Library board nominee Elizabeth Andersen, who's the CEO of Jacksonville nonprofit OneJax, seen here during its 2025 Humanitarian Awards ceremony on May 1, 2025. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on May 22, 2025 at 4:51 pm
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OneJax CEO Elizabeth Andersen, a former chair of the Duval County School Board, says politcal backlash will not stop her from pursuing a seat on the Jacksonville board of library trustees.
City Council’s Rules Committee voted 5-3 against Andersen’s nomination this week.
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On Wednesday, Andersen told Jacksonville Today that she emailed all 19 City Council members to inform them she will keep her name up for the position and ask for their support when the full council is scheduled to vote on her nomination Tuesday.
“Primarily, I hope that we can set a better standard and don’t allow this type of misinformation and political bullying to continue to be rewarded,” Andersen said.
Mayor Donna Deegan, a Democrat, nominated Andersen to serve on the 12-voting member library board, a role that several council members noted in the Rules meeting typically doesn’t gain a lot of attention.
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Committee Chair Nick Howland and members Terrance Freeman, Mike Gay, Chris Miller and President Randy White voted against recommending Andersen’s nomination to the full council.
Michael Boylan, Matt Carlucci and Rahman Johnson voted in favor.
Most the controversy surrounding Andersen’s nomination stems from comments made in a candidate forum during her 2022 school board reelection campaign, which she lost to School Board member April Carney. Andersen reportedly referred to Tia Bess, outreach director for the right-wing parental rights organization Moms for Liberty, as a “token person.”
Supporters says her service record and character are being misrepresented.
Andersen, who has a master’s degree in mental health counseling from the University of North Florida, is a former teacher. She has been chief executive of the nonprofit interfaith community group OneJax since February 2024. She sat on the Duval School Board from 2018 to 2022.
During her term on the board, she served as chair and was a member of the board that approved and secured a voter referendum in 2020 to institute a half-cent sales tax in Duval County to improve existing and build new school facilities.
Andersen helped create a citizens oversight board of the sales tax revenue as well as the district’s first audit transparency committee.
Her time as chair also included the renaming of six schools formerly named after Confederate generals.
Andersen says her top priorities as a library board trustee would be digital access and digital literacy, early childhood literacy and workforce development.
Andersen took to X, formerly Twitter, on May 17 to ask people to “rise above partisanship and model the kind and respectful engagement we want out children to inherit.”
She used her opportunity in front of the Rules Committee on Monday to defend her integrity and nomination.
“False and decisive claims about my character and my beliefs. I want to be clear that I have no political agenda or ambition,” Andersen said to the committee. “What I do have is a lifelong commitment to public service, education and building a more connected and civil community.
”Our library system is one of Jacksonville’s greatest assets. It exists to inform, to inspire and to service all people regardless of background or viewpoint,” she said. “I believe in protecting that mission, not politicizing it.”
Andersen apologized to Bess during her committee hearing when Johnson gave her the opportunity. She said she never meant to offend Bess.
“This nomination is not controversial because of Elizabeth’s qualifications; it’s controversial because she did something that all of us had the audacity to do, and that’s to lead in the face of inconvenience,” Johnson said before the vote Monday. “You put children before politics but … there was an individual who did not tend to bend because of performative outrage.”
Deegan and Andersen’s supporters say the council pushback against the nomination are due to growing partisanship and outside political influence in the city’s legislative branch.
In a video posted to the Threads social media platform Wednesday, the mayor said it was difficult to see Andersen and her public service be “degraded.”
“We are simply reaching a point in our civil discourse that is not only unfair, but it is dangerous,” Deegan said in the video. “We can disagree about things and not resort to lies and naming calling in an effort to literally destroy a person’s reputation all because of, frankly, partisan political agendas. I think we’re better than that as a city.”
Freeman said communication between the Deegan administration and council members on policy has improved. But he said he’s “extremely frustrated” with what he sees as a high level of divisive board and commission nominees.
“I can’t remember the frequency of appointments that have been recommended to this council that have led to a public discourse of individual that ultimately further divide us as a community,” Freeman said during the meeting. “I cannot recall seeing as many as I have in the last two years.”
Deegan reinforced her support for Andersen In a statement emailed Tuesday to Jacksonville Today and showed optimism that the three votes she received in committee were from two Republicans and a Democrat.
“We were encouraged to see a bipartisan vote in favor of her nomination yesterday, along with widespread community support for her experience and qualifications,” Deegan said. “It’s our hope that Elizabeth’s nomination will be considered on the merits without undue political pressure or predetermined outcomes.”
Conservative activists spoke out against Andersen at the Rules meeting while several prominent Democratic leaders including former state Sen. Audrey Gibson and Duval Democratic Party Chair Daniel Henry spoke in her defense.
A community letter of support for her nomination has also been circulating online.
Council member Jimmy Peluso is not a Rules Committee member but attended Monday to speak to Andersen’s public service credentials.
“These are volunteer boards. These are people giving up their time to serve in a volunteer capacity,” Peluso said. “Not only is Elizabeth willing to do so, but she was an elected official for four years, and in that time was constantly regarded as someone who knew what she was doing.
“Regardless of how you all feel, you know that she was a very, very good, above average elected official. And now she’s coming up here, and there’s been so much noise about this one appointee.”
