A.G. Gancarski
On the campaign trail, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said the city wasn’t getting what it deserved from Tallahassee.
In the 2016 Legislative Session, Curry delivered. He made frequent trips out west to lobby lawmakers and the Governor regarding the pension tax and other local priorities. And he enlisted Marty Fiorentino to helm a concerted lobbying effort, involving the Fiorentino Group, Southern Strategy Group, and Ballard and Partners, to that end.
It worked out well. $1.86 million of $2 million of requested appropriations came back from Tallahassee… the first time in six years that happened. Curry told us Tuesday that his team “knocked it out of the park” in this year’s budget process, which was a “win by any stretch,” scoring a “90 percent success rate” on the city’s goals.
Thursday, Curry and other local and state officials came together to tell the rest of the media that same story.
“This is what winning looks like… and it’s only the beginning,” Curry said, adding that the tax dollars that came back home “aligned with the priorities” of the city, specifically related to public safety and neighborhoods.
Curry said the winning strategy was rooted in setting priorities, creating buy-in, and teamwork among local and state legislators.
Among those wins: $250,000 for the COPS program, allowing a “data driven” approach to crime fighting in hotspots; $900,000 for the Jacksonville Re-entry Center, which the Sheriff says is a “big deal,” allowing them to help over 1,000 former convicts “re-enter society in a productive way”; $500,000 of state money for the Moncrief/Dinsmore bridge, which along with $1.1 million in city money will allow the project to be completed by the end of 2017; and $202,450 for stormwater improvements in the Julington-Cormorant area.
“Public safety and neighborhoods,” said Curry, were the “focus in this session” and “will be the focus in the years ahead.”
Representative Mia Jones noted that the Delegation brought home over $11 million for the University of North Florida, over $4 million for Edward Waters College, and $2 million for Florida State College Jacksonville’s North Campus… all of which will “positively impact [local] quality of life.”
While Senator Aaron Bean was “disappointed that the Ferry wasn’t funded,” Jacksonville’s “big year” was driven, in no small part, by the Mayor, in Tallahassee so much that Bean quipped that Curry should have had “desk space in [his] office.”
Bean noted, after the presser, that his relationship with Governor Scott had “improved dramatically” and was “back to square one” after a tough year.
“Last year, every single thing I put forth was vetoed. This year, I got a fair shake,” Bean said, citing the USS Adams Museum million dollar appropriation as a “huge deal for downtown Jacksonville.”
Even though he wasn’t thrilled with vetoes of appropriations for Guiding Stars, Gateway Community Services, and the St. Johns River Ferry, Bean agreed that it was a good year.
