Does Lenny Curry owe you an apology? He doesn't think so

[outis]

lenny curry, the architect of the jea sale scandal, thinks he doesn't owe you an apology for getting us into the worst corruption scandal in jax history. not to mention all the other destructive things he did.

Does Lenny Curry owe you an apology? He doesn't think so | Opinion
Mark Woods
Jacksonville Florida Times-Union

"When your time is up. It's up. I'll abide by that when my time's up. It's good form and nobody cares when you are gone." — Lenny Curry's tweet about another former mayor, Jake Godbold., returning to City Hall in 2019 to publicly speak against efforts to sell JEA.

There are some comments that you circle, knowing there will come a time to dust them off in the future.

Curry's "when your time is up" was one of them. Circled, highlighted and saved, so that even after he eventually deleted it from X, it could be brought up when he quite predictably decided he wasn't going to abide by his own declaration about what's "good form" for a former mayor.

It has been two years since he left office. And Curry apparently has decided his time isn't up and you should care what he has to say.

He says he isn't running for mayor again. And, yes, he legally could. There is a limit of two consecutive terms. He has said he isn't thinking about challenging Mayor Donna Deegan himself and seeking a third term. But he's clearly thinking about getting back into the thick of politics and running for something.

He has written a guest column for the Times-Union, had a front-page story written about him by my colleague David Bauerlein, appeared on Action News Jax's "This Week in the 904," called into talk radio shows and been increasingly active on social media again (although not in quite the same way as when he was mayor).

But the most revealing interview might've been one he did Monday with WJCT's "First Coast Connect" host Anne Schindler.

Mainly it revealed that Curry 2.0 is very similar to Curry 1.0.

There was no contrition about what happened with JEA, no acknowledgement of any personal culpability, and no apology to citizens who might think he owes them one.


To the contrary, when pressed by Schindler, he said: "I don't owe anybody an apology."

...

Spinning like it's 2019
He reiterated what he has been saying elsewhere, that he didn't disappear the last two years, he was been busy working behind the scenes on a lot of things — he joined Ballard Partners as a partner working out of the lobbying firm's offices in Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Washington — and the reason he decided to become so publicly vocal now was the push to reduce the millage rate by 1.1 percent.

With that in mind, Schindler played a clip of an interview Curry did with Emily Turner of Action News where he described talking to a cashier, an older woman who said she could barely afford to buy $5 of gas to get to work that morning. Curry said that's a prime example of why he's involved again.

Schindler pointed out that this anecdote involved gas — and, as mayor, Curry pushed for a doubling of the local gas tax, from 6 cents a gallon to 12 cents.


Curry's response was, for starters, to avoid even referring to the gas tax as a tax.

"It's a user fee," he said. "It's different than someone that owns an asset and is going to be taxed on it every single year."

In this context, it's probably worth noting that, before Curry lowered the millage rate at the end of his eight years in office, he supported some other "user fees" — like a half-cent sales tax for pension reform and eventually another half-cent sales tax for schools.

While I also supported much of this (although there were and are valid questions about some uses of the money), to say a tax isn't a tax is to party like it's 2019 again.

Spin, spin, spin. Especially when it came to JEA.

...

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/columns/mark-woods/2025/10/17/former-jacksonville-mayor-lenny-curry-couldnt-stay-away-from-local-politics/86715272007/

[copperfiend]

I always wondered why nobody ever asked Curry about his obvious drunk tweeting when he was mayor

[Ken_FSU]

Wait, doesn't every mayor take secret out-of-state trips with the CEO of their city's public utility and the lobbyists for the private utility that is trying to take it over? Especially when a successful sale means millions of dollars in bonuses for JEA executives and an unlimited treasure chest for a mayor to take credit for?

[thelakelander]

When your time is up. It's up...

It's good form and nobody cares when you are gone.

I agree 100% with this 2019 quote....

[vicupstate]

Don't call us Lenny, we'll call you.

[Actually we won't, but don't tell him that]