Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan is gearing up for a veto fight at City Hall, promising to reject a City Council ordinance that would strip some of her appointment power and hand it to the council president. The bill, which passed 9-6 on Tuesday, targets coveted seats on the Kids Hope Alliance and the Jacksonville Public Library boards, setting the stage for a local power struggle over who gets to pick the people steering two major, taxpayer-funded institutions.
What the Bill Would Change
Under the ordinance, the council president would gain the authority to nominate three of the seven members of the Kids Hope Alliance board and five of the 12 Jacksonville Public Library trustees, while the remaining seats would stay under the mayor’s purview, according to the City Council Research Division. That analysis notes that appointees from both the mayor and the council president would still need full City Council confirmation and spells out how the first terms for council-president picks would be structured. The research report also says the change carries no direct fiscal impact.
Mayor Pushes Back
Deegan is not treating this as a minor tweak. In a statement to the Florida Times-Union, her office blasted the ordinance as "another effort to erode the balance of power between co-equal branches of government" and said the mayor will veto it. The administration is casting the proposal as a structural shift that would weaken executive oversight of the boards that manage Jacksonville’s libraries and youth services. The statement landed shortly after the council’s Tuesday vote.
Council Vote and the Sponsor
The 9-6 roll call reflected a council majority that argued the legislative branch deserves a stronger hand in governing the Kids Hope Alliance and the library system. Supporters said the ordinance simply gives council leadership more say over boards that directly affect children and public access to information.
Ron Salem, the council member who sponsored the ordinance, told colleagues during debate that "the mayor still would appoint a majority of members on the Kids Hope Alliance and library boards," according to the Florida Times-Union. Salem’s sponsorship and the official ordinance language are included in the council’s legislative packet, as documented by the City Council Research Division.
Legal Stakes and a Possible Challenge
Even if the council majority holds, clearing an override is a tall order. Under the city charter, it takes a two-thirds vote of the 19-member council, or 13 votes, to overturn a mayoral veto, according to City of Jacksonville charter records. That high bar has historically kept override attempts rare and politically fraught.
The city’s General Counsel has previously sided with the mayor in related disputes over appointment power, and Action News Jax has reported that the administration’s legal position could make any override vulnerable and even trigger a court fight. Put together, the legal posture and the steep vote threshold make an effective override unlikely unless council members can assemble a broad, and somewhat unlikely, coalition.
What’s Next
Deegan is expected to send a formal veto message back to the City Council, laying out her objections in writing. Council members will then have to decide whether to schedule a reconsideration and move toward an override vote or let the veto stand and leave appointment power as is, at least for now.
The drama is unfolding against an already charged political backdrop. Deegan filed her paperwork this spring to run for another term as mayor, a move that could intensify interest-group pressure and sharpen council alliances as the fight plays out, according to the Jax Daily Record.
