What I’ve Learned Lenny Curry

52, Jacksonville

Mayor of Jacksonville, Dad

As told to Rosanne Dunkelberger

The Origin Story

I was born in Key West. I’m a seventh-generation Conch. My dad ended up down there because his father was in the Navy. (When) my grandfather got out of World War II, he wanted to go as far south in the U.S. as he could so he went down (to) Key West and met my grandmother and settled. My mom was multi-generational. I was there until I was 12 years old. You’re always in the sun, you’re always in the water. That was the ’70s, so doors were unlocked. We were out running the streets all night riding bikes and playing games. It was a really fantastic time. It was hard to leave. My dad’s parents had settled in Orange Park and we wanted to get closer to them … so we moved to Middleburg, Florida, which was very rural at the time. We lived one mile down a dirt road. I’m a graduate of the University of Florida. ... My kids want to go to FSU, but that’s another story.

Work Life

I earned my bachelor’s degree in accounting and was in the master’s program when I left to do an internship at what was then Coopers & Lybrand. I felt like I was making so much money in the internship, I talked them into hiring me full time. I took the CPA exam in Georgia and passed it. Probably interesting fact: I sat for the first CPA exam where they let you use a calculator.

Coopers & Lybrand merged with Price Waterhouse and became PWC. I was a senior manager there; the next step was partner. Another senior manager and I were working late one night — probably about 11 p.m. We worked a lot of hours in those days. We were making really good money at our age. He did some quick math on a piece of paper and said, ‘Hey I think I’m going to start a staffing and recruiting firm. And if … you do it with me, we’ll build out at this rate, we’ll make what we make today.’ So we left and started a company and had success. I don’t have any part of it anymore. I started that company in 2002, exited it when I became Mayor. It was a good run.

Politics Life

I volunteered for many years, knocked on doors for Ander Crenshaw’s congressional campaign (and) got involved with the local Republican Party as a volunteer as their treasurer in 2006. Then Barack Obama beat John McCain and the party had no leadership. Nobody wanted to be the Chairman. I said “I’ll do it.” The position was volunteer at that point. So that’s how I got involved in party politics.

Proudest Accomplishment As Mayor

Pension reform was huge. We had unfunded pension liability and no source of revenue to pay for it. Republicans said, generally speaking, ‘We don’t have a revenue source problem, we have a benefit problem.’ Democrats would say, ‘No, we don’t have a benefit problem. We need to go find more revenue.’ So we did both — and it was very challenging. The first challenging part was I had to convince the House and the Senate and then the Governor, because we had to go through them to allow us, through legislation, to extend an existing tax. Then we had to take it to the voters, then go to labor unions. That is where it started to get really sticky. Policemen and firemen had, before I got in office, certain pension benefits taken from them. What I said is, ‘Look, you built your lives around this. We promised you these benefits, we’re gonna restore everything you were promised. But in return, we want to move new hires into defined contribution plans.’ And that’s where we ended up. As a result, we have invested heavily in our city, which we would not have been able to do without that. It’s not a sexy issue, but it fundamentally changed the future of our city. We have done almost a billion dollars in investments in seven years that we would not have been able to do without pension reform. We’ve paid down a half a billion dollars in debt since I’ve been in office. We’ve increased our reserves from $100-and-something million to over $350 million. We are financially sound and investing and rocking and rolling.

We heavily invested in infrastructure and I’ve been doing this now for seven years — big capital improvement budgets. That’s quality of life: people, sidewalks, parks, roads, septic tank removal — stuff that was promised 40 years ago, that was never delivered on. Big investments downtown. The Jacksonville Landing is a place that ... was recognized by many because (when) people travel here for a sporting event, they usually end up there. It’s seen better days. We went through a huge fight to get our rights back to that — and under much criticism we knocked it down. But now it’s a beautiful green space that will at some point have additional development with a lot of green space. I mentioned the Landing because that’s a very visible thing. People recognize I reformed our Children’s Services, created an organization called Kids Hope Alliance, which is summer programs, after school programs, job programs. The jobs program before I got in office was good, but it was part time. We now have a yearround program, both with government entities and the private sector that employ young people that want jobs and experience and leadership. All that takes money. None of this would have been possible had we not done pension reform.

Taking A Stand On Monuments

I went to high school in a very rural area with a lot of Southern culture. But when I started to think about symbols, monuments that are on public property that exclude certain members of the community — I just don’t think that’s the proper place for it. Some have made the argument that these, at least in Jacksonville, were put up … for heritage. The truth is, those monuments were put up much later at a time when they were meant to exclude people. I just don’t think our public space … in Jacksonville should be any symbol. Any sign should be ‘Welcome to Jacksonville.’ Every member of every community (should) feel a part of wanting to be there.

I removed one because I had the authority to. It’s based on the cost to remove. I had the budgetary ability to do that unilaterally. The others need to be approved by City Council. And at this point … the body is choosing not to take a position. My guess is that’s political and … I hope they vote to remove, but if they don’t, they ought to make their positions public and let the public know where they stand, yes or no.

KUDOS FOR GOV. RON DESANTIS

When he was a Congressman, he supported my first run. I remember him personally attending a fundraiser. Since he’s been Governor, he’s been great to Jacksonville. He’s been great for me to work with personally. In COVID, we opened our beaches first. I was mocked heavily on national media. We ended up being right, by the way — but at the time that wasn’t the narrative and the Governor publicly stood up for the decision that I made here. We’ve also worked together on economic deals in Jacksonville.

I think he’s been a phenomenal leader for the state of Florida. COVID was hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime event for us, and the way he led and navigated Florida’s position in my city, in the whole state, I think for success … I’m just real proud of the work that he’s done.

He’s leading by what he thinks is the right thing to do. All the national noise when they attack him and criticize — he stays the course.

About That Twitter Account

I started this account before I was in elected office. It just became a running thing that I do and just because I got elected Mayor of Jacksonville, I wasn’t going to change a lot of the things that I find interesting and share with my followers. From time to time I would go back and forth with people. I have tried to do it much less the last seven years, but every now and then … usually if somebody’s been trolling me over and over and over again … I’ll say ‘OK, I’m going to engage this (person) one or two or three times and then walk away and see what happens.’ Then I usually turn my phone off. Sometimes I wake up to nothing. Sometimes I wake up to text messages and pings, and sometimes it ends up on the evening news.

If I express an opinion, it’s generally what I believe. I’m not just trying to be dramatic or create attention. I have thought, ‘Even though I believe that and think that, maybe I shouldn’t have put it out there. Maybe that should have just stayed with me.’ You know, if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it.

A couple of years ago I went through my feed over the holidays and I intentionally unfollowed a lot of stuff and went out of my way to research things that I’m interested in that are positive and started following certain accounts. … I was getting all this stuff that wasn’t political — it was cool stuff that I’m interested in. Twitter can be a really good place for learning if people use it that way.

FAMILY MAN

I’ve got three lovely kids and a wife that just are absolutely the center of my universe. Molly is five years younger than me. When I was with Coopers & Lybrand and she was leaving UF with an accounting degree, I was part of recruiting her and trying to get her to go to work in the Jacksonville office. She went to Price Waterhouse in Tampa. The firms merged and she ended up in a class that I was teaching to new hires … and the rest is history. My wife is one of four children. I’m an only child. I told her before we got married, I wanted six kids. She won’t confirm or deny her response to that.

‘PREPARE, COMPETE, LEARN, NEXT’

Yes, those are my words. I used to say ‘win’ but as I’ve gotten older and more mature, I realized that you don’t always win. So you have to compete and learn from it and, whatever the outcome, go to the next thing.

Future Plans

I haven’t answered that question yet. I’m thinking through some things. I probably will go back into the private sector — maybe for a period of time, maybe forever. I don’t know. Maybe do something entrepreneurial again or there’ll be plenty of private sector options. I can tell you what I don’t do. I don’t wake up in the morning and think that I have to be an elected official, I have to have that position.

I’ve got a lot of road left in me. I looked at a congressional run a few months ago and decided that it wasn’t right for my family at this time. I want to be with my kids (while they are) in school. If the right door opens, I’ll consider walking through it. In the meantime, I’m gonna keep working hard to get good Republicans elected around the state and into federal office. … And if I have another run in me, I’ll be asking for help.