A.G. Gancarski
As regular readers of this site know, we have been in attendance for a number of the Lenny Curry Transition Committee meetings at Jacksonville University. Tuesday’s meeting of the Operations, Human Resources, and Productivity Committee is the third we’ve covered involving this group. This is the first, however, after Committee Chair Kerri Stewart was picked as Chief of Staff.
Stewart has run these meetings with a soft touch, building consensus and not abusing any prerogatives as the chair. She has billed herself as a “moderate Republican,” and her selection by the Curry team should be a signal to the social conservatives in the local GOP that Curry, though he needed them in the campaign, doesn’t necessarily need them in public facing roles to govern. For those who have wondered if Curry would be in the pocket of the Raymond Johnson wing of the party, they needn’t wonder any longer.
With the next four years in mind, today’s Operations committee meeting has to be observed in two ways. The specific recommendations, of course, matter. But just as salient: how she builds consensus in the framework of the meeting, marshalling soft power.
She walked into the room at two minutes after nine, and, receiving congratulations, Stewart led with a joke.
“Let’s just say it. Channel 4 announced that I was chief of stiff. I’m not even on the job yet, and I got a promotion.”
Stewart mentioned in 2003, when she was working on John Peyton‘s transition, she made a typo of her own.
“Pubic works.”
“John Baker was chair of the committee, and said it very quietly,” she observed.
So everyone has a spellcheck story.
What is clear is that Stewart has an encyclopedic knowledge of how city government works. The departments, their functions, who to talk to and where their office is. For Lenny Curry, this inside knowledge will be indispensable.
A couple of segments of the larger meeting illustrated this point.
One such was when discussion moved onto the combination of community services and parks into a single department. Stewart asked the group: does that make sense?
“They were put together for the fiscal needs at the time,” said Stewart, but “if I were a citizen going to look for help, I wouldn’t go and look in the Parks and Rec department.”
“We do have to think about the optics of that,” she added.
Another point that came up: why public parking was under Economic Development. Stewart’s explanation: that public parking, and infrastructural management, has been key to bringing businesses downtown, and is integral to economic development.
Succinct. Precise. Erudite without overstating the case.
I spoke to Stewart after the meeting, to get her thoughts on her new position.
I mentioned her use of “soft power” in these meetings. She knew what I meant, but issued a caveat.
“I’ve always had a collaborative management style,” she said, “but I am also incredibly decisive.”
In the transition committee meetings, she sought to “bring input in” and “educate and expose government to people who may not understand how it works.”
That being said, she seeks to “be collaborative, but not to the point where decisions can’t be made in a timely fashion.”
Stewart was Chief Administrative Officer herself, and the new CAO, Sam Mousa, is not generally acknowledged for his collaboration skills.
A question: how will they work together?
Stewart’s answer: very well.
“Sam and I worked together at the beginning of the Peyton administration,” on the Courthouse construction, and “I’ve been able to work with Sam very well over the last twelve years.”
“I’ve walked in Sam’s shoes,” she adds, “and what it takes to do that job well is to stay in your lane.”
“Sam and I have already had discussions,” Stewart said about the collaboration, and they are of like mind.
“Straight up and direct,” she said, were the personality traits Mousa and she share.
“We work great together,” Stewart adds. “I can’t imagine a better choice for CAO.”
They definitely are two veteran hands that Curry will need as he moves from campaign and transition mode into the seat of power. One major question I had: how will the new team handle the gap between what Stewart called “campaign promises and operational reality.”
For her, it starts with the “full audit of the financial side,” which is “kicking off tomorrow.”
Curry, she says, was “very deliberate in saying” that Jacksonville needs a “full and comprehensive independent audit.”
Our discussion moved on to Stewart’s role as Chief of Staff. Rumor has it that at least one high-powered member of the Duval GOP wanted that position.
How will the Curry administration keep party regulars in line?
“I was not a part of the campaign,” Stewart observed, “and what people’s expectations are I can not speak to. Mayor Curry will lead the entire city. He’s already demonstrating that he will lead the community as a whole. How that plays out with the Republican Party,” she added, “I don’t know what the expectations are.”
Citing his outreach to City Council members, including a lunch meeting on Thursday, Stewart adds that Curry is “not going to stop being a Republican, but he will be a mayor for the entire community.”
One part of the community that has felt slighted by the Brown Administration: the LGBT contingent.
Two former mayors, including one on Council, support a renewed push for a Human Rights Ordinance.
Curry is on board, says Stewart.
“He will lead on the issue, and convene [stakeholders] sooner rather than later,” she says, after the independent audit and the budget process, which is at the forefront right now.
Curry is “committed to lead on this issue and he will do so,” Stewart adds.
Questions being considered include the real issues at stake, and the dialogue necessary to bring the two sides together, and whether a legislative solution is what is needed.
Stewart cited, again, Curry’s desire for strong relationships with Council.
“It’s a new day,” she says, regarding those relationships. Curry’s bonds with incoming Council President Greg Anderson and VP Lori Boyer will help with this and other hot button issues.
The Alvin Brown administration, of course, had a great Chief of Staff in Chris Hand, a man who got very little of the credit he deserved. Hand was focused on making sure his boss looked good, and that the city was in a position to succeed. It is clear that in many key respects, Stewart is prepared for this role, and should be able to deflect the myriad distractions that can make a first year in office for a new mayor rockier than it has to be.
