A.G. GancarskiLess than a year ago, conservative Republicans Jay Fant and Paul Renner fought a bitter primary battle in House District 15. Fant was ahead big in the polls at first, but Renner went on the attack and came within three votes of closing the gap.
Now both men share at least two new commonalities: Both are House incumbents, Fant from HD 15 and Renner from HD 24. Also, in a show of party unity that transcends party rancor, both have united to support Lenny Curry for mayor.
The unity moment happened at the headquarters of Load King, a company that manufactures Starbucks kiosks distributed nationwide. As has been the case during this campaign season, Curry and Fant toured the facility (with Renner running late in I-95 traffic). Curry asked probing questions about help the business has gotten from the city.
“Every year that passes, the process gets more cumbersome,” company owner Charles Chupp told Curry, regarding dealing with the city’s bureaucracy and permitting processes. Curry spoke with Chupp and employees about the interface between small business and local government. He promised a “deep review” of issues of importance to small businesses relative to zoning, permitting, and utility rates, promising to “fast track” business requests with the goal of “making it easy to create jobs” for local small and medium sized businesses.
“I love seeing real work happening,” Curry said over the din of production as we toured the plant.
The endorsement event started with a joke from Chupp, who introduced Jay Fant as “an old friend. I used to date his mother.” He quickly added that it was before Jay’s mother became Mrs. Fant.
Fant deadpanned a response: “Thank you for the family history.”
Fant and Renner talked about the very close election they had last summer.
“One changed vote could have made it a dead heat,” Fant said. “Every vote counts.”
Citing Curry’s “analytical background,” Fant said Curry has “run cleanly with an eye toward private enterprise.”
Curry was no less fulsome in his praise for Fant, saying he was “grateful for your support as friend and state representative. You know what it is to create jobs.”
Then Curry delivered his larger message that he has “visited with businesses like this to understand their needs. The city is not positioned to be a better city in the years ahead” on its current trajectory.
“Whether I’m talking to people on their front porches or in businesses, I hear the same desire … for Jacksonville to be a better place,” he said.
Curry reiterated what he heard on the plant tour; that the regulatory environment, zoning, and permitting processes are too cumbersome and too slow, and vowed to “turn the process around,” vowing to “eliminate redundancies” and make Jacksonville “open for business.”
“I’m asking you to trust me for the next four years,” Curry said, before going into his own personal narrative: son of a Navy veteran turned TV repairman, turned small business owner. Curry wanted to go into the family business himself; his dad pushed him toward college.
Despite that, Curry has never lost track of his blue-collar roots.
“I’ve never had an opportunity to wake up a day in my life where I didn’t feel like I had to fight for something.”
That’s a singular insight into the tenacity Curry has brought to the campaign trail. Some Republicans on council may have recoiled from that, in terms of offering endorsements. But for Fant and Renner, Curry’s pugnacious spirit and pro-business agenda is clearly something they can roll with, and their endorsement is expected to help with the Westside conservative vote.
