A.G. Gancarski
Jacksonville’s First Election, held last Tuesday, settled the majority of the Council district races: Aaron Bowman, Matt Schellenberg, Garrett Dennis, John Crescimbeni, Doyle Carter, Reggie Brown and Jim Love all won outright, joining Bill Gulliford, Lori Boyer, and Danny Becton, who ran unopposed.
There are still five Council races headed toward a May 19 runoff, however, and with that in mind, here is a quick primer. In play are three Republican districts and two Democratic districts, and these races could influence turnout for the upcoming elections for Mayor and Sheriff both.
District 1 sees a runoff between Republican Mike Anania and Democrat Joyce Morgan to replace outgoing Council member, current Council President Clay Yarborough. Anania is a longtime Republican businessman in Arlington; Morgan is familiar to local TV news viewers from her stint on WJXT-TV, where she was an anchor on the highly-rated morning show who was noted for her effervescent personality.
Anania positions himself as a “leader who cares about Arlington” and vows to “work for safer streets, healthy residential neighborhoods, and revitalized commercial corridors.” Morgan meanwhile has predicated her campaign largely on name recognition. The true test of this race will be whether Morgan’s name ID can trump the recent Republican history of this district.
District 2 sees a Republican and a Democrat emerging to replace outgoing Councilman Bill Bishop. Democrat Lisa King is touted citywide for her intelligence and her wide range of contributions to the civic discourse. But will that be enough? She faces Republican Al Ferraro, owner of a local lawn care business, in the runoff election.
King, the sole Democrat in last week’s election, got 37.51% of the vote against Ferraro and another Republican, Jack Daniels, who has been losing elections in Jacksonville for years. The expectation is that Ferraro will draw the bulk of Daniels’ support and that this district will, like District 1, stay Republican for another four years.
District 4 sees yet another runoff as candidates vie to replace the outgoing cultural conservative Don Redman. Democrat Ramon Day, a staunch advocate of LGBT rights, made the runoff against Republican Scott Wilson, a common sense conservative who probably would have won this one outright last week had he not been facing two Republican nuisance candidates in the First Election. Wilson has served in “multiple positions with the Clerk of the Courts and as Executive City Council Assistant for District 4,” according to his campaign website.
One expects, especially given a Mayoral race like the one between Lenny Curry and Alvin Brown, that party identification will carry the day for Wilson, who also benefits from having more endorsements and money than Day.
In addition to these races to replace three outgoing Republicans, there are two more races (in Districts 7 and 8) where outgoing Democrats will be replaced.
District 7‘s Democratic representative, Johnny Gaffney, actually stepped down some months back to challenge Reggie Fullwood for the State House. Gaffney did not win, of course, but District 7 could see another Democrat named Gaffney emerge to serve them in the form of Reggie Gaffney.
Gaffney is not without some baggage, including a Medicaid billing scandal from 2013 that is still fresh in the minds of many District 7 voters. His opponent, George Spencer, was endorsed by Corrine Brown on her Quick Picks (ironic, given that Gaffney used to play a prominent role in what area cynics call the “Quick Picks process”). Spencer is a polished speaker and an accountant and attorney. The problem he will have is overcoming the Gaffney legacy in the District, and its concomitant name recognition advantage.
District 8 sees a faceoff between two Democrats to replace Denise Lee: Katrina Brown and Pat Lockett-Felder. Brown (no relation to Corrine) got the Quick Picks endorsement over her opponent, a political lifer who is best known for having a monument to herself constructed at taxpayer’s expense during a previous stint on the Council.
Lockett-Felder is notable in that Democratic politicians throughout the party seem willing to go out of their way to disparage her for reasons ranging from a career dedication to disingenuous answers in candidate forums and on questionnaires to a commitment to self-aggrandizing gestures. Lee and Corrine Brown don’t agree on much, but both Jacksonville powerbrokers could do without her going to Council again.
