130 | INFLUENCE WINTER 2016 elected since 1987). Brown had polled as high as 70 percent midway through his only term, but Curry and his team saw the city’s first African-American mayor as vulnerable nonetheless. Meanwhile, in marketing the pension referendum, they fulfilled a different function: making the case for the pension reform measures, and microtargeting the message to various constituencies, overcoming resistance, and creating a resounding mandate for an extended current tax contingent on meaningful policy reforms. Those policy reforms are the main course on Mayor Curry’s plate for at least the next few months. Collective bargaining and renegotiation of the various pension plans, statutory prerequisites to securing the funding, is an ongoing process, one Curry would like some resolution on before the next budget cycle. The mayor noted that he and union heads, in marketing the proposal in Tallahassee and to Jacksonville voters in the referendum, “traveled the same road together in the Legislature and through the vote,” ultimately agreeing “we had to have an option to fund this liability once and for all.” Curry noted there are two sets of “Pretty early on I knew I was going to do this,” Curry added. “There was no other way forward. I wasn’t going to let it sit for four years.” When asked if polling drove his approach, Curry was blunt. “The big decisions I make to move forward, I do not make them based on polling data,” Curry said, noting political operatives would have told him “this is bad politics … if you’re concerned about your popularity or favorability.” “What a political operation does for me,” Curry continued, “is it allows me to take bold initiatives and ideas and communicate those ideas outside the policy sphere to people and share the ideas with them and engage them.” Indeed, Curry’s political team is regarded as the best in Northeast Florida. Brian Hughes of Go Meteoric and Tim Baker of Data Targeting were central to Curry’s evolution from a private citizen and party operative into a first-rate politician. In the mayor’s race, Curry’s team crafted a compelling narrative around Curry, while telling the story of the policy and governance failures of one-term Democratic Mayor Alvin Brown (the first Democrat stakeholders – “taxpayers and employees” — and his job is to find a “solution that values and respects both of those parties in a very real way.” “I think that’s the path to success,” Curry noted, describing the proposals as “transformational” and “setting the stage for a dialogue beyond Jacksonville.” Despite the optimistic language, those close to Curry expect the negotiations between the mayor’s team and the “union bosses” will be fractious and take some time. Beyond the city’s pension predicament, Curry also had to deal with coordinating the consolidated city’s response to Hurricane Matthew. Even though Jacksonville was spared a direct hit, the impact from the “100-year storm” was still severe. Curry used a sports metaphor to describe the process of being “in the zone” during storm preparation and recovery. “I was completely and totally at comfort and at ease in handling the decision making, the preparation, and the communication,” the mayor said. “I can’t explain it. I was just there,” Curry added. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and Gov. Rick Scott participate in an emergency briefing relating to Hurricane Matthew, which raked Jacksonville in early October, causing widespread flooding, coastal erosion, and power outages. PHOTO: Wesley Lester POLITICIAN OF THE YEAR
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