A.G. Gancarski
Most Jacksonville City Council members don’t get national publicity unless they commit a gaffe of one type or another.
Anna Brosche represents an exception to that rule.
Brosche, the first Asian-American on Jacksonville’s City Council, is a trailblazer in many respects. To the large and proud Filipino-American community, her story has been of interest well beyond the borders of the Sunshine State.
The latest manifestation of this interest: a longform profile piece in The FilAm Metro D.C.
Broschephiles will find this of interest, as she talks about growing up as a Navy kid, marrying a Naval officer, and her road to public office in Jacksonville, a city which has twice as many Filipino families as other counties in Florida (a proportion no doubt abetted by so many Navy people choosing Jacksonville as a residence after retirement).
Brosche, a Jacksonville native, describes herself in the piece as “the daughter of a Filipino who joined the United States Navy in his pursuit of the American Dream.”
She also talked about an experience all too familiar to children of military families: the inevitable transfer.
“This is true of all military families. You move every two to three years and you move in the middle of the school year,” she said. “When I was in eighth grade after I have spent about three years of establishing friendships, I had to pick up and move to a new town and be entered into a new class in a public school. I was always the new person in a new school.
“Because I grew up a child in the military, I am familiar with what it means to serve as a military wife and I have a support system in my parents when my husband is away for military service.”
Citing her youthful affinity for Ronald Reagan as what attracted her to the Republican Party, Brosche again reiterated her interest in “bringing my accounting experience to the $1 billion general services budget for Jacksonville that the city council reviews.”
As Florida Politics reported Wednesday, the Curry budget is in draft form and will be presented to Council on Monday morning.
Tapped to be vice chairwoman of the Jacksonville Finance Committee in her first year on the council, it is clear that Council President Greg Anderson intends to utilize Brosche’s accounting aplomb to its fullest potential.
