by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
When Michael Corrigan takes over as City Council president June 29, he will spend the next year making sure projects get finished — projects that he and current Council President Kevin Hyde have initiated and projects that the other 17 Council members have started over the years, particularly those initiated by the eight Council members who will step aside in 2007 due to term limits.
“Half of City Council leaves at the end of my term as president and I want to help them finish what they have started,” said Corrigan. “The outgoing members will have dedicated over seven years of their lives to the city and I want them to complete what they started.”
Corrigan is the current Council vice president and has watched for the past year as Hyde’s life has gone from being an attorney with the big firm of Foley & Lardner to one in which the spotlight always seems to be shining. Whether the Council president represents a district or not, the job entails a full year of public scrutiny. Toss in maintaining a family and running a family business, and the next year figures to be pretty hectic for Corrigan.
“It may be the busiest year in my life to this point,” said Corrigan, an Avondale resident who represents District 14 and is the president of Nu-Trend Plastics, a family-owned and operated business he has run with his father and sister for 25 years. “Pressure is when you have 10,000 pounds of fresh seafood and you need to keep it from spoiling. Pressure is nothing new, it’s just a different kind of pressure. I have been in the production environment for 25 years. Deadlines don’t bother me.”
One of Corrigan’s biggest early challenges will be to make the Council committee assignments as well as choosing chairs for those committees. At times, this assignment involves walking a fine line between doing what’s best for the city and Council as a whole while pacifying egos and rewarding those who have paid their dues. Corrigan said he has spent the past three years, and especially the past year, watching his comrades to see how they have performed on the various committees and how they have handled themselves. Based on what he’s seen, Corrigan is taking the “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” approach to committee assignments.
“I watched and saw what the strengths are in certain areas. The advantage of this Council is that we have a diverse, talented group,” he said. “What I am most impressed with is the expertise in different areas and I want to utilize that. I looked at the committees over a six-year span and there will be some changes made, but nothing major. We have a good system now and I want to spend the entire year with Council operating as efficiently as possible.”
Corrigan said he hasn’t and won’t consult with any of the other 18 Council members individually to discuss committee assignments or preferences, but he has taken mental notes and gotten feedback during committee meetings.
“After three years, you get to know about the person,” said Corrigan, who targeted the Council presidency when he first was elected, but not this quickly. “I always though I’d be City Council president, but to get elected unopposed in my first term on Council is an extreme honor.”
In addition to running Council meetings, making committee assignments, running for office (he’s a candidate for re-election, too) and serving as the city’s second-ranking elected official, Corrigan would like to pursue one major initiative and it won’t affect the budget one iota.
“I am looking at revising the City’s zoning codes,” said Corrigan, speaking of a project that would tackle one of the most complicated facets of municipal government nationwide. “That could by my legacy. I want to take the ABCs out of LUZ (the Council Land Use and Zoning committee). I want to help developers and the residents understand the process as we move forward in Jacksonville.”
Regardless of how busy Corrigan is now or in January, one thing is certain: he seems to truly enjoy what he’s doing these days, whether it’s running a seven-person business or helping run a city of a million. He said being a businessman and civil servant has provided polar opposite experiences in his personal and professional life that couldn’t be achieved any other way.
“I love it. I can be at work in shorts and a T-shirt in the morning and put on a coat and tie and meet with the mayor in the afternoon,” he said. “This is a great gig.”