Pushback for Lenny Curry’s pension-tax plan at northwest Jacksonville town hall

“I’ve heard it loud and clear tonight. People don’t trust the government. People don’t trust City Council. I heard it tonight; a gentleman said he didn’t trust me.”

Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry has two weeks left to sell County Referendum 1, which would secure a dedicated revenue source (and an actuarial solution) for the $2.7 billion unfunded pension liability.

And he’s selling the hell out of it, and is taking slings and arrows and potshots along the way, fulfilling the prediction he made earlier this year that he’d be willing to use “all his political capital” to get the referendum over on Aug. 30.

Monday afternoon saw him delivering takedowns on two critics of the plan who presented at the Jacksonville Rotary Club.

And Monday evening? A group of roughly 150 mostly African-American elders heard the sell in northwest Jacksonville at the Open Arms Christian Fellowship.

A brutal hour-plus with a crowd that didn’t vote for him in 2015, it illustrated the difficulty of selling a referendum when a big chunk of the community sees him as a partisan figure, especially in the wake of the Donald Trump rally earlier this month.

“I hear the frustration and the lack of trust in this room,” Curry said at the end, promising to “continue to show up and to listen and my budget priorities will continue to address your needs in the years ahead.”

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Curry led off with an acknowledging that, as a Republican he was at the Trump rally, but he was still dedicated to a unified city.

If he had it to do all over again, he added, he would have consulted with these pastors and explained why he was doing it.

That argument didn’t hold up for the next hour.

Curry discussed the broken promises of consolidation, with commitments to neighborhoods unheeded over the decades.

It was a different pitch than the Rotary Club. But it didn’t quite take.

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The questions got tough around 20 minutes in.

A man in the crowd said “this is all political” and a “sales tax today would go toward reducing the indebtedness of our pension fund.”

“Jacksonville is cheap. Period. Half a cent [now] would not adversely affect the people who live in Jacksonville at all,” the audience member said.

Curry pivoted back to talking points about the resistance of Tallahassee to new taxes, saying that Gov. Rick Scott would veto such a measure.

“Let me speak to the politics of this … I could have spent the next three or four years [delaying] … and bring this up in a second term,” Curry said.

When told he was “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Curry reiterated the problems with other solutions, such as a millage hike or an immediate sales tax.

The next question: what does northwest Jacksonville get out of this?

Curry, noting he has shown up and budgeted toward neighborhoods, said he is going to “continue to show up and continue to invest … particularly in certain neighborhoods.”

Adding that “budget relief” will result from this plan, Curry was interrupted with a repeat of the question: what’s in it for NW Jax?

As ever, Curry wouldn’t make a specific promise, standing by his record from his first two budgets.

***

Pastor James Sampson spoke up in a gravelly baritone, comparing the pension tax to the post-9/11 PATRIOT Act.

“My concern is you’re rushing it through … the tail is wagging the dog … the police department is wagging the city,” Sampson said, wanting collective bargaining before the referendum.

“Let’s be real clear: the police officers are making more money than President Obama,” Sampson said, describing their pensions as better than military veterans.

Sampson then said “we don’t love you,” and that Curry only got elected because “Alvin Brown was running from his blackness.”

“You don’t have a mandate,” Sampson said, and “when you stood on a platform with Donald Trump, it sent a message.”

“We will fight you until hell freezes over, and we will fight you in the ice if we have to,” Sampson said.

Sampson said the mayor of Jacksonville Beach was on record saying there were negotiations to help the beaches and Baldwin, and that this plan could wait, while the pastors “smoke it over.”

Sampson also said the Mayor promised a $100 million surplus in a private meeting.

“I appreciate your threat to take me out of office,” Curry said, “but I’m here tonight to solve a problem.”

The problem?

“A number of factors happened. The market crashed … the city did not properly fund these plans when times were good.”

“For years and years and years,” Curry said, the city underinvested with “pension holidays.”

“We’re having such a public conversation on this issue … that the citizenry is awake,” Curry said, so it won’t happen again.

And then Curry heard from a member of the Kemetic Empire, one of those booted out of the Trump rally.

He wanted to know what would come of the “large gap” in relations between officers and African-Americans, with some of his relatives casualties of this.

“It’s not going to hurt Mandarin,” he said of the tax, “but they aren’t being patrolled the way we are.”

Curry said the Sheriff agrees “engagement” is necessary with the community.

“I work with the Sheriff. I have a great relationship with him,” Curry said. “I will continue to work with him … there has to be community engagement.”

Curry then discussed the shortage of officers, saying that “boots on the ground” are necessary to improve relationships.

Then he asked the Kemetic Empire member to put himself in the place of a cop who, when he was young, planned on this pension.

“We can talk about a whole list of issues. We can talk about Donald Trump,” Curry said, “but we have a pension debt that impacts this entire city.”

Commentator Ben Frazier then said, “Mr. Mayor, we don’t trust you. You sound like so many other mayors … who spoke with forked tongues.”

“We’ve given you a year, and we’ve seen things we don’t like,” Frazier said, noting that Curry “shunned” President Obama when he came to town, but stood “next to Donald Trump, a known racist.”

“Mr. Mayor, do you just don’t get it? Nobody likes being played,” Frazier said.

“We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore. You can’t expect us to give you a pass … you’re not getting it. I don’t understand what’s going on with you,” Frazier said.

Activist Denise Hunt noted that she “sold” the mayor to these people, and in the wake of Trump, Curry let her down.

Then she wanted to know if Curry had plans to pay “reparations” to the families of Vernell Bing and others who died at the hands of “rogue police.”

“I trusted you,” Hunt said.

And so it went. It was a tough hour. Maybe one of the toughest Curry has encountered as Mayor.

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Denise Lee, at the end of the program, worked a miracle, however, explaining the history of the pension issue and urging that the community “not be led by the street committee.”

“I quit my job, because I know when I leave here this evening, people will say I did that because I worked for Lenny Curry. I could no longer sit here [listening to the misrepresentation] as a former elected official,” Lee said.

“If it’s extended, we will have a dedicated source,” Lee said, as opposed to hidden user fees and JEA costs.

“I’m a little nervous. I feel like I’m in trouble here. But I’m telling the truth,” Lee said.

****

Though Lee managed to bring back at least some of the crowd, one important person was still unmoved.

Rep. Corrine Brown, wearing a green pantsuit, showed up at the church the day before her most recent trial hearing — this one on Tuesday, regarding counsel.

When asked whether she supported this referendum, she offered two words: “no comment.”