City Council, property appraiser, Jax Beach rules: What else mattered in Duval election?
While mouths gaped at the election of Jacksonville’s first female mayor, voters’ decisions about a string of other choices were nearly forgotten in the excitement Tuesday.
From a slate of City Council races with almost no women winning to a politics-laden property appraiser’s contest and voters’ decision about development limits in Jacksonville Beach, there was a lot to keep track of with consequences for Jacksonville’s future.
Here’s a quick rundown:
City Council men’s club
Two of the 19 people who’ll take office July 1 as City Council members will be women. The number is a third of the women on council now and well short of the goal activists set a decade ago when they opened a program to train female council candidates called 9 in ’15.
Republicans keep council edge
After seven council races came down to general election runoffs, Republicans are set to hold 14 seats and Democrats five, the same breakdown as before the election. Four Democrats won their seats through the runoff, compared to three Republicans.
Black member count slips
There will be six Black members compared to seven now. Three of those — Reggie Gaffney Jr. in District 8, Tyrona Clark-Murray in District 9 and Rahman Johnson in District 14 — won their seats in the runoff.
Did redistricting lawsuit affect race results?
It’s hard to say. Some differences did stand out, but they could be tied to reasons other than the lawsuit, which resulted in a judge finding Black residents were wrongly “packed” together in a few council districts. Democrat Jimmy Peluso, who was eliminated from first round of elections for District 14 in 2019, won this time in District 7, which had been redrawn to include areas around Riverside where Peluso has a big following.
District 14, which Republican Randy DeFoor carried in 2019, was won this time by Johnson, a Democrat who outpolled Republican John Draper, who represented the same Westside area as a councilman in the 1990s.
Which council seats were decided Tuesday?
At-Large Group 5: Chris Miller
District 2: Mike Gay
District 7: Peluso
District 8: Gaffney
District 9: Clark-Murray
District 11: Raul Arias
District 14: Johnson
Property appraiser’s race advantage
With just a little more than a percentage point lead, term-limited council member Joyce Morgan locked up her election as the next Duval County property appraiser.
Former state Rep. Jason Fischer had support from Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican Party of Florida, but that didn’t seem to outweigh the Democratic former TV news anchor’s ground game for connecting with voters.
The public’s choice apparently does matter in Jacksonville, where the appraiser’s office oversees about 110 employees involved in assessing taxable values used last year to raise a little less than half of the city’s recurring revenues.
Jacksonville Beach height-restriction vote
Another high-profile choice on the ballot Tuesday was a decision, only for Jacksonville Beach residents, of whether to authorize development up to 55 feet high on property the beach city owns around Latham Plaza a coupe of blocks off the oceanfront. The normal height limit for new development at the beach is 35 feet, and more than 80 percent of beach voters rejected the referendum.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: City Council, property appraiser, Jacksonville Beach height limit decided
