by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
Jerry Holland is ready to take the helm as City Council’s new president. He has named his committee assignments. He has his priorities in place. After an installation ceremony June 28 at the T-U Center that will no doubt include the A-list of local politicos and Holland’s own supporters, the Beaches representative will succeed Matt Carlucci July 1 as Jacksonville’s second most powerful elected official.
While the Council presidency has long been an incubator for pet projects, Holland insists his legacy will be a bit more altruistic. He plans to work from the Council’s working list of priorities.
“I wouldn’t care if I was elected president of an athletic association,” Holland said. “I’ve never been one where I get all my things and then turn around and then ask, ‘What do you guys want?’ That’s not the way I was raised. I get more satisfaction getting the group’s goals done. What’s great is on the group’s goals, there are a couple of my goals in there.”
Holland’s goals for the coming year promise to benefit the entire county.
“I’m going to focus on public safety and fire protection and continuing what the last presidents have tried to do with their relationship with education,” said Holland. “I still want to build on the relationship with the School Board as far as any way we can help them.”
Holland’s fire protection initiative got a jump start Tuesday night when the Council voted to approve a $52 million bond issue that dedicates $10.2 million toward the renovation or replacement of seven fire stations.
He also announced his committee chairs Tuesday night, naming Gwen Chandler, Finance Committee chair; Doyle Carter, Rules chair; Faye Rustin, Land Use and Zoning chair; Gwen Yates, Public Health, Safety and Education chair; King Holzendorf, Recreation and Community Development chair; Elaine Brown, Transportation, Environment and Energy chair, and Warren Alvarez, Public Services, Technology and Utilities chair.
Infrastructure improvements, such as improving fire safety and paving Duval County’s network of dirt roads — one of Holland’s pet projects that will likely be addressed — could prove to be simple maneuvers compared to fixing the area’s ailing education system. While Holland promises to help the Duval County School Board as much as possible, he’s politically savvy enough not to tread directly on their turf.
“They haven’t been over here telling us how to fix pot holes or take care of noise complaints,” he said. “It’s not so much that we’re helping them from the first bell to the last bell. It’s to show how much we do in the after school programs and through the Children’s Commission and dovetailing on what they do. You want to make sure what [kids] do after school is complementing what they’re doing during school. As far as the K-through-12, first bell to last bell, I don’t think it’s our desire to tell them how to run the school system.”
Holland, like his peers and predecessors, can’t readily point to a secret formula that would magically solve the local school system’s problems. But like his peers and predecessors, he’s willing to keep trying.
“It’s one that doesn’t have a lot of answers,” he said. “If I had the answer, I’d hold a press conference right now and say I can fix all our education problems. It’s just one that you have to continue to keep tweaking.”