A little over a month ago, Bill Bishop stood on the steps of City Hall with a message.
After placing third in the First Election just a week before, he was not endorsing either Mayor Alvin Brown or fellow Republican Lenny Curry. He was concerned, he said, because the two wouldn’t give direct answers to direct questions.
Bishop also said at that time he was gunning for the position again in 2019.
Both elicited cheers from his “Bill-ievers,” the ardent supporters who helped him carry almost 17 percent of the vote this year.
A lot can change in a month.
On Thursday afternoon, the City Council member walked stride-for-stride with Brown as the two headed to a portable podium just feet away from where Bishop made those first announcements.
He’d had a change of heart. He was a Brown backer.
The Democrat mayor had won the Republican’s support, although Bishop conceded the two “don’t agree on everything and we probably never will.”
But Bishop spoke of positives he saw in Brown: his effort to move pension, his leadership on deepening Jacksonville’s port and Downtown’s development.
Those complimentary tones came after a campaign that saw Bishop stay positive, but also criticize Brown over not answering questions, a pension plan with “fatal flaws” and submitting budgets that required heavy lifting and tax increases from council.
Bishop said over the month, he tried to take the emotion out a decision to endorse. He’s still adamant about being against the way Brown handled pension negotiations, but “even I have to admit, the plan they put together from a financial standpoint … you can’t really argue on the end result.”
He was one of the nine council members who voted last month against the latest reform package after gridlock resulted in the deal staying at 10 years, not the three Bishop and others wanted. He said Thursday that Brown has pushed it farther than his predecessor and would end up getting it done.
As for budgets, he said he told Brown the spending plan he submitted during Bill Gulliford’s term as council president “was definitely a problem.” It’s an issue, he said, the mayor knew about when Bishop took him to task. Or, as Bishop recalls, “I talked, he listened.”
Bishop’s also a supporter of expanding the Human Rights Ordinance, a position Brown hasn’t publicly supported. The mayor last week called for a study by city legal counsel to review local, state and federal laws about discrimination, with the results to be presented to council possibly as soon as July.
Bishop said he was encouraged by the move, but admits the city “still has a ways to go” on the issue.
“He acknowledged there were issues that needed to be resolved,” he said. “The city is not going to live or die by that issue. It’s important, but it’s not the most important.”
Again, in his opinion that’s pension.
Reaching a decision to back Brown took about a month and was finalized last week, Bishop said.
“I’ve got to vote for somebody,” he said. “One of them is going to win … since it’s not me, I had to figure out who’s the best for Jacksonville.”
Given his past involvement, he wanted to publicly support the one he thought was just that.
Another determining factor was Curry’s campaign tenor. Negative advertising, “twisting facts” on issues like crime and the overall tone “bothered me a lot,” he said.
“If you’re going to campaign that way, how are you going to govern?” he asked.
Bishop said he’s still running for mayor in 2019 in a position that would be open should Brown win May 19.
He crossed political sides with the endorsement, but said he always has believed local politics shouldn’t be determined by party affiliation.
As for critics who might call him a “traitor” for abandoning the Republican candidate, he points back to four years ago when Republican businessman Peter Rummell backed Brown and helped court others to do the same. Rummell is now a staunch Curry supporter.
“People cross party lines all the time,” Bishop said.
He’s not switching sides, though. He said he’s always been a Republican and “I have no reason to change.”
For the rest of this election, he said he’s going with the person with whom he’s grown most comfortable with over the past four years.
“It has more to do with the experience he does have,” Bishop said. “There is a lot to be said for that.”
@writerchapman
(904)356-2466