FOLIO
Political campaigns are by their very nature given to hyperbole and histrionics, making mountains out of molehills and parsing every uttered syllable in search of a possible attack vector. We all know that. And that’s a not-insignificant reason why people hate politics and politicians in general.
But last week’s back-and-forth between Jacksonville’s two leading mayoral candidates was nonetheless illuminating, if only because it succinctly illustrated how vacuous this race is, and perhaps how precious little difference there really is between the incumbent Democratic mayor and his main Republican rival.
To recap: Alvin Brown released his first campaign ad — with a cameo by Toney Sleiman — in which he boasted about firing government workers and cutting his own salary and not raising taxes, which kinda makes you wonder why Brown hasn’t jumped to the GOP already. Lenny Curry’s team immediately pounced, pointing out that, actually, taxes did go up during Brown’s tenure. “Consider that just last year, 2014, Alvin Brown accepted a city budget with a property tax hike of 14%,” Curry’s press release declared.
That much is true, but the key word there, of course, is “accepted”; even if City Council passed a tax hike in 2013 (and kept the higher rates in 2014), Team Curry argues, it had to because Brown’s budget had a massive shortfall. On that, I think, Curry has a point, though I’m not sure how salient it will be to the electorate. And really, does doing what you have to do during an economic crisis — even if Brown avoided taking ownership of the tax hike his budget required — somehow constitute bad governance now? And does it also constitute what the Curry camp has labeled “Alvin Brown’s biggest lie”? For good measure, Curry also blasted Brown for cutting police funding, as if the mayor could have waived a magic revenue wand and refilled the city’s coffers.
Then, in a subsequent press release, Curry hit Brown for his proposal — which City Council never took seriously anyway — to funnel $11.8 million into The Jacksonville Landing.
“Throwing nearly $12 million at spacial [sic] interests while kids are being gunned down in the street because of fewer cops is not simply outrageous it’s disgusting,” Curry spokesman Brian Hughes (who should really hire a copy editor) said in a statement.
So should we take that to mean that Lenny Curry will not be pumping any money into Downtown renovation, that he’d be cool with letting The Landing rot, that he thinks a thriving urban core isn’t worthy of public investment? Or is it that Lenny Curry, until recently Rick Scott’s right-hand man, now opposes giving tax money to corporate interests, or maybe just corporate interests who support his opponent?
And while we’re at it, is Curry promising to never let a tax increase escape City Hall under his watch, no matter the exigent circumstances? Because that doesn’t seem too pragmatic.
I put these questions to Hughes. What follows was, in toto, the reply. See if you can spot anything approaching a policy specific:
“Attributable to Lenny Curry: ‘The first priority for a vibrant downtown that has connections to diverse neighborhoods is public safety. My first priority as mayor will be to ensure the safety of Jacksonville’s families. Once that priority is met, we will then prioritize investments in projects that allow our economy to grow and business owners to create jobs. These investments must be contained in balanced budgets and without tax hikes. I will work with Jacksonville families and City Council to ensure we reach our potential with fiscal discipline that respects the taxpayers. None of these positive steps can occur when murder and violent crime plague our city.'”
Which I take as: no tax increase but lots more money for cops (which means, unless the city’s revenue base grows quickly and substantially, cutting elsewhere, though he doesn’t say where, of course), and other stuff if we get to it.
Not to be outdone, the Brown camp is harping on Curry’s claim to not be a politician, which is, yes, asinine given that the man ran the Republican Party of Florida. He’s never been an elected official, fine, but Lenny Curry is most definitely a political animal — there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, by the way — and he shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
But so what if he does? If Lenny Curry, who left his post as state’s Republican Party chair to run for the mayor of one of its major cities, wants to tell people he’s not a politician, that his prerogative. More troubling to me is that, so far, his campaign hasn’t said much else of any importance. We know that he’s the father of some adorable children, and we know he ran a business. That’s terrific. But we don’t know where he stands on the human rights ordinance, and we know very little about what his legislative priorities would be or how a Curry administration would be fundamentally better (or at least different) than a second Brown administration. Instead, we’re being asked to trust him, because he’s a father — as if procreating somehow entitles one to office — and a business owner and not a politician. That’s not good enough.
Right now we know that he dislikes tax hikes, just like Alvin Brown, and he’s dodged on the HRO, just like Alvin Brown, and he’s scored a lot of campaign dough, just like Alvin Brown.
Curry is by all accounts a smart, personable man, and perhaps he would bring a level of efficiency and competence to city government that Brown’s administration has lacked (according to its critics, anyway). But he needs to start coloring in the lines.
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