Linda Lanier, executive director and CEO of the Jacksonville Children’s Commission, said Monday she has been notifying the board and staff that she will leave the commission to retire and expects to wrap up the second week in March.
Commission Chairman Ken Wilson said the board is discussing the selection of an interim executive director and will make plans for a search for a permanent executive director.
“The children’s commission has been blessed to have her and she is a huge part of continuing the refinement of the children’s commission organization to be a very accountable and successful service provider for the children of Jacksonville and it will be very, very hard to fill her seat,” he said.
The commission had been included in Mayor Alvin Brown’s reorganization of City government but was removed from the legislation at the Dec. 13 City Council meeting. Commission and administration representatives were continuing discussions about the commission’s operations.
In Brown’s proposal, the commission’s executive director and staff would have been appointed by the mayor and approved by the Council instead of hired by the commission’s board. It also would have put the board into an advisory role and moved grant disbursal to the mayor’s office.
In an email Monday to a network of friends and colleagues, Lanier wrote that “a new opportunity has presented itself to me and I really can’t pass it up. My three grandchildren (and their parents, of course) will be moving back to Jacksonville early this summer. They will only be here for a few years and I don’t want to miss this opportunity to participate fully in their little lives.”
She said that leading the commission has been a wonderful opportunity. “We have powerful programs, brilliant staff and a board of dedicated people that have reinvented the model of volunteer governance. Our community is lucky to have such a resource and I know you will all continue to support this work,” she said.
“Meanwhile, I’m going to narrow my focus from 240,000 children down to just three and I’m really looking forward to the challenge,” she said.
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