A.G. Gancarski
Another Jacksonville mayoral candidate forum took place Monday night with Omega Allen, Bill Bishop, and Lenny Curry. The forum, billed as a multicultural forum, had the theme “Minority Major: Where Unity Is Key.” It allowed candidates to discuss issues from crime and minority unemployment to their commitments to diversity on many levels.
With only 100 or so in attendance, this event let all of Alvin Brown’s challengers sharpen familiar material while, also branching out to issues that have been ignored.
Brown was out of town, though his campaign’s offer to send a surrogate ran counter to the event’s rules. Just as well, though: Any surrogate would have been skewered by these candidates, all who’ve grown more comfortable in their campaign personas.
The introductions were familiar to those who had heard the candidates before. Bishop talked about Jacksonville being at a “crossroads” between obscurity and greatness; Curry talked about his written plan and making Jacksonville a place where his kids will want to stay. Allen deviated from her established themes more than the two Republicans, talking about Jacksonville’s “dead downtown” (counter to a recent Miami Herald rave) and the city being “40 years behind the curve in terms of potential.”
The first question was about minority inclusion, something that all candidates support, yet addressed differently.
Allen proposed “liaisons” to underrepresented minority communities, and if mayor, “if for any reason I need to show up, I will be there.”
Bishop contended, “What you really want is equal opportunity,” and discussed how to make that happen, especially regarding the disbursement of federal largess.
Curry, in discussing the “incredibly diverse city,” mentioned that “unemployment among African-American youth has skyrocketed.” In dealing with those and other intractable problems, Curry proposed “councils who will get face time with me so I can hear, understand, and learn,” thus forging “real solutions.”
The proposal echoes a similar one he made at the St. Paul’s AME forum a few weeks ago, regarding developing African-American advisory councils.
The next question, about each candidate’s three major priorities, seemed familiar and again allowed the candidates to refine their themes ahead of Wednesday’s televised debate.
For Bishop, addressing the “underfunded pension problem” is the key to many of the fixes he proposes. He agrees with Allen that “downtown is an empty hole” and proposes “aggressive economic development” to fix that, since “downtowns are tax generators.” He also would like to see jobs come to Northwest Jacksonville and other historically neglected areas.
Curry hit his public safety theme again, which he posits as “the most important function of government.” Curry said, regarding crime data that “this isn’t just data — these are lives … the Jacksonville I lead will be one where every single life matters.”
Allen, speaking third, essentially amalgamated the other candidate’s themes, reiterating that the Northside is “neglected” and that “public safety is paramount.”
The candidates expanded the crime issue soon after.
Allen began: “We have not always been the crime capital of the world. What happened?”
For Allen ,it’s a “trust issue” that can be addressed by working with the Sheriff’s Office and galvanizing people to get involved.
Bishop, meanwhile, attributed crime to “stress” from “when people are unemployed, underemployed, or don’t have money.”
At that point came the only truly dramatic moment, when Bishop, discussing the pension issue again, said “all of the 90-day audits in the world won’t create a funding source.”
Curry acknowledged Bishop’s “jab at the 90-day audit” from people who want to increase taxes, who “can’t even communicate to you how tax dollars will be spent.”
“At-risk kids need to know,” said Curry, that there is opportunity ahead.
The discussion then turned to the school-to-prison pipeline. There has been a disconnect for the most part between what the mayoral candidates and sheriff hopefuls have said during the campaign. It’s one that Bill Bishop addressed, advocating “civil citations” and the need to “stop criminalizing minor mischief.”
“When you’re in the system, you’re in the system,” he said, advocating “non-judicial” solutions to youthful indiscretions, an approach that runs counter to that of the current state attorney.
For at least two of the three candidates, there is about a week left in this journey. One of the interesting things to watch during the campaign, has been Bishop’s approach to addressing difficult questions. Time and again, Bishop has said things that are a bit more complicated than the typical soundbite.
Sometimes it doesn’t help him — as seen during the televised debate last week, when he effectively said that he would have avoided appointing all-white committee chairs if he’d known he was going to run for mayor. At other times, what Bishop says advances the discourse, which wouldn’t have happened had he not launched his campaign.
Perhaps the best example Monday evening was when he mentioned that a “city’s identity grows from within. You can’t create a brand and sell it.” What has to be done, instead, is find a way to parlay the city’s best aspects and to maximize their inherent potential, he said.
Every candidate running talks about such issues. Bishop’s messaging, though, resonates, especially with the political junkies who crave authentic communication.
It’s likely Brown and Curry will be in the runoff, and that contest will be competitive. It will be interesting to see whether one or both of the campaigns remaining after March 25 incorporates Bishop’s rhetorical approach. He’s run his campaign against all odds with a serious shortage of material resources. However, he has distinguished himself and added a depth to the discourse that might been missing had he not run.
