Carrington Mead resigns as chair of Jax-area LGBT PAC

Another news cycle brings another round of drama to the Northeast Florida LGBT Leadership PAC, whose chairwoman, Carrington Mead, has stepped down amid pressure from other PAC members. They are said to see her as an obstacle to negotiations with the Mayor’s Office to get an executive order protecting LGBT community members from workplace discrimination. Mead sees it as an election year gambit.

On Friday, Florida Politics got a copy of Carrington Mead‘s resignation email sent earlier this week after the PAC’s contretemps with Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown this past weekend. It’s the second such shakeup in the past week. Ben Weaver stepped down from the PAC after a disagreement with Mead about him going to reporters with reaction before consulting with her and Jimmy Midyette, the PAC’s vice chair.

Midyette, according to the email, was involved in a negotiation with Equality Florida regarding coordinating with them — but Mead was exempted from the negotiation because she was “too volatile.” Furthermore, related Mead in the email, her departure from the PAC chair was necessary as a precondition for negotiations with Mayor Brown.

“Jimmy also stated he had been contacted by Mayor Brown’s office and was told they didn’t want to talk to me and instead wanted to talk to him and led him to believe they could work something out regarding the HRO but there would be a problem if I was still chair of the PAC,” Mead wrote. She added that Midyette wanted her to stay on as treasurer until June, when she would be “re-elected to the Chair position and it would be business as usual.”

What would the PAC talk with the mayor about? As Mead saidon the phone, there’s a “lot of talk about an executive order for employment protection” for LGBT community members. That would strictly be a measure to remedy workplace discrimination issues, and would not extend to housing or other types of discrimination.

Mead also said the measure would not really “pack a punch” and would be a gesture that would “help the mayor save face and give him the appearance of moving without doing anything at all.” She contended that those who think the mayor will move on the issue live in an “alternate universe that could never exist,” citing the mayor’s close relationship with anti-HRO pastors.

Mead asserts that Equality Florida wanted to “oust” her in order to co-opt the local organization and make it effectively an adjunct for them, doing independent fundraising while being subsumed to Equality Florida’s priorities. As Mead said to me, Equality Florida has raised “tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars” locally, but has maintained little more than a token presence.

UPDATE: After talking with Mead, I spoke with Midyette, whose recollection of events coincided with Mead’s in some ways and diverged in others.

“It would be news to me if there were an executive order,” Midyette said. “We have not had any discussions with the mayor’s office. I haven’t had any contact with the mayor’s office. Someone connected with the campaign reached out to me; he’s looking to help the mayor get re-elected.”

There “may be some possibility of getting parties in a room to talk about the HRO before May 19,” he said.

Midyette, clearly pained by his falling out with a longtime friend, said the qualms raised by Equality Florida and the Human Rights Campaign regarded the “way she behaved in [Hemming] Park [this past Saturday], which made our community partners uneasy.”

That led to an “internal process to keep the team together.” The offer to make her treasurer Midyette characterized as a “face-saving opportunity” for Mead, allowing her to “rehabilitate her image” while “keeping the heat down while we deal with groups and candidates we are trying to get elected.”

We contacted the mayor’s office as well as to his campaign for response to these claims, but no response has yet been offered from either side. If and when such response manifests, there will be an update.