A.G. Gancarski
Tuesday saw the first public notice meetings by candidates for 2017-18 Jacksonville City Council leadership.
And both of them were productive for the candidates.
In the VP race, Scott Wilson came out of the 2:00 meeting with two pledges: current VP John Crescimbeni and Bill Gulliford.
Wilson, running against Aaron Bowman, now has a 3-1 lead in pledges (counting himself).
It will take 10 to win.
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Crescimbeni, at 3:00, held his first public notice meeting of his presidential bid against Republican first-termer Anna Brosche.
Crescimbeni, on the council more often than not since 1991, has never attained the presidency.
A group of council members — Gulliford, Crescimbeni, Greg Anderson, Jim Love, and Tommy Hazouri — signed on very quickly, giving Crescimbeni a 6 to 1 advantage over Brosche in the early going.
Gulliford noted that Crescimbeni needs to get the other four necessary pledges very quickly, given Brosche’s entry into the race.
Gulliford, who believes that “tradition” dictates the VP move up to the top job barring extraordinary circumstances, noted that he’d be “hard-pressed to serve in any standing committee in [the Brosche] administration.”
[We asked Brosche for her thoughts on Gulliford’s declaration, and she was terse.
“Good to know,” she texted.]
“The administration doesn’t play in our sandbox. Outside entities don’t play in our sandbox,” Gulliford noted.
While people can “fight like cats and dogs” in the VP race, Gulliford denoted that shouldn’t be the case in the presidential derby.
The 2016 VP race saw Crescimbeni amass his first six pledges quickly, then momentum stalled out … though it all worked out at the end when one pledge, Reggie Gaffney, flipped and supported Crescimbeni in the end.
This time around, Crescimbeni seeks to avoid any uncertainty.
And his allies, on the grounds of “tradition” and experience on the council, seem interested in helping him.
