After throwing the city's schools and children, and W.C. Gentry under the bus, who will Lenny Curry throw next.

I hope the Jacksonville City Council understands that Lenny Curry does not have your back. That if he is willing to throw the city's children and schools under the bus on behalf of a handful of mega donors with charter interests, and then lifelong republican and locally revered lawyer W.C. Gentry for following the law, it's just a matter of time before one of them is next.

Now I don't think it will be Aaron Bowman, no he is Curry's attack dog, council president Scott "aww shucks" Wilson, while he is the president he is still needed or Rory "the only kids that have a chance are kids that go to charter schools" Diamond, his soul is just as black as Curry's but for all the democrats that have "gone along" with his agenda, there time is bound to come. Heaven help them if the have a bout of conscious.

Tommy Hazour, Jac'coby Pittman, Brenda Preistly Jackson, better not waiver for a second or they will have tread marks all over them like W.C. Gentry does.

Nate Monroe had a great tweet about this,

 

In Curry's world you are useful until you aren't and then the bus comes. 

W.C. Gentry goes from lifelong republican to liberal conspirator in one Curry Tweet.

I didn’t think much of W.C. Gentry when he was on the school board. He had run successfully for other offices a couple times before and getting elected to something, anything felt like it was just on his to do list. His four years there were relatively unremarkable.

That’s not to say he hasn’t done things.

From Florida Politics.

W.C. Gentry is a man whose roots are deeply embedded in Jacksonville. He has been one of the leading trial attorneys in the area in the last half century. His contributions to the civic good, such as helping Mayor Tommy Hazouri as a Special Counsel to mitigate the noxious odors created by local paper mills, serving as Chair of the Jacksonville Journey Education Subcommittee under John Peyton, and winning a staggering $11B settlement over Big Tobacco, cannot be discounted either. He also served a 4 year term on the School Board.

Now Gentry is wading into the public arena again, via a Thursday endorsement of Lenny Curry in the Jacksonville mayoral race.

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/183138-w-c-gentry-endorses-lenny-curry-for-mayor-decries-lack-of-leadership-from-alvin-brown

Wait what?!? Record scratch. He endorsed Lenny Curry? More than that however he gave him thousands of dollars too.

Gentry is also such a raging liberal that he was also appointed to the charter review commission.

Lenny Curry is willing to say and do anything to get his way. Just recently he lied about the sale of the JEA and did so again through ommision about all the lot J caveats. He bullied everyday citizens on twitter, has strong armed the city attorney into ignoring the law and giving him a favorable ruling, called a long time republican a liberal I guess in the hopes his base will turn against him and said he should be investigated, shrugged his shoulders at attempted extortion by two of his top lieutenants and sold out the city’s children and schools to benefit his mega donors. This man is not ethical enough to run a lemonade stand let alone a city but there he is.

Friends when Curry attempted to throw Gentry under the bus that was bad but he also directed the city attorney to ignore the law and give him the ruling he wants and that’s chilling.

We are not being led we are being ruled.

After Lenny Curry’s tweet the OGC should recuse themselves from any referendum business

In a late night tweet Lenny Curry basically ordered the office of general council to come up with a ruling favorable to the city about the sales tax referendum. Such hubris on Curry’s part, he may think he is king but he is not. He may think he is the city but he is not.

The OGC is already seen as being in the pocket of Curry for its recent decisions on the tax referendum. In order to allow the city council to usurp the school boards authority, a junior attorney in the office ignored statutes and changed the meaning of the word “they”.

From the Jaxson,

Historically, the school board would simply send a proposal of this nature to City Council to put on an upcoming ballot, and it would be up to the voters to vet it. Democratic checks and balances, what a time that was! Now, however, the City Council has decided it is the gatekeeper for when and whether the voters get a say at all. Their position was bolstered by a memorandum from the city’s General Council, Jason Gabriel, who is not a human lawyer but rather a sentient weather vane that moves in the direction of the prevailing winds blowing out of the mayor’s office. Apparently, none of Florida’s other, human general councils have made such a judgment in their jurisdictions.

https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/forward-school-issues-directly-to-the-mayor-council/

First if you haven’t subscribed to the Jaxon you should and second Gabriel has to see the writing on the wall. Unless he thinks he is going to be able to ride Lenny Curry’s coattails until he hangs up his shingle he has to see the damage all this is doing to his reputation.

Anyway all that referendum stuff was bad, but Gabriel somehow found a way to make it worse. It turns out the initial memo that through the city into disarray was just a memorandum, that had zero force of law that the OGC allowed the city to think had the force of law until councilman Garett Dennis called them on it and demanded an official ruling.  

Only then did Jason Gabriel announce he would have a ruling by mid-august dragging his feet in an obvious attempt to run out the clock in an effort to permanently stop the referendum process.

Jason Gabriel’s opinion should now be rendered moot after the mayor’s tweet and he should immediately recuse himself.  

Instead of saying to city attorney, let the law take you where it takes you, the mayor implied there were two different types of law, his and those, liberals, who dared disagree with him.

We are here because of a dubious reading of the law and an OGC office that let a memorandum stand for weeks. Now with this tweet how can there be any confidence that this OGC office won’t just do the bidding of king Curry.

If Fischer and the mayor have their way you can follow the tax referendum money right to city Hall

The tax referendum fight has nothing to do with what's good for our schools, children and city. It's all about who will control the 1.4 billion the money half cent sales tax would bring in. City Hall wants it and woe to anyone including children who get in their way.

Want proof of that? Well look no farther than Jason Fischer's proposal to strip the people of their ability to elect their school board representative and he is doing so with a parliamentary trick that excludes the people of Jax from even voting on it.

Who would control the school board and that 1.4 billion dollars if Fischer got his way? The mayor and his mega donors on the civic council.

Greed runs this city with whats right and decent thrown out with the baby and the bath water.

As despondent about this as I am, I am loving Warren Jones who has finally taken the filter off. More of us should follow his lead.

   

Jason Fischer's game is hypocrisy

I want to point a couple things about Fischer out.

Fischer ran for soil and water before he ran for school board.

He turned that first race partisan when he somehow got Jeb Bush to endorse him. He was caught publicly lying a few times so I thought he was sunk, but hey Mandarin. 

He quit to run for the state house.

In his day job he literally works for the states voucher king, John Kirtley.  

Then he routinely inserts millions into the state budget for his super donors pet charter school. The donor Gary Chartrand does not live in Jacksonville and the school, KIPP, isn't in Fischer's district.

That's just a few of his hits.

At tonight's School Board meeting, Ashley Smith Juarez made a great point about Fischer.
  



Jason Fischer who started his political career by being elected to the school board now wants to end Jacksonville's ability to vote for school board members. You know because reasons.

Also I always thought a central tenant to republican politics was democracy works best when it is closest to the people. It's more responsive and more direct. His proposal guts direct democracy.

That's the thing about Fischer, he has no code, he has no scruples. he says and does what he thinks will benefit him and him alone and he doesn't care if he lavishes public money on his donors or tries to strip voters of their right to pick their Representatives.

Jason Fischer doesn't just represent all that is wrong in politics but all that is wrong in humanity as well.

City Council refuses to meet with the school board

During today's finance committee meeting, packed with anti-public education zealots, they deferred the special tax referendum. That was not unexpected. That they refused to meet with the school board is.

The school board and city council have a joint session scheduled for August 14th , when city attorney Jason Gabriel is finally supposed to have an opinion if the school board is subservient to the council or not and to discuss all the answers to the city councils tax referendum questions.

The problem is time is a commodity that the school board does not have much of, so they asked the city council if they would be willing to meet sooner and they declined.

Why? Probably because they know the specious reasons they used to interfere are falling away and they want to switch to plan B which is run out the clock, to make it impossible for the school board to have the referendum this year. As it is now DCPS will have to push it back to January.

The city council should be ashamed of themselves. First they tried to use specious reasons to usurp the school board's authority and now they are trying to run out the clock just so a handful of super donors can reap millions in public money. They don't care about kids or schools or even the city in their Pyrrhic attempt to dismantle DCPS.

Friends we aren't being led, we are being ruled.

At this point silence about the attacks on public education is the same as complicity

First they came for the teachers, blaming them for all of society’s ills. People couldn’t look in the mirror and blame themselves or at the very least take some responsibility as teachers became social workers, nurses, and so much more, so I didn’t speak out.

Then they came for the schools. I wasn’t in school and didn’t have children in schools and charters didn’t seem so bad unless I looked behind the curtain and I didn’t want to look behind the curtain so I didn’t speak out.

Then they came for the school board. Elected representatives became too big of a threat to their agenda to many wouldn't roll over but since there would be a school board in some form left after the elected board was disbanded I didn’t speak out.  

Then when the teachers were gone, the schools were replaced and the school board in the pocket of the mayor there was no one left to come for and their takeover was complete. It was to late for me to speak up.

The future of education in Jacksonville is very close to becoming businesses manned by temps with none to be held accountable. 

At some point silence becomes complicity. If you believe in teachers, public schools and direct democracy, the time to speak up is now, while there is still something left to speak for.

Lenny Curry comes out as pro extortion

When it was revealed that two of Lenny Curry's top lieutenants, attempted to extort nearly a half million from the school district, the mayor barely shrugged his shoulders.  

From Florida Politics. 

Curry political adviser Tim Baker and recently retired Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa would draw $12,500 a month for up to three years, basically in exchange for helping to get the referendum through Council and passed.

Hershey met with Baker and Mousa before Mousa left city employment, but the formal proposal came later.

On Thursday, Curry told us he had no problem with the solicitation, even as it came in the twilight of Mousa’s city employment.

“Tim Baker has been a consultant of mine for a number of years. I’m one of many,” Curry said. “I had no issue with him out conducting business.”

The same held true for Mousa.

“Sam is no longer an employee of the city and he’s going to take his talents and skills out to provide his services in a way that’s best for business,” Curry said.

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/302339-business-curry-mousa

So even though Mousa started the ball rolling while he was an employee of the city that doesn't matter? How are former employees allowed to lobby their former employers anyways? 

This is what I believe. I believe Curry knew about the plan the entire time and either helped come up with it or gave it his blessing.  I can't imagine them making such an audacious move without his involvement at some level and we need an investigation not carried out by the office of general council, which has proven to partisan and beholden to the mayor, to tell us.

Say I am wrong, say the mayor was clueless, then at best he was okay with a city employee trying to get a half million dollars from a different city agency by lobbying his current bosses. How is that legal or ethical. let that sink in.

The mayor literally shrugged his shoulders and basically said grifters gonna grift and it was okay with him. 

The office of general council drafted the legislation to make the school board appointed.

Jason Fischer, who quit to run and who works for John Kirtley the voucher king, literally, created quite the hubadoo when he announced he was proposing legislation to make the school board appointed by the mayor. He didn’t write the legislation however. Duval’s very own office of general council did. You know the group that changes the meaning of statutes and words whenever the mayor’s agenda calls for it.

This brings several questions to mind.

Can Jason Fischer have the OGC draft legislation? Can anyone?

How is this not a conflict of interest. In theory the OGC works for the school board as much as it does city hall.

Was this really his idea or is he carrying water for the mayor.

Did you see the part where it asked was this endorsed by any groups, and it was checked no? Um come on the civic council who pays Fischer’s bills was undoubtedly for and most likely behind this.

Welcome to Jacksonville where if the people in charge have their way, democracy will soon be a thing of the past.

Jacksonville poised to give out another thirty million in incentives to a business building a headquarters on the river.

So what does this have to do with education, I mean we need jobs right?

Well first I am not a fan of corporate welfare. Large and successful companies getting millions to do what they already have more than enough money to do.

You know who didn’t need 233 million dollars in incentives including almost a hundred million in cash? Shad Kahn, owner of the Jaguars which alone are valued at 2.3 billion, dollars. But her.

Now on the heels of that, and spending over 20 million on the Landings plan to nowhere, we are about to give 30 million to a company that probably doesn’t need it either.

I bet if we invested in our schools companies would come without having to receive public bribes to do so.

 From the Jacksonville Business Journal, The Downtown Investment Authority will consider granting almost $30 million in state and city incentives to the construction of a riverfront corporate headquarters during Wednesday's board meeting.

The incentives include a $23.4 million tax rebate grant, a $3.5 million city grant payable when the project is complete and $3 million in tax refunds – $600,000 from the city and $2.4 million from the state.

The package, code-named Project Sharp, will go towards construction of a 300,000-square-foot corporate headquarters to house 500 employees with an average annual wage of $85,000. The company will also keep 1,216 existing jobs in Jacksonville, a hint that the unnamed company maybe Fidelity National Information Services (NYSE: FIS).

FIS has been exploring ways to accommodate new employees after its $43 billion merger with Worldpay and has about 1,200 Jacksonville employees, CFO Woody Woodall previously told the Business Journal.

https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2019/08/05/dia-to-consider-30-million-incentive-package-

Um they just completed a 43-billion-dollar merger and they need 30 million in public money? I know some of you are saying well if they didn’t get it here they could get it somewhere else, and the answer is no they wouldn’t if every place finally started saying, we would love to have you but like regular folks have to pay to move so will you.  

We have all this corporate welfare and our schools are crumbling, does nobody else see a relationship there?

It’s time we demanded our leaders made the people of Jacksonville its priority.