by Bailey White
Staff Writer
In what could be one of the more interesting races of the spring elections, a local businessman is banging heads with current City Council president Jerry Holland for the District 3 Council seat.
Scott Shine, a 42-year-old Republican, and Holland, also a Republican, will square off in what is essentially a new district. Sixty percent of voters are new to the recently redrawn district, informally known as the Intracoastal District, which roughly extends from Queen’s Harbour to J. Turner Butler Boulevard, and the Intracoastal Waterway to Southside Boulevard.
“It doesn’t have an official name, which is something that I would like citizens to establish,”said Shine. “How can you build a community without a name?”
Because Shine says a characteristic of his district is beautiful land and waterways, he would like to see more done in the way of parks and recreation centers for community use.
“There isn’t an acceptable number of parks in the area,” he said.
He believes solving that problem will help control another troubling issue.
“Thirty percent of the major roads in my district are failing because of overcapacity. Not having enough recreational opportunities in this district puts more people on the roads and we need to provide proper infrastructure,” he said. “I’m committed to smart growth.”
Shine says he’s ready for the challenge of running against Holland.
“I feel pretty good,” he said. “If you’re not willing to take on a challenge, you have no business entering the political arena to begin with. People want alternatives; I’m providing that alternative.”
Taking note of some of Holland’s recent decisions, Shine says he would have acted differently.
“Financially I’m more conservative. For instance, I would have been against the health club,” he said, referring to the recent decision to install gym equipment in the basement of City Hall. “I don’t think it’s a good use of the public’s money.”
He also thinks differently about the public speaking issue raised by Holland, which resulted in a “fighting words” ordinance proposal.
“I thought carefully about it because I might be subjected to it one day, but I don’t feel we should make documents that could intimidate people into not speaking up on issues,” said Shine, who is originally from Richmond, Va.
He says he has always known his future was in public service.
“I decided to run about 10 years ago,” he said. “I’ve planned my life around it because I knew I’d eventually enter public service in one form or another.”
His first foray into politics was when he was 11 years old.
“I organized a political rally to protest a decision made by a Richmond judge to merge county and city school systems, which would have meant the name of the school I’d attended my whole life would change,” he said. “It was the early 1970s, and the model was for the public to speak out.”
Even though his school principal squashed the rally, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually found in favor of the county schools, overturning the judge’s decision.
Shine graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business, and he’s spent 20 years in healthcare, insurance and financial services. In a job with Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Shine was a market research analyst. He sees the similarities in what he did there with what he’s doing now.
“I was involved in studying what consumers want,” he said. “You have to know what keeps customers happy, how to assess their needs. It’s the same philosophy that will keep citizens happy.”
It was the Blue Cross and Blue Shield job that brought him to Jacksonville, which he now calls home.
“I fell in love with Jacksonville — the weather, the water, the beaches and the people. I decided to make my home here. I’ve had a lot of invitations to move, but this is the only place I want to be,” said Shine.
He will spend the next couple of months raising funds for his campaign. He has about 20 volunteers, though he has yet to designate a campaign manager.
“In terms of funding, it’s unlikely I’ll raise the amount raised by my opponent, but I have several significant players who are backing my camp and I have a feeling as it goes along we’ll pick up momentum,” he said.
In the meantime he’s working on getting to know the rest of his constituents.
“I talk to people when I’m shopping, at neighborhood meetings, when I’m jogging,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about this for 10 years and I’ve been collecting information along the way.”
One of his goals is to strengthen lines of communication between government officials and the people they represent.
“A lot of people feel they’re helpless and that they can’t make changes in the government,” he said. “They’ve simply stopped asking for help. I want people to feel empowered so that they know that from me they will get a response, I will listen and take action.”
Another way he’ll keep in touch is through his website, which contains his agenda, something his political advisors warned him against.
“But I want to take a stand on my issues, and I don’t want people voting for me if they don’t know what I stand for,” he said.