Joe and Matt Carlucci reflect on being the first father-son duo to sit on City Council

Before Joe Carlucci became an elected official, he was a Jacksonville City Hall page who watched his father, then the council president, lead meetings.

More than two decades later, a moment after one meeting’s adjournment still makes their family laugh. Joe, about 13 at the time, sat in his father Matt Carlucci’s chair at the council dais to talk with him and his colleagues. What they didn’t realize: the microphone in front of him was still broadcasting everything Joe said live on local news.

At home watching the meeting, Karen Carlucci worried about what her son might say — and frantically called City Council Chambers.

“‘You need to tell my son, Joseph, and my husband that the mics are on, and I can hear everything they're saying,” Karen remembered telling the person who answered. “I was like ‘oh my God, oh my God’ you know, and that's when it was live on channel seven.”

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Joe and Matt are now almost a year into the term as the first father-son duo simultaneously serving on City Council, and Karen still warns them about hot mics, though now she sends a quick text.

The three of them recalled the moment in Matt’s longtime State Farm office, surrounded by photos and mementos of the family’s personal and political history in the city. As the third and fourth generation of Carlucci civic leaders, Matt, 68, and Joe, 35, are navigating their new relationship — from following the confines of the Sunshine Law to avoiding accidentally calling Joe his childhood nickname in meetings.

So far, Matt said they have three ground rules: follow the Sunshine Law, respect the other’s opinions and do the right thing even when they “look at it a little different.”

This term will be Matt’s final four years on City Council due to term limits after serving as a politically moderate, at-large and District 5 council member. He believes public service is “in his DNA,” and he often reflects on his time in office, the lessons learned and the way his “fuse” has shortened over the years.

Joe, on the other hand, won his first election for his father’s former district seat in May as a more conservative candidate after years of never seeing himself as a politician. He’s a “man of action,” Matt proudly calls him, and still has the patience and wherewithal of a first time council member.

“Night and day,” Karen called them, pointing to each. “And that’s a good thing.”

Navigating the Sunshine Law

When Joe and his brother Matthew were young, Matt and Karen always warned them that “their sins would find them out.”

A childhood lie-detector has since become a City Council safeguard.

The Florida Sunshine Law requires all council members to discuss government business in publicly noticed meetings. In the Carluccis' case, this means keeping discussion about legislation and local politics on the City Council floor and out of their personal relationship.

Questions regarding whether the Carluccis would follow the law arose during Joe’s campaign, but they said it has not been an issue.

“Your sins find you out, and they have found people out before,” Matt said. “But I would never put my son in harm's way, and he would never put me in harm's way. … Why would I do that as a father? Never. Never. I’d take the bullet for my kids.”

There was a misconception during Joe’s campaign that they would meet over the dinner table and discuss their votes, he said, but the family rarely discussed politics before the election.

“We get enough of that, you know, I want to talk about their business or kids,” Matt said. Politics normally doesn’t come up when he and Karen are with their kids in part because not all of the family, including Karen, enjoys the topic. “We got lots of things to talk about our family besides politics.”

Instead, Matt tried to protect his son by loading him up on all the advice he could give before the election.

He advised his son against falling on the “landmines” and voting against his conscience. For his part, Joe said he always listened to his dad’s advice — but wouldn’t always take it.

“I’ll hear it, and I will appreciate it, but I'll still do what I feel like is the right decision,” Joe said.

If Matt and Joe were to slip, they planned to own up to it.

“If we go afoul, somehow, we’ll belly up to the bar,” Matt said. “But if we go afoul, I feel like we missed an opportunity to show people that I'm very, very proud that I have a son that wants to serve in that capacity.”

Joe plans to run for the seat again in four years, which would give his father the opportunity to say his opinion freely.

“Then I can be more involved because I won’t be on the council,” Matt said before being cut off by Joe and Karen laughing.

“You’re going to be going, ‘Oh God, please, where’s the Sunshine when I need it,” Karen said to Joe.

‘Big shoes to fill’

Joe emphasized that though he was symbolically following in his dad’s footsteps, he still had his own shoes to fill – a sentiment Matt shared decades earlier about his own father.

“The other side of the coin is how do I want to kind of wear my own shoes and keep my own path, be what I want,” Joe said.

“It’s funny he says that,” Matt cut in. When his father, Joseph Carlucci died, a number of people asked how it felt following his father. “I said, ‘I can never fill my father's shoes. I just wanted to be able to at least have my own footprints side by side.’”

Joseph served on the first consolidated City Council, following after his father who served on School Board. Though Joseph never saw Matt take office, Matt tries to live by the wisdom his father imparted, including what he considers the family motto: “He said, ‘Politicians look to the next election, but statesmen look to the next generation.’ And boy, that stuck with me in a big, big way.”

The whole family is community-minded, but they still dislike the idea of the “Carlucci dynasty” in Jacksonville.

“If you do something because it's expected or because ‘Oh, that's just what the Carlucci family does,’ then that's not a good thing in my opinion,” Joe said.

“That's not authentic,” Matt added.

They talked about the importance of local politics when sometime in 2020, the two visited council chambers together where they once stepped behind the City Council president’s chair. But this time, the mics were off, and they found themselves completely alone.

“I said, ‘Joseph, you know, if you're thinking about state politics or local politics, I want you to think about local politics because,” Matt said, knocking on the table to emphasize his final words, “this is where history is made, right here.’”

Joe, now a City Council member and father himself, continues the tradition and brings his kids to City Hall, “so they will have kind of the same type of memories.” He keeps a photo of his 6-year-old son Jo-Jo on his desk.

“It's interesting, right? Like, you kind of see it from the front row, looking at the stage and then you get on the stage and you see behind the curtain, and it's totally different,” Joe said.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville City Council Matt, Joe Carlucci talk family, sunshine law