Mayor Alvin Brown stood at the podium Friday with five other officials, talking about long-term savings and the team effort it took to achieve pension reform.
His voice never cracked. His tone never wavered. It was a victory speech he had long hoped to give, one that was maybe a few months too late to help him get re-elected.
John Keane stood to the side by himself. The longtime Police and Fire Pension Fund administrator watched others recall their role in how pension reform finally got done.
If anyone should have been beaming, it was Keane. Seven years of effort. But, instead of a smile, it was red, slightly swollen eyes trying their best not to leak.
Finally, he was called to the microphone to say a few words. And a few words were all he could say, really, before those bottled emotions emerged.
“My wife,” he started, his voice cracking.
She’d endured much from media stories over the past seven years about her husband and pension reform, Keane, 72, said. His elderly mother also knew the turmoil pension troubles had caused.
Shortly after all the words were said, people filed into the fund board room. A desk had been set up for days, flags were arranged behind it.
Brown sat and signed the bill, putting to rest a part of a promise he said he made voters. Then he caught up with many people, a quick picture, a few brief words. Keane was one of them.
It was the last hurrah for the two, the last big checkmark for their current careers. Both are going out in different ways, but history will show the two forever linked.
Emotions years in the making
Hours later, after the cameras had left and things were relatively back to normal, Keane still was wearing his heart on his sleeve.
Broaching the topic of the event hours earlier caused his eyes to again swell.
“You’re making me emotional again,” he said, followed by an exasperated laugh. “But it is an emotional thing.”
Over the years, he said, he’s been the brunt of a media firestorm when it came to public safety pensions.
It hit his wife of 27 years, Lynda, pretty hard, seeing his name in the paper so much. His 96-year-old mother, too.
“She would tell me ‘Why don’t you leave and let them have that damn thing down there? …. Why do you let them torture you?’” Keane said.
His reply was simple: He “couldn’t walk off and leave the people.”
“As to me, I can take it,” he said of the situation. “Except today. I’m not doing too good today.”
It was a moment seven years in the making, or as he calls it, “a long, long, time ago.”
Former Mayor John Peyton got the ball rolling in his second term, having discussions that resulted in a deal weeks before he left office.
Brown then took office and wanted to do better. Peyton’s bill, one that didn’t affect benefits of current employees, never saw the light of day with City Council.
“We were disappointed,” said Keane, “but we understood.”
Keane said that as a candidate, Brown like others had approached him to learn about the city’s pension problems. But after he was elected, it was a couple of years before the two again would talk about the situation. Brown was working on economic development and reorganizations in those early days, Keane said.
“He was busy,” said Keane. “We don’t fault him.”
It was summer 2013 before the two really would sit together.
Behind-closed-doors mediation talks in Gainesville resulted in a deal that affected both current and new employees. Later that year, council President Bill Gulliford brought it to a vote. It died a quick death.
Gulliford has been a vocal Brown critic but, maybe ironically, it was Gulliford who helped steer the latest deal to the finish line. The foundation for it was laid through those weeks of talks in Gainesville and again in the summer of last year.
Sweet exchange, sweeter result
Finally in the public, the two sides sat across the table from one another.
Brown and his team on one side. Keane — just Keane — on the other.
Between them both was moderator Rod Smith, the former state senator who helped drive the conversation and find common ground.
He said dealing with Brown always was pleasant. But when he noticed the mayor might become a little frustrated, he had a little trick.
Keane said he generally carried around hard candy. Butterscotch, mints and the like.
During the frustrating moments, he’d pull a piece out and quietly tap on the table to gain Brown’s attention. Then he’d flick it over to him.
“He’d look around, see if anyone noticed, then reach and get it,” Keane said, laughing.
Little moments between the two, but ones Keane fondly recalls.
Maybe not so fondly remembered were the immediate results of those summer talks.
The deal the two struck was ping-ponged between the council and pension fund board. There were changes, a tie vote and a defeat that left all the efforts hanging in the balance until Gulliford stepped up.
The “gallop,” as Keane calls it, was fierce in the past month.
A seven-year deal. The plan changed benefits for new and current employees. It changed the way the plan was governed.
Missing still is a major piece: The funding source to pay down the $1.62 billion in the plan’s unfunded liability.
That awaits another day, for people like Gulliford who have another four years.
For today and for outgoing players like Brown and Keane, it was an accomplishment.
Sharing a loss
Brown’s four years in office end in just over a week.
He said Friday he “felt really good” about the deal and working together with groups like the Retirement Reform Task Force, council members and Keane on getting a deal done and signed during his tenure.
It was an issue he always talked about accomplishing during his tenure.
“I kept my promise,” he said.
Although he didn’t show the same emotion as Keane, the two also share pain the pain of losing great friends during the time.
Brown’s dear friend Chester Aikens died in December 2013, collapsing from a heart attack minutes after taking part in a Retirement Reform Task Force meeting. Aikens' widow, Jean, was on hand Friday during the ceremony.
“It was very emotional,” Brown said afterward.
Keane also lost someone close. Dick Cohee, Keane’s longtime friend and right-hand man, died in January 2012. His death greatly affects Keane to this day and also changed the course of pension history.
Had Cohee been alive, it likely would have been him on the other side of the negotiating table.
“Had he not passed away, I’d have been retired almost three years now,” Keane said.
Retirement is on the horizon now, though.
Reform was the last big item on his list before heading off.
There are still loose ends, actuarial work and the board selecting a deputy director before he can be done.
Keane will celebrate 25 years as fund director in August. It’s about the time he thinks he’ll be done, meaning the longest-tenured city employee of 54 years will call it a day.
Brown has been mum on his future plans, although he’ll be taking a lengthy family vacation next month.
Keane said he and his wife will take a much-delayed trip to Europe and he’ll travel with two grandchildren.
They’ll both have time away from the spotlight to do so after years of public negotiating.
Last conversation of few words
After signing the last of many replicas of the bill Friday, it was picture time.
Smiling big, Brown posed with many of the key players for a grip-and-grin in the fund’s board room. Bill Scheu, the reform task force chairman. Pension fund board members. Even Brown’s wife, Santhea.
But after her, it was Keane.
The two shook hands and smiled. Their time together, and in the spotlight, was drawing to a close. But after so many back-and-forth exchanges, there was only one thing Keane really had to say.
“’Thank you,’” Keane said he told Brown. “Just thank you.”
It was all that was needed. Their last big accomplishment was history at that point.
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