When the Jacksonville City Council met in October — the first meeting since a nearly 14-hour fight on the city’s budget the month before had ended in a final vote past 4 a.m. — Vice President Nick Howland gaveled in with this opening statement: 

“In August and September, this body was called heartless, fiscally irresponsible, even ruthless. Those words were used to divide us,” Howland said on Oct. 14. “They were used during public comments and the press and by all sorts of folks during the meetings. We, of course, are none of those things, and the efforts to divide us failed.”

This year’s city council term has been remarkable for its political and policy fights, both among members of the council’s Republican majority and with Democratic Mayor Donna Deegan, according to longtime political analysts and current and former city officials who spoke to Jacksonville Today throughout the year. 

Former Duval County Republican Party Chair Robin Lumb, also a former city council member, says the atmosphere at City Hall has been more politically tense than he’s observed in recent memory. He says he started to see a partisan shift on council during the second term of Republican Mayor Lenny Curry, who preceded Deegan. 

“(Council) lacks the collegiality I’ve seen in years past. There’s an undercurrent of conflict that concerns me,” Lumb said. “Some of what happens seems like political theatre intended to position council members for reelection or higher office.” 

Howland, a Republican who will likely be seated as council president in July 2026, continued at the October meeting: “I have zero doubt that we will shake off our disagreements and start working together again. I wanted to note that this is our third year together, and we know each other. We know that despite our differences during the budget review season, everyone on this dais wants to see this city thrive.” 

Howland told Jacksonville Today this month he wanted to patch things over after “particularly contentious” budget hearings.

“What started with contention ended in consensus. I wanted to make sure that was on the front of mind for my colleagues. Because I believe, truly, that we can work together as a council, within council, and we can work together as a council with the mayor’s office to move our city forward,” he said. 

A ‘particularly contentious’ six months

The council goes into a holiday break at the halfway point of the council year and halfway through the term of current President Kevin Carrico.

In an interview in June, Carrico described his leadership style as “collegial.” 

“We’re going to get along, and when we disagree, we’re gonna disagree and hopefully not hold a grudge. I’m not afraid to speak if I think someone is doing something that’s counterproductive to the body or to the city,” Carrico told Jacksonville Today. “But, of course, if folks are doing things that are not positive to the growth and development of this council, then there could potentially be repercussions.” 

Since then, Carrico rebuked and removed council member Jimmy Peluso, a Democrat, from his only committee assignment after the District 7 representative boycotted a meeting over what he saw as a break with council leadership norms — removing members from previous committee assignments, not assigning a woman to lead a committee, and giving some members only one assignment.

When asked about Peluso’s boycott, Council member Tyrona Clark-Murray, one of two women on the 19-member council, told Jacksonville Today, “I really don’t want to take the time to be distracted by these aspects. I am laser focused on the issues that are in my district and solving those issues and making the district better.”

Chris Hand, a political observer who served as former Mayor Alvin Brown’s chief of staff, says removing members from committees is not common. Typically, each serves on two committees to distribute the workload, and “it’s not a process you usually see much drama surrounding,” he says.

After his dismissal from the committee, Peluso apologized publicly to the committee’s chair and told Jacksonville Today he has “no personal problem with the council president.” Since the dust-up, he and Carrico have appeared to work cordially during public meetings.

Beyond that tiff, the council president’s first six months were also marked by the 42-year-old Republican’s authorization of a local version of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, to investigate “fraud, waste and abuse” in city government. The committee has targeted priority programs of first-term Mayor Donna Deegan, a Democrat.

Carrico and his council allies also fought budget battles against Deegan and a bipartisan group of city lawmakers over property tax cuts; spending on DEI programs and services for undocumented immigrants; funding for affordable housing; and conditions on funding for the JAX Chamber. 

Intra-council and interparty conflict also resulted in the withdrawal of an attempt to change how council presidents and vice presidents are selected. And pending legislation that reflects continued division would restrict where council installation celebrations can take place.

More conflict on the way?

When city lawmakers return from their holiday break in January, the Duval DOGE is expected to resume its investigation into allegations of wrongdoing, made by City Council member Rory Diamond, against the city’s telehealth provider Telescope Health.

Council oversight of city programs is part of its charge under Jacksonville’s charter and is “nothing new,” according to Hand. 

“The best way for council to ensure the credibility of that oversight is to follow a fact-based process, which collects data, gathers perspective from involved stakeholders and welcomes citizen input, before reaching conclusions,” Hand wrote in a Dec. 3 email.

This probe, though, is so far based on undisclosed tips Diamond says he received. His questioning of telehealth, a priority of the Deegan administration, continues a pattern from the budget hearings that some say is targeting the mayor before her reelection.

Council member Matt Carlucci, a Republican and Deegan ally who has had tense moments on the dais with Carrico this year, told Jacksonville Today in November the DOGE committee is a “political weapon,” and he criticized its expanding reach.

The city and Deegan administration have also been the target in recent months for state CFO Blaise Ingoglia and his Florida DOGE effort, championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

The state DOGE included Jacksonville in a series of on-site audits of city and county finances. In August and September, Ingoglia held news conferences in Jacksonville to criticize the fiscal discipline of city leaders, claiming they’ve overspent by nearly $200 million. 

The second conference was attended by several Republican council members including Ron Salem, the local DOGE chief, as well as then-Finance Committee Chair Raul Arias, current Finance Chair Joe Carlucci and Diamond. 

“We’ve seen this before. We’ll see it in the future, and we’re certainly seeing it in this administration, that as we get closer and closer to (the mayoral election in) 2027, there’s likely to be more and more resistance and pushback from city council to the mayor’s office,” Hand predicted in August. 

Another factor that could intensify friction between the council’s GOP majority and the mayor’s office, Hand says: a possible budget hole next year.

In September, the City Council Auditor’s Office released its projections for a three-year stretch of budget deficits before returning to a surplus in 2030.

Hand recalls during his time in the mayor’s office, “fiscal crisis” in the city’s balance sheets created a difficult “back and forth” between the Brown administration and council.

“We’re getting closer to being back in that period,” Hand said. “Cities and counties around the country are dealing with severe fiscal challenges. Jacksonville has so far managed to escape those. But the trend lines are not positive.”

Tuning out the ‘political noise’

But despite the political gamesmanship, there has much of the time been little daylight between the council’s and mayor’s policy positions. 

Deegan and Carrico both label Downtown development a key priority. The executive and legislative branches offered unanimous support for $130 million-plus in city incentives for the University of Florida to build a graduate campus in LaVilla; for developer Gateway Jax’s $2 billion mixed-use development; and Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s off-field ambitions – a Four Seasons Hotel and office building on the riverfront and a $1.5 billion stadium renovation.

The mayor and council Republicans have also been united in support for public infrastructure projects and increases in spending for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department.

Carrico, a VP with Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida, is also prioritizing the city’s underserved youth. He formed a Special Committee of Youth Empowerment to work on “developing opportunities to help the digital divide, offer STEM opportunities, as well as job training and programs, with a goal of expanding the reach and impact to more of our community’s youth.” 

Deegan and Carrico say they have maintained standing biweekly meetings on mutual priorities and what’s coming before the council.

Lumb, a conservative former city council member, says while he doesn’t personally want to see the mayor reelected, he doesn’t see her targeting from across the building and from Tallahassee affecting next year’s mayoral race. 

“She is not getting drawn into a lot of the dreck that’s been on display in city council. She’s positioning herself for reelection. I think she realizes that she probably has an advantage, the same advantage she probably had back in 2023, and that she hasn’t done anything to offend the donor class,” Lumb told Jacksonville Today on Sept. 30. “And so I don’t see the donor class spending another $5 million or $6 million to get her out of office.”

Speaking this month on WJCT News 89.9’s First Coast Connect, the mayor said her administration got “99% of what we wanted” in this year’s $2 billion city budget.

She expects more pushback when the city spending debate comes around again, “especially approaching an election year, it’s going to be contentious again, because it always is.”

But at the same time, Deegan’s already meeting with likely incoming council President Nick Howland.  

“And I think we both share a desire to have a good working relationship that’ll help us get to a good budget next year,” Deegan said. “So it’s okay to have different voices that bring different things into the conversation. The important thing is, you know, you can put politics aside for the betterment of the city, and I think we’ll do that.”