A.G. Gancarski
In a conference room in the suite of offices for Jacksonville’s City Council members, there is a distinctive picture of President Andrew Jackson that I had seen many times, yet I didn’t know any background about until I interviewed Councilman Tommy Hazouri on Friday. Hazouri casually remarked that he had been interning for former Jacksonville mayor Lou Ritter when that painting was commissioned.
It’s been a long time since that happened. Ritter was the last mayor before Consolidation. And Hazouri, almost a half century later, has come full circle.
Unlike the other eleven new members of City Council, Hazouri came into office with experiences that they wouldn’t have had.
Jacksonville Mayor. State Legislator. School Board member. And now, At Large Councilman.
In his office, there are pictures of Hazouri with Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, from his days atop Jacksonville’s executive branch. In one term as mayor, he says he accomplished everything he ran to do… and then some.
Yet as those who know him best say, Hazouri is in his element in government.
And government, in the legislative branch, is a policy body.
“Think about the Legislature,” Hazouri said. “A policy body.”
From there, the executive branch for four years, where he “hit the ground running,” but again, had to function within the constraints of a policy body.
From there, the Duval County School Board. Again, a policy body.
In this current role, Hazouri brings what he calls “institutional knowledge.” Though he was last mayor almost a quarter century ago, “some things never change.”
The budget is always the number one consideration. The thing that must be passed. Hazouri had 11 years on appropriations in Tallahassee. And he navigated the School Board budget process also.
Hazouri has always taken a leadership role. And compared to most every new person on Council, who more or less held their tongue, Hazouri spoke up when he saw fit.
“The first day, I talked a little bit,” the Councilman said with his old-school Jacksonville accent vaguely twanging. “I get involved.”
He did the same in committees too, he noted.
And he will continue to “ask questions,” and see “what got us where we are.”
Hazouri saw the first meeting as a “great warmup,” and as an opportunity to see the “lines of demarcation” emerge.
Lines that will transcend party labels, he added.
And that is part of the negotiation process he learned from his legislative stint.
“You deal with three thousand bills a year,” he noted, yet “once you’re done, you’re done.”
“You can’t hold people hostage for votes.”
Hazouri is one of nineteen on the Council. Yet he is only one of two former mayors on Council; the other, Bill Gulliford, was mayor of Atlantic Beach from 1988-1993.
“When you’re mayor, a lot of people come to you for your opinion,” including the press and others. “I don’t want to hog the media,” he said.
Yet he knows that he has a perspective that many neophytes on Council, at least a couple of whom were in day care when he was Jacksonville mayor, may lack.
And he has some agenda items.
One of them: making contracts more available to the public. “Transparency is very important,” Hazouri said.
Another one: making sure that library hours will be properly funded, especially in underprivileged neighborhoods where the residents rely on them for internet service and other essentials of the modern era.
To that end, even though he is not on the Finance Committee (for reasons that remain opaque), he will attend relevant Finance Committee budget hearings related to the library, as well as the Jacksonville Journey.
He sees the two as related.
“The Jacksonville Journey begins with education,” Hazouri said. “Libraries are part of the educational process,” and are essential for at-risk kids.
Another issue that Hazouri is focused on: the Human Rights Ordinance.
The Lenny Curry administration, he says, “asked for time. That’s fine with me.”
However, he added, “I’m waiting… but I’m not waiting.”
Hazouri recognizes that a lot of players have to be considered, including the Jax Chamber (with Chair Elect and HRO advocate Audrey Moran), and Equality Florida, as well as other stakeholders.
However, he adds that there’s no room for half-measures.
“Transgendered [protections are] key to the whole bill. If you don’t have it, you don’t have a bill,” Hazouri said, before asking “why should anybody be excluded?”
Protecting the whole population is the moral thing to do, and it jibes with economic development goals.
“If [passing the bill] is about competition, we should tear down every wall. If someone moves down here,” Hazouri added, “they don’t want to feel they’re moving backward.”
“Jacksonville can’t be a great city,” Hazouri continued, if it continues to allow discrimination.
“Lenny wants to do it, after budget,” Hazouri said, referencing the “very thorough” report from the General Counsel that explained “where we are and what we can do.”
“My hope is that the mayor will take the lead,” Hazouri added, under the aegis of his administration tagline One City, One Jacksonville. Phrases like that, he added, can “sometimes haunt you” if you don’t follow through with them.
Sort of like The Next Level.
Hazouri noted that Tampa and Miami, as well as Atlantic Beach, have LGBT protections in city ordinance. Jacksonville doesn’t as yet, and he ascribes some responsibility for that to former mayor Alvin Brown.
“He didn’t lead on the HRO,” Hazouri notes, adding that there are a “lot of positions he didn’t take.”
Brown, he added, “left the base” and “depended too much on Republican support.”
“If he thought Rick Scott would support him with Lenny Curry in the race,” Hazouri added, Brown was “naive.”
Hazouri, who noted that he created more jobs as mayor than Brown did in his term (while adding 300 police officers), mentions that his campaign did 2-3% better than Brown in Districts 7 through 10, where Mayor Brown was expected to score big numbers.
“His base eroded,” Hazouri said. And his challenger capitalized.
“You saw what Curry said” about the lack of city investment in the Northwest Quadrant.
The ubiquitous potholes throughout Jacksonville are so neglected out there that they are becoming “sinkholes.”
There are no Republican or Democratic potholes, he is fond of saying. And Hazouri extends that approach to public policy matters well beyond the quotidian details of road resurfacing schedules.
Tommy Hazouri is one of those rare public figures. He knows what Jacksonville was like before Consolidation; he lived it. He saw (and guided, to a considerable degree) the city’s growth, working through issues both common to Sunbelt metropolises and specific to the Bold New City of the South. And despite it all, he maintains his faith that Jacksonville not only can be, but must be, a great city.
To do that, he clearly believes that leadership is necessary.
And leadership involves taking risks.
He will do that on Council. And make no mistake: he will hold others to that standard.
