Maybe I'm giving Brown too much credit, but let's say Brown is a card in a deck, and let's call him somewhere between and 9 and 10, but below a face card. However, there are a lot more cards below a 9 than above a 10. I don't want another Peyton.
You're right about one thing: you're giving Brown too much credit if you think he's a nine or ten card. At least Peyton never submitted a budget so incompetent the Council had to handle it for him, and he supports the HRO. If Tanzler and Austin are kings or queens, Peyton's a number card, but Brown's the joker.
I'm not sure I agree with Peyton being higher than Brown. I truly think Peyton was one of the worst mayors we could have possibly had. Let's sum it up:
The Walt Bussells bond fiasco
The "guarantee a profit" deal for Mark Rimmer
The "let's throw a way a medical school and let Daytona have it"
The "Big Ideas" plan
The standing in the way of urban progress
I can go on about his 8 years, and look, I don't like Brown's stance on the HRO, I think he probably (if for no other reason politically) needs to build an entirely new staff on the financial side of the house. I just think how quickly we forget how painful it was to watch Jacksonville in 2003, and think about 2011 and what could have been over the last 8 years.
Looking back, I think that Delaney was the best mayor since consolidation, then Tanzler and Austin (so hard to compare those two), then Godbold and Hazouri (both had their pluses and minuses), then Peyton. I'll reserve Brown's place once his body of work is complete.
