The City of Jacksonville has served ties with a lobbying firm it had contracted with for years to advocate on the city’s behalf in Tallahassee and Washington DC.
Mayor Donna Deegan’s administration abruptly cut ties with Ballard Partners on Monday, exercising its right to terminate its contract early.The decision came just two weeks after the lobbying firm announced it had hired former Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry.Carlucci argued it’s not uncommon for new administrations to shake things up and seek new firms to represent the city.
“Mayor Deegan is committed to bringing in more federal grant dollars. With that goal in mind, the administration is moving in a different direction and identifying partners who can support both grant writing and lobbying efforts,” Perry said in an emailed statement. UNF political science professor Dr. Michael Binder said that may be true, but he argued the political optics are hard to ignore.
“It would make sense to me why a new mayor who is of an opposite political party, who ran really a very difficult race against folks that this group supported publicly, might want to distance herself from that group,” Binder said. But ultimately Binder said he doubts the decision will impact the city’s ability to pulls down funding from Tallahassee and DC.“This is not the idea that they’re the only game in town and, oh no, Tallahassee’s not gonna give us money. Listen, if Tallahassee was not gonna give us money, they were not gonna give us money anyway and if they were, they were gonna continue to do so,” Binder said.
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