After a largely successful legislative session, Mayor Lenny Curry was ready to celebrate $1.86 million in local wins Thursday — financial victories for projects he says haven’t happened in City Hall the past six years.
“This is what winning looks like for Jacksonville,” the mayor said Thursday, with City Council and Duval Delegation members behind him.
Those victories, Curry said, were the result of teamwork and “getting the right people involved.”
The juxtaposition of the most recent wins with past accomplishments was a common theme throughout the announcement.
However, one person who didn’t agree with that sentiment was one of the lawmakers standing behind Curry on Thursday.
“There were a number of projects we brought back to Jacksonville that were important to the administration,” said Rep. Mia Jones, who wraps up eight years in the House in July. “… We were successful over there on multiple occasions.”
Keeping funds for UF Health and the port were two examples of former Mayor Alvin Brown’s priorities, said Jones, who worked in his administration as head of boards and commissions.
Jones said after Thursday’s news conference she briefly spoke to Curry about his contention of the lack of past legislative successes.
Wins can look different, she said, especially given the timing and style.
“There is a lot of money that came back to Jacksonville,” she said.
For Curry, this year’s $1.86 million in projects comprised $250,000 in state dollars toward training and hiring police officers.
Another $900,000 was allocated for a yearlong program geared to improving the lives of ex-offenders. Two infrastructure projects totaling more than $700,000 will help Mandarin and Northwest Jacksonville.
For Brown, “wins” came in different forms. His priorities for sessions during leaner economic years often started with the city not being saddled with unfunded mandates.
Past memos on the sessions, such as one from 2013, said accomplishments like “protecting” the city’s budget through lobbying efforts were key.
That same memo said those efforts prevented $80 million to $100 million of negative impacts to the city’s budget, through means such as Medicaid savings and pushing to keep the state’s communications service tax.
Another memo, this one from the 2014 session, maintained the administration’s top priority was keeping the city’s budget stable in a still-recovering economy.
Jones said she didn’t realize Curry would use the past several years’ legislative results as a main point during his announcement. She’s happy about this year’s results, but said such wins for priorities came in the past few years — just in a different way.
Those efforts were in part aided by Brown’s state policy director, Mario Rubio, who now works in the Curry administration as a Jacksonville Small and Emerging Business program administrator.
Curry spokeswoman Marsha Oliver said Curry’s characterization of the past six years wasn’t critical of Rubio or any other legislator working for Jacksonville. Instead, it was about prioritization, not talent or expertise, she said.
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