Peter Schorsch
Weeks before taking office, Lenny Curry is already advocating for Jacksonville’s public safety, leveraging relationships with state-level Republicans to make this happen.
As Tia Mitchell of the Florida Times-Union reported last week, Mayor-elect Curry recently was in Tallahassee, touching base with key legislators and thanking some of those who had been key supporters in the mayoral race.
Of course, it wasn’t just a social call for Curry. He had some business to conduct, also.
One such piece of business: dealing with a federal grant that had lapsed under the Alvin Brown administration, which would help to keep police on the street.
Curry explained to the lawmakers that state dollars would help the city handle its end of the federal matching dollars. He followed that up with a letter to Senators Aaron Bean, Lizbeth Benacquisto, Travis Hutson, and Tom Lee.
“An untapped resource in Jacksonville’s recent budget years has been a matching grant program from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) within the U.S. Department of Justice,” Curry wrote.
With a “local/state contribution of $859,248,” Curry continued, the Feds would provide an additional $572,915. This money would allow for the hiring of fifteen new police officers by November 2015.
These officers would be directed to the hotbeds of violent crime.
Curry asked the legislators for $429,624, half of the total sum. The other half, he wrote, would be identified via a joint effort of Curry and Sheriff Elect Mike Williams.
Curry got $250,000 toward that total.
It’s these types of relationships that Curry will have to leverage in Tallahassee during the next four years. What’s clear though is that even before he takes office, he’s getting the work in.
Here is the letter Curry wrote:
