A.G. Gancarski
If I had to write my “Winners and Losers” column about the Jacksonville election again, I would put E. Denise Lee on the winners side and U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown among the losers. Neither ran in 2015, yet both might as well have, given the amount of time each spent with the campaign.
My reasoning? For all of the energy put into the “Quick Picks” process by the congresswoman, as well as rallies and other events designed to turn the base out, ultimately the Republicans carried the day. A big part of the reason was Councilwoman Lee’s staunch stance against what she saw as “race baiting” advertising from the Alvin Brown campaign. Another major factor was Lee’s insistence that no one should let a “slip of paper” tell them how to vote.
Lee never endorsed in the mayoral race. That said, what she did was arguably more important than another in the endless series of endorsement events put on by the Brown and Lenny Curry campaigns. She called attention to a process that she saw as fundamentally corrupt, predicated on the assumption that Congresswoman Brown somehow had the right to deliver a bloc of voters to Democratic candidates.
Of course, their feud is nothing new.
Lee is off Jacksonville City Council at the end of the month. But her contribution to the civic discourse is not over. She helms the Curry Transition Team Blight subcommittee. And after July 1, she could assume a similar role in the Curry administration.
The last mayor talked frequently about working with “Republicans and Democrats,” and it appears Lenny Curry is continuing that bipartisan tradition. However, if he is going to continue to work with Lee, he had better be prepared for political blowback from Congresswoman Brown.
One such attempt was reported by Action News on Friday evening, in a story called “Rep. Brown blames councilwoman for unused federal cash meant to help vets.”
In it, much was made of a letter the congresswoman sent on Wednesday, in which Brown conveyed umbrage over a federal grant awarded to the Northwest Jacksonville Community Development Corp. to help house homeless veterans going unused.
“It’s unacceptable to me that we sent the money back,” said Brown.
In a letter to the Jacksonville City Council Wednesday, Brown claims the NJCDC refused to move forward with the grant and also blames Councilwoman Denise Lee.
“In talking to the HUD, well not the HUD people, but the housing people and they indicated that she had said she didn’t want this in her district,” said Brown.
According to Brown’s letter, “it is reprehensible that the current process allowed Councilwoman Lee to single-handedly block a much needed veteran’s housing program simply because she did not want homeless veterans living in the community she represents.”
That’s how you work the media. Create a conflicted hero-versus-villain narrative, as Congreswoman Brown did. From there, the process takes on a life of its own.
Lee wouldn’t talk on camera to Action News, as the article notes. Not noted was the fact that Lee never saw the letter. It had been emailed to her assistant, Dan McDonald, who had attended a meeting in her stead.
The letter was dated Jan. 30, 2015.
A cynic would wonder what took Congresswoman Brown over four months to manufacture her outrage on this point. What exactly happened between January and June?
Well, for the first time in a couple of decades, the congresswoman’s authority and ability to deliver votes was challenged. The Democrats lost city hall. And by and large, the Quick Pick candidates who won on the Council level did so not because of Corrine Brown’s backing, but despite it.
The letter makes no mention of Denise Lee. Apropos, because, as she told Florida Politics, she didn’t even know about it.
“It’s unfortunate that an elected official would be so misinformed,” the councilwoman said of the Brown contention.
Lee, whose father and brother both served in the military, doesn’t seem like the first person who could be scapegoated for a worthy project falling by the wayside. Yet she is, in yet another installment of the ongoing Jacksonville political soap opera: “The Politics of Personal Destruction.”
For her part, Lee is not taking the bait by responding to Congresswoman Brown’s attacks, describing herself as “humbled and grateful” to be able to continue her effort fighting blight, following up on the ad hoc committee she has chaired for the past couple of years (one that incoming Council President Greg Anderson intends to make an official committee).
Lee said “all of us should be working” to remove blight, and spoke favorably of the Curry administration’s desire to make sure everyone in the city has a chance at a decent quality of life.
Will what she describes as the “misinformation, divisiveness, and division” from Congresswoman Brown hurt that effort?
It’s possible. Such memes take on a life of their own. The smart money would bet that June will include at least one or two more negative stories about Lee and former Councilman Johnny Gaffney. He’s the other major apostate from the local Democratic Party also a Curry transition committee chairman.
As with the Action News story, the more interesting details may be in the backstory. And whether the media takes the bait.
