Bill Figueroa (R) is considering a run for the City Council District 2 seat against incumbent Lynette Self and Libertarian Adam Nathaniel Davis. He is a former aircrewman in the U.S. Navy and the principal owner of Five Star Cellular.
WHY RUN AGAINST LYNETTE SELF?
“She is an incumbent from the same party, but I’m not so sure her philosophy and the way that she’s done things in the party represents what most Republicans think of when they think of a Republican incumbent. She’s been very anti-business. Most of the builders in town that I do business with are not real happy with the way issues have been handled by her as the chair of the Zoning Committee on the Council. It’s not real friendly with small businesses.”
DO YOU THINK SELF HAS FULFILLED HER CAMPAIGN PROMISES?
“She said, ‘If I’m elected to this district, one of the things that I’ll make sure doesn’t happen is we won’t have any of these prolonged road construction projects for years with no end in sight.’ She slammed the person who had that seat and listed four or five streets in areas she said this will not happen if she’s our representative in City Council. Monument Road runs right through the middle of her district and it’s been under construction since the day she took office. They are finishing it this year, almost three and a half years later. She made her promise to make sure things like that didn’t happen. I’m not saying she’s the person who has the ability to affect it. But as a person who’s in the City Council, you can bring a lot of attention to it with [the media]. There’s no attention to it. It’s like it doesn’t exist. The whole point of being on the Council is your ability to bring attention to a specific issue that isn’t correct. She hasn’t used that seat to show any kind of leadership.”
HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU THINK YOU WILL NEED TO DEVOTE TO CITY MATTERS IF YOU’RE ELECTED?
“It’s probably going take 35 to 40 hours a week. I still own this business. I started this business when I was still in the Navy. To be able to do that, I worked here 40-some hours a week and still worked 40-some hours a week at the Navy. I’ve gotten to where our business has grown. I’m not working 60 to 70 hours a week anymore. But I’m used to that kind of a schedule and I think I can get it done.”
WHAT GOT YOU INVOLVED WITH POLITICS?
“It’s been a disease I’ve had for a long time [laughs]. I’m not sure whether the interest came while I was in the service or if it came trying to deal with what it took to start a small business.I don’t come from a family that’s rich. My dad was a cop and my mom did real estate part time. I wasn’t from a family that had a lot. What I mean is, when I started my business, I couldn’t go to somebody in my family and say hey, ‘Can I borrow $100,000?’ Being in the Navy, making what I made and having one kid and one on the way the same year we started this, I couldn’t go to a bank. The bank would say, ‘Look, for the kind of money you’re looking for to start a business, you don’t make enough and you have no business experience.’ We started this business with really nothing besides what we could get off of credit cards and second mortgages for myself and a business partner. It was all on the line. Now we have five locations in Jacksonville. To get from where we started with nothing to here we ran into a lot of red tape, I learned a lot about politics.”
YOU’RE RELATIVELY UNKNOWN COMPARED TO SELF. WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY?
“It will pick up its own momentum. It’s kind of its own creature. The campaign is a group of people coming together. As they get it going, you get a real synergy with the people. That’s what we think is going to start to happen. I think there’s a ton of work to do. Anyone who feels comfortable this early on in anything, even if you are the incumbent, winds up in trouble. Everything that I’ve ever done that’s worked out the way that I wanted it to or close to it, only happened because I worked at it relentlessly.”
— by Glenn Tschimpke