Deegan shakes up Kids Hope Alliance with five new board appointees

Mayor Donna Deegan wants to replace five Kids Hope Alliance board members with her own appointees, the kind of political maneuver that Lenny Curry also used in the opening months of his time as mayor in 2015 when he put his appointees in place faster for city boards and faced criticism he was politicizing them.

Deegan announced Thursday she is appointing five new members to the seven-member Kids Hope Alliance board. Four of Deegan's appointees will replace Curry-appointed board members who still have months or years left on their current terms.

"One of the top priorities of my administration is to bring back a reimagined and reinvigorated Jacksonville Journey," Deegan said, referring to the program that uses prevention and intervention along with enforcement to battle crime. "We need fresh eyes who will move the Kids Hope Alliance towards that vision."

Deegan's office also notified Jordan Elsbury that she would be appointing someone else to his seat on the Jacksonville Planning Commission. Elsbury, a former chief of staff for Curry, had a year left on his term for the planning commission. He resigned from the commission.

Deegan will appoint Charles Garrison, a Democrat who finished second in a race for a Jacksonville City Council at-large seat in May, to fill out the rest of that term on the planning commission.

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In another change to a board member in mid-term, Deegan appointed Cindy Funkhouser, president and CEO of the Sulzbacher Center, to replace Craig Shoup on the Jacksonville Housing Authority board. Shoup, who is executive director of the Jacksonville Bar Association, has been serving a term that runs through September 2026.

The Jacksonville Housing Authority and the planning commission both have vacant seats on them, but Deegan opted to make appointments that will replace sitting members of those bodies.

When Curry took office in 2015, he also forced turnover on some boards by installing his own picks at JEA, the Jacksonville Planning Commission, the Jacksonville Aviation Authority and JaxPort. The changes drew criticism at the time from some City Council members who said Curry, a Republican, was politicizing the boards by ousting members appointed by his predecessor Alvin Brown, a Democrat.

"As long as they've been diligent and good stewards of the board position, I think it's outrageous a new mayor would come in and make this partisan," Neil Hendrichsen, who was chairman of the Duval County Democratic Party, said in August 2015.

With Deegan, a Democrat, replacing board members appointed by Curry with time still left on their terms, it's becoming a standard part of the changing of the political guard at City Hall.

The mayor has the power to appoint board members, who serve without pay. City Council confirms them and when their terms expire, the mayor can either reappoint them or choose someone else. The mayor also can replace board members before their terms are up, which also requires City Council approval.

Board members targeted for replacement can either resign or continue serving until City Council votes on confirming the mayor's new appointees.

City Council President Ron Salem, a Republican, said he wasn't among those criticizing Curry in 2015. Salem said mayors have the the right to appoint board members at any time, regardless of how much time is left in the term of the board member being replaced.

"Elections have consequences," Salem said.

He said City Council's role will be to vet the appointees when they come before the Rules Committee and the full council for confirmation.

"That's the process," Salem said.

Mayor Deegan's picks for Kids Hope Alliance would reshape board

Deegan said her appointees to the Kids Hope Alliance board "bring decades of experience to building safe and healthy neighborhoods." They are:

• Lawrence E. Dennis, regional director at Mainstream Development Educational Group, who previously was a regional superintendent for Duval County Public Schools.

• Meredith Chartrand Frisch, who serves on the boards of The Chartrand Foundation, Women’s Giving Alliance, and KIPP Jacksonville.

• Connie Hodges, former president and CEO of the United Way of Northeast Florida. Deegan's announcement said Hodges "transformed the organization" to a community impact model concentrating "on education, health, and family income."

• Cynthia Ball Nixon, chief financial officer of the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition. Her past administrative experience includes roles at the Kids Hope Alliance and Duval County Public Schools.

• J. Carson Tranquille, the managing broker and owner of Tranquille Realty. He was a division chief at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office before retiring from the force in 2018.

The five appointees would replace Tyra Tutor, Rose Conry, Jenny Vipperman, Marvin Wells and Rebekah Davis, whose husband is Daniel Davis, the JAX Chamber CEO defeated by Deegan in the May runoff election for mayor.

The board terms of Rebekah Davis and Wells go through December, Vipperman's term goes through December 2024 and Conry's term runs through December 2025. Tutor's term ended in December 2021 but she has continued to serve on the board because Curry did not name a replacement for that seat.

Deegan will leave Kevin Gay and Marsha Oliver on the Kids Hope Alliance board.

In 2015, Curry sought the resignations of every JEA board member and ended up keeping only one of Brown's appointees for that board. He also replaced Ernie Isaac on the Jacksonville Aviation Authority board and Nancy Soderberg on the JaxPort board.

Two of Brown's appointees on the planning commission, Lisa King and Joey McKinnon, refused to resign in 2015, but City Council still approved their replacements. Council members supporting Curry said that mayors have the right to replace board members with their own appointees.

Elsbury, who was on Curry's staff in 2015, was appointed by Curry to the Jacksonville Planning Commission in early 2022 for a term running though October 2024. Elsbury said Thursday that appointing board members is the mayor's prerogative.

That mayoral power has some limitations in the case of the Jacksonville Housing Authority board. The city ordinance code says the mayor can appoint someone to fill a vacancy on the housing authority board, but Shoup had not resigned from the board before Deegan's office filed legislation to replace him so no vacancy existed at that time for that particular seat.

If the mayor wants to remove a housing authority board member, the mayor can do so if there is "inefficiency or neglect of duty or misconduct in office" by the board member. The mayor must give a copy of the charges to the board member who will have a chance to defend himself before City Council when it decides whether it agrees there are grounds for removal.

Shoup has had a solid attendance record since he joined the housing authority board in January after being unanimously confirmed by City Council. The legislation to replace him does not make any contentions of neglect or misconduct.

He resigned Thursday from the commission after Deegan's office filed legislation to replace him.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Mayor Deegan appoints five to Kids Hope Alliance in Jacksonville