Jacksonville Mayoral Election 2023

[simms3]

Duval is the second hottest real estate market!?
Does that assessment include those thrilled to move out?
Davis connection to Home Builders Political Machine is Classic.

Not 2nd hottest RE market, no.  However, Jax MSA was 3rd fastest growing MSA > 1 million people last year, behind only Austin and Raleigh.  Census 2022 county estimates just came out.

You can have all the population growth you want, though, but if it doesn't translate to quality development projects or S FL level home price appreciation for existing residents, I wouldn't say we are anywhere close to "2nd hottest RE market" in country.

Related to Davis - we've had for well over a decade now some pretty impressive population growth.  Where the hell are the new office buildings and headquarters?  We've gotten very little, which indicates that Davis not doing a great job bringing office jobs to Jax.  Even with the office building trends now in effect, with our population growth, one would think we'd at least get a bit more.  We have the worst office market in the country.  I feel bad for some of my coworkers right now who are only focused on the office market, and office investment sales.  Not much happenin'.

We need to not only attract the "work from home" types, but we need to be attracting actual corporate relocations.  So far they are all going to Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, South FL, Charlotte, etc  Where's our share?  When's our next Fidelity moment?

[jaxlongtimer]

^ Ironically, Daniel Davis is now aligning himself with DeSantis, who is doing more to drive corporate relocations away from Florida, henceforth, than anyone.  Heard this from those who work in recruiting same. 

Florida will always get a few wins due to its geography and low tax structure but anyone looking for a well educated work force, cultural enrichment, freedom to disagree with your government without retribution and an accepting environment for a diverse group of employees is likely looking elsewhere.  And, by the time we let developers pave over the State, one might add a declining quality of life to the list.  Allowing permit-less and open carry guns isn't going to give most people the warm and fuzzies either.  And, to come, underfunding resiliency and gutting wetland protections in the face of global warming bringing rising waters and stronger tropical storms.

[fsu813]

When's our next Fidelity moment?

UF's further expansion into the urban core of Jax is considered by many in leadership as that next moment. Jags, Fidelity & UF campus are the 3 biggest impacts on Jax in the past 30 years, according to some heavy weights.

We'll see.

[simms3]

UF could be big, nothing really clear though on what's happening there right now.  Rooting for it, though!  I have heard about the involvement of a few names in particular for getting UF to Jax, so even there I am sure the Chamber was accommodating and playing its role to facilitate any sort of transaction, but local business leaders seemed to play the largest role behind the scenes in making something actually happen.

Maybe I'm not exactly clear what a Chamber CEO's role is supposed to be besides a facilitator and I'm expecting so much more from it.  But when I look at the salary of our Chamber CEO, to me that's the salary of a deal maker, not a deal facilitator.  Am I way off there?  The other FL Chamber CEOs make quite a bit less than ours...

[Zac T]

UF could be big, nothing really clear though on what's happening there right now.  Rooting for it, though!  I have heard about the involvement of a few names in particular for getting UF to Jax, so even there I am sure the Chamber was accommodating and playing its role to facilitate any sort of transaction, but local business leaders seemed to play the largest role behind the scenes in making something actually happen.

Maybe I'm not exactly clear what a Chamber CEO's role is supposed to be besides a facilitator and I'm expecting so much more from it.  But when I look at the salary of our Chamber CEO, to me that's the salary of a deal maker, not a deal facilitator.  Am I way off there?  The other FL Chamber CEOs make quite a bit less than ours...

I read in Florida Politics that Daniel Davis' salary is $100k higher than that of the Florida Chamber CEO. We should definitely have more to show for what we're paying for

[simms3]

Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Salaries around FL (most data comes from Google searches leading to articles, ProPublica and Non-Profit Light):

Jacksonville - Daniel Davis - $536,000
State of FL - Mark Wilson - $452,000
Greater Orlando - Tim Giuliani - $419,000
Greater Tampa Bay - Bob Rohrlack - $363,000
St. Petersburg - Christopher Steinocher - $282,000
Greater Miami - Alfred Sanchez - $234,000
Greater Orlando Hispanic - Gabi Ortigoni - $166,000
Greater Fort Lauderdale - Daniel Lindblade - $152,000
Palm Beach - Laurel Baker (resigned last year after 21 years) - $85,000

You can't make this stuff up.  Gotta add the rumors (probably true, at least partially), that Daniel Davis would keep his job as CEO if he lost mayoral race and that Lenny Curry would replace him as CEO if he won the mayoral race.  Maybe false, but this is how jaded we all are by now...Don't forget that Lenny teed himself up by increasing city (really US the Taxpayer) contribution to $750K/yr.

On jobs coming to FL - yes, they are pouring in.  DeSantis actually has done quite a bit to attract the attention of many employers, and beyond employers, many people just want to move here now, which itself will bring employers.  The evidence is in our population growth and anecdotally once you remove yourself from the progressive left circles, people like it here, and that includes politically.

The only thing is...many of the big job announcements have just skipped right on over Jacksonville since we are so asleep at the wheel.  Our mayor was apparently the only big city mayor in our state to not respond to the Wall Street Journal ad that Blackstone ran looking for a second HQ city in the state.  Aundra Wallace was asked about that and his response was super lame: "Oh I know which companies we even have a shot at attracting and 'hedge funds' are not included".  Forget the fact that Blackstone isn't even a "hedge fund", even if it operates one as a smaller part of its business.  It is very standard private equity.  I thought we were trying to be a big finance town and move past the back office jobs?

I suppose not.  For $536K a year we will continue to throw incentives at warehouse jobs coming here anyway and take credit for any news that comes to Jax, whether it had anything to do with the Chamber or not.

[jaxlongtimer]

^ And one big win, Dun & Bradstreet, really came due to efforts of Black Knight more than the City. 

Warehouse/distribution and call center/back office jobs are fine but they aren't going to move the City forward like professional positions that are much higher paying and often require higher levels of education.  Also, HQ's are going to contribute more to the City's quality of life than "just another" regional warehouse of a company with regional warehouses all over the continent.

Good question:  Should the City be focused more on incentivizing company HQ's than all these development projects?  If we had the first, maybe we wouldn't need to incentivize the second.

[simms3]

A few more for comparison:

Atlanta - Hala Moddelmog - $717,000
Nashville - Ralph Schulz - $530,000
Austin - Mike Rollins (formerly) - $529,000
Charlotte - Bob Morgan (formerly) - $469,000
Greater Raleigh - Adrienne Cole - $279,000
Greater San Antonio - Richard Perez - $275,000

Anybody curious as to the backgrounds of the other highly compensated peers (Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Austin), see bios below of their Chamber CEOs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hala_Moddelmog
https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/bio/ralph-schulz-president-and-ceo-nashville-area-chamber-commerce
https://www.austinchamber.com/press-releases/austin-chamber-president-ceo-mike-rollins-set-to-retire-march-2020
https://www.scchamber.net/staff/staff/bob-morgan/

None of these leaders are politically oriented people.  They all come from or remain in the business world, non-profit world, and/or economic development world.  Obviously in Jacksonville's case, as with everything, the position is just a position to fill in city leadership while waiting for another position to fill.  Rotate in and out with the same group of people.  And we wonder why we get left behind...

These other cities are trying to recruit the talent from each other and that possibly explains the higher salaries.  Not only that, they have A LOT to show for themselves.

Looks like Austin hired the former Nashville Chamber CEO, and both of those cities are doing really well.  Obviously Austin saw something in Nashville at the time that it wanted, and looks like it paid off.  That guy was Austin Chamber CEO from 2002 to 2020.

[simms3]

Good question:  Should the City be focused more on incentivizing company HQ's than all these development projects?  If we had the first, maybe we wouldn't need to incentivize the second.

On a similar note, we are incentivizing the hell out of apartments downtown.  $36M for one project??  Would we need to throw that money around if we had a ton of high paying downtown jobs?  Dunn & Bradstreet should have been a no-brainer for downtown.  We'll see where PayForce goes, but wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't go downtown somewhere.

[simms3]

One more thing about CCEO compensation - I noticed that a couple other highly paid chamber CEOs also received bonuses.  For instance Charlotte's received bonuses of $108-120K, which is included in the number above.  I'm pretty sure Daniel's is straight base?  I could be wrong.

Regardless, call me a cynic and I hate commenting on others' pay, but when the taxpayers are helping foot the bill and our city is obviously so poorly run across the board (with a Chamber getting seemingly lapped by others), I think we are perfectly within reason to complain about these things.  I've seen several leaders recently talk, both within the COJ and within the quasi-governmental authorities, and I've seen them talk next to their peers in one case, and COJ leadership (meaning current administration appointees) through and through just does not seem all that impressive.  Our bar is so low and any win no matter how small is a major headline.  Our neighboring counties may have difficult county commissions right now, but in some cases their staff is superior, and by a lot in one case I can think of, to the equivalent role within COJ.  Perhaps it's because they feel like they have to at least try whereas COJ feels comfortable putting its feet up.

I'm still of the mindset that I would take a bump on a log over anyone graduating from the existing system.

[simms3]

Come to think of it, it's not Davis's fault he's getting paid more than any other CCEO in FL or as much as his [IMHO] more qualified peers in much more prosperous cities.  He asked for his salary as anyone would, and the stupid Jax Chamber said Sure!  It's only the Chamber's members' contributions and a COJ taxpayer contribution that fund this idiocy.

I can't hold his salary against him, personally.  BUT...the whole thing is just so Jacksonville.  We never get any bang for our buck and then we get these power brokers who all they care about is eventually being mayor or something and where's the meritocracy here?  I do hold it against him who he chooses to run his campaign (Tim Baker) and how he allows it to be run (viciously with some duck and cover).

I heard there will likely be low Democrat turnout.  DeSantis just endorsed Davis yesterday, calling him the Law & Order candidate Jax needs.  We are likely about to see a string of ads showing Donna crying the day Gillum lost and DeSantis won, as well as her comments about defunding the police, which she did make (BIG JUDGMENT ERROR on both accounts if she was even considering her run at the time).

He may just win as those ads are not going to look good for her at all and Davis's vicious attack ads are probably what got him to the runoff.  Trump has been running vicious ads against DeSantis and even before his indictment he was surging in the polls.  It's a sad day because of this, but the "average person" apparently responds favorably to attack ads against another.

It's just so weird because in my entire circle, left and right, rich and poor, I could have sworn everyone I knew in Jax was very tired of the attack ads during the primary.  I'm pretty sure I knew people who voted Ferraro simply because he was the only candidate who didn't run any.

[vicupstate]

Exactly what are these comments that Deegan supposedly made that are so objectionable?

I don't doubt that it will be a slash and burn largely falsehood campaign run by Davis, because that is what anyone should expect.

[simms3]

Vic, we live in separate universes.  Look at Davis's most recent ad.  If you cannot figure out what Donna has said in the past that is controversial and incredibly stupid at the least, then our brains, philosophies and everything we are about is in such misalignment that it's no use discussing it.

She has a record of statements that are very much cause for concern to a lot of people and for good reason.  Her campaign has been great for the most part, so far as I'm concerned.  But I certainly share in others' concerns about her based on said statements from before she decided to run for anything.

Sadly, Davis can use these against her *AND* use the R by his name in his favor, as well as aligning with DeSants, despite the fact that I do not believe he is even a real conservative or a stand up guy fighting for what he believes in.  To me he is such a politician, and so I don't think he offers a compelling story against her, however, the average person will vote based on ads, slogans, D or R, and recent alignments.

[Tacachale]

No surprise that Davis is falling back on dirty gutter politics. That and his donor class cash is all he has to offer.

[thelakelander]

I haven't heard or seen anything, although I haven't watched much regular tv (outside of my cane's final four run) recently. What are they saying?