We don’t really feel the need to explain this endorsement as its plainly obvious why we would make it. But with Jacksonville’s runoff election on Tuesday let’s go through some of the reasons why Donna Deegan must win this election:

• Jacksonville is the most populated city in the nation with a GOP Mayor. It is also the most mismanaged large city in Florida. There is a correlation between these two items.
• As a result, Jacksonville lacks the basic accountability and transparency of most municipal governments. In fact, the management of Jacksonville under Mayor Lenny Curry might be the model for the role back in government in the sunshine as well as lack of light but on appointments to boards, etc we see at the state level under Ron DeSantis.
• Jacksonville’s infrastructure and public works projects are way behind-the-times for such a large city. Quite frankly it’s am embarrassment. Deegan is uniquely qualified to help create a new environment for logical building that both grows the city and helps mitigate climate-related factors.
• The GOP has run Jacksonville like fiefdom, using cronyism to stack boards, and treating the city like a laboratory for conservative municipal governance. We at TFS don’t want a knee-jerk Democratic reaction to this where, Democrats turn the city into a repository for cronyism and left-wing governing schemes. We’ve seen some of that in other parts of the state and despite our progressive ideologies we don’t like mis-governance of any sort. Deegan we believe will strike the right balance between progressive governance, consensus-building (Matt Carlucci among other prominent GOPers has endorsed her) and accountability.
• Deegan’s opponent Daniel Davis is a reactionary – an unabashed pro-business, anti-environment classic GOPer. While Jacksonville has had some moderate GOP leaders in the past (John Delaney comes to mind) Davis would arguably be the most conservative Mayor int eh city’s post-1967 consolidation era. He’s potentially very bad news. We also do believe if Davis wins, he becomes an instant front-runner for statewide office, should he want to pursue that path. Davis is smart, presents well and has the ability to potentially run for higher office in the future.

We strongly recommend a vote for Donna Deegan for Mayor of Jacksonville.