutherford, a Curry supporter, called it more “government by announcement” and talked about diminished police staffing levels caused by Brown’s lack of funding.
To that end, Curry said if elected his “No. 1 priority” would be public safety, starting with bringing back 147 officers. That would put the police force back up to 1,750 officers, the level Rutherford had in 2011 when Brown took office.
When asked how he would pay for the officers, Curry did not provide details but said the additional officers would not be funded by a tax increase.
In this year’s budget, Brown proposed hiring 40 more officers and bringing back 40 Community Service Officers, but City Council rejected the idea — along with other new spending — because of a lack of revenue.
Since Brown was elected in 2011, violent crime has risen, which Rutherford said is directly attributable to fewer officers and Brown’s defunding the Jacksonville Journey.
Not so, said Brown’s chief of staff. In an email, Chris Hand called the Jacksonville Journey claim “categorically false” and provided budget numbers since 2011 that had Brown’s Journey budget exceeding what council passed. That went from a proposed high of $10.6 million in fiscal 2011-12 ($9.9 approved) to a low of $2.3 million in fiscal 2014-15 ($2.1 million approved). The biggest change came from splitting out Jacksonville Children’s Commission funding. Most of the same programs remain in that span, albeit with varying funding levels.
In addition, Rutherford said he wasn’t consulted prior to Friday’s announcement. Hand, though, said he met with Undersheriff Dwain Senterfitt on Thursday to inform him of the announcement. Additionally, Brown and Rutherford met Dec. 10 with faith leaders to discuss crime, with Brown saying one of the topics being “pastoral interrupters” — one of the components of his anti-crime announcement.
Rutherford said Monday that Senterfitt told him about the meeting but, “I figured if it was important, they’d talk to me about it.”
As Curry mentioned, though, it’s almost two months before an election — a time when political back-and-forth begins in earnest.
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