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Jacksonville’s Alvin Brown Has Been Inaugurated

Jacksonville's first African-American mayor has been inaugurated. Now Alvin Brown has two weeks to balance his city's budget.

Alvin Brown, Jacksonville, Florida’s first African-American mayor, was inaugurated on July 1. The event culminated a weeklong tour of the city, during which Brown met with supporters to discuss his new administration’s priorities and some of the promises he made on the campaign trail.

 

One pledge that’s got to hurt at least a little bit, but which he intends to honor, is that he will take a 20 percent pay cut. In addition, WOKV-TV reports, Brown has promised that every high school in Duval County would have sports, music and physical education programs, which will be difficult because the school district is facing a significant budget deficit. Brown, who is the first Democrat in 20 years to lead the city, also must produce a balanced budget within his first two weeks in office, which he’s promised to do without raising city fees or taxes.

 

“Jacksonville’s future will be restricted only by the limits we place on our dreams," he said during his inauguration speech. But former sheriff Nat Glover, the first African-American elected to citywide office there, offered some advice for the new mayor about dreaming too big.

 

“When you're the first of anything, you get a lot of scrutiny" Glover said. “It actually kind of restricts your ability to be as creative as you would like to because, to a great to degree, you’ve got to be careful not to mess it up instead of trying to get it right.”

 

(Photo: www.alvinformayor.com)

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