The late Tillie Fowler was probably looking down from heaven and smiling broadly when more than 160 people gathered last week to launch a push to elect more qualified women to the Jacksonville City Council.
Current member Denise Lee, who first joined the council in 1982, was probably asking, "Where have you been?"
Led by longtime community activists Pam Paul and Carol Thompson, and bolstered by the frontline involvement of Audrey Moran, the group is called "9 in 15," which means it wants women candidates to lay claim to nine of the council seats up for grabs in the 2015 city election.
While Paul and Thompson say their group will also encourage qualified men, it's obvious this effort is about electing women.
While it could be easy to toss this movement aside, I wouldn't do that.
Paul, Thompson, Moran and other "9 in 15" organizers are serious people with long records of civic involvement. They know what success looks and feels like.
The group, organizers say, will not endorse candidates or contribute money. It's not a political action committee.
But its members do have strong networks, including connections to some deep-pocketed people. You can full well expect their favored females to get support and funds.
The group cites the fact there are just three women on the 19-member council, compared to 2003 when there were 10, a majority.
Of the three women serving now, Lee is the only one term limited, while Lori Boyer and Kim Daniels can run for re-election. Daniels has already filed to run and Boyer is expected to file.
Even as they encourage more women to step up and hit the campaign trail, the "9 in 15" leaders acknowledge that women have long played a big role in Jacksonville's legislative affairs.
Since the beginning of consolidated government in the late1960s, the council has had some strong female members, starting with the first two — Mary L. Singleton and Sallye B. Mathis.
At a time when few women were in high-profile political positions in Jacksonville, Singleton and Mathis set the standard and made it easier for the women who followed them.
Several females have served as council president, including Fowler, Elaine Brown, Alberta Hipps and Ginger Soud.
Of all the women on the council, Fowler probably is the best known, in large part because when she left the council she was elected to Congress in 1992, where she served with distinction for eight years.
As council president in 1989, Fowler made a big impression as a no-nonsense leader, especially when she ordered the arrest of three African-American council members who walked out of an 11th-hour meeting convened to approve the city budget.
The three members were protesting a lack of funding for sewage and drainage projects in their community.
Interestingly, two of the three members were women — Lee and Deitra Micks.
While Lee has never been council president, for the past 30 years she has been a passionate representative of her constituents, always willing to speak up and challenge the status quo.
Lee was a 30-year-old protégé of Mayor Jake Godbold when the council appointed her in 1982 to fill the district seat left vacant after Mathis's death. Lee stayed there for 19 years before running for the Florida Legislature. She returned to the council in 2007.
Now in the twilight of her council career, her battle-tested experience and knowledge has added real value to the current council.
Yet to be seen is whether the "9 in 15" movement will impact the 2015 mayor's race. Right now, Mayor Alvin Brown doesn't have a viable opponent.
The push designed to increase female voters for female candidates will create an interesting voting dynamic that could influence the outcome of the mayor's race.
If the "9 in 15" effort can find women like Fowler, Singleton, Mathis and many of the other qualified females who have served on the council, it will be a good thing for Jacksonville.
It makes me wonder if the "9 in 15" movement succeeds, will a group of guys get together and form something like "9 in 19" to reclaim the seats for men in the 2019 city election.
Working together to fix a problem
The announcement last week that an agreement has been reached to keep an early voting location in the Gateway region is a great example of the good that can happen when people work together to solve a contentious problem.
This started a long time ago when Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland wanted to move an elections warehouse out of the Gateway Shopping Center to another location, which also meant closing the early voting site at Gateway.
The relocation of the warehouse, approved by the council, caused a lot of bitter consternation and ugly rhetoric, including insinuations of racial motivation led largely by an angry U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown.
The loss of the early voting location at Gateway probably drew the loudest protests.
Holland pledged at the time to try to accommodate early voting in that area, provided an acceptable location and deal could be found.
With Tax Collector Michael Corrigan wanting to move a call center and mail center out of a 2,400-square-foot Gateway branch into the Yates Building Downtown, it opened an opportunity that was seized by the mayor, the congresswoman and others who invested in the controversy.
Now, there will be a customer service and community center that provides voter registration, voter education and early voting.
Part of the happy ending is that the city will extend its lease for five years with the Terranova Corp., owner of Gateway, which was highly miffed when the council voted to move the warehouse to One Imeson.
As a result, Terranova and a citizens group are dropping lawsuits they had filed to block the move.
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