A.G. Gancarski
When it comes to the Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension, nothing is easy. Not even a 4-1 vote by the Police and Fire Pension Board to approve 2015-304, the agreement passed by Jacksonville’s City Council by a 14-4 margin at last week’s meeting.
A lot of passions were stirred; passions about making sure the first responders were taken care of. As well, passions from participants in the process, related to unfair portrayals of their efforts in social media and in the “paper of record.”
It was obvious when board members, such as former University of North Florida President Adam Herbert and former Sheriff Nat Glover, explained their reasons for approving the bill. Herbert said that while deliberating over how to vote on the bill, it was “hard to go to sleep at night.” For Glover, however, it went deeper.
Glover, Jacksonville’s first and so far only black sheriff, gave real talk about how when he was elected, the ranks experienced “the highest spike … in attrition rates.”
“It just so happened” that the officers who quit “were all white.”
Glover brought in “new, young white kids” who “if I told them to run through that wall for me, they did it.”
During a public hearing Thursday, he began to have qualms.
“I felt like I was betraying them.”
He felt awful, he said. However, “with hesitation and reservation,” he supported the reform.
“We have to look at the entire playing field and cut a deal.”
Three of his four colleagues on the board agreed with him. A 4-1 vote looks clean, if you don’t look at it closely enough.
But look at this one closely.
It took a lot of pain, blues, and agony. A lot of paying the cost to be the boss. For board members, for the mayor and his team, and for council members alike.
Consider Stephen Joost, who talked about how “nobody knows what I had to endure, including Facebook campaigns to get me fired from my company,” Firehouse Subs, that nonetheless stood by him as he advocated “shared sacrifice.”
And consider John Keane, the oft-maligned executive director and administrator of the Police and Fire Pension Fund for almost a quarter-century now. As Mayor Alvin Brown, Council President Clay Yarborough, and Councilman Bill Gulliford made their statements for media consumption, Keane stood off to the side, dabbing his eyes. His 73-year-old face, usually a repository of reserve, was flush with emotion. He stood there, the speeches going on just feet away from him, staring. And then Keane took the mike.
“My wife,” he began, “she’s had to endure unimaginable heartache from the vicious stories in the media.”
He didn’t say much after that in the media availability. But Florida Politics asked him to what vicious stories he referred.
“This has been a long struggle,” Keane said. “I know how prisoners feel when they’re released.”
One thing he is specifically released from: a deliberate misinformation campaign, helmed by the Florida Times-Union and its editor, Frank Denton, who Keane called on more than one occasion.
“I asked to come see him,” Keane said, still emotional, “but he never scheduled the appointment.”
“Many times the media put things in they knew were wrong,” Keane said, out of “animosity and ignorance.”
They ignored attempts at “correction after correction,” 10 or 15 calls at least, “until we just gave up.”
“They continued to say there was a ‘secret plan,’ and they knew better. The Times-Union wrote many false stories about us,” Keane said. “They tried to make me out to be a crook.”
Keane is optimistic about the future going forward with Sam Mousa and Lenny Curry.
“He absolutely is the best person Mayor Curry could have selected,” Keane said, adding that Mousa will focus on “deliverables.”
Does hope spring eternal in Jacksonville? Does it ever?
Gulliford compared the current accord to getting through the first quarter of a game. The financing piece has to be worked out. That said, all the stakeholders are, finally, on board. Thus ensuring Brown a legacy he can point to in the coming decades, with every bit as much pride as other former one-term mayors (Ed Austin and Tommy Hazouri) could point to theirs.
