Mayor of Jacksonville; Florida

Leonard Boyd Curry (born July 19, 1970) is an American politician and businessman who is currently Mayor of Jacksonville, Florida. He assumed office on July 1, 2015 after defeating incumbent Alvin Brown in the city's 2015 mayoral election. A Republican, Curry formerly served as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida and co-founded the professional services firm ICX Group.

Curry was born in Key West. He later grew up in Middleburg, Florida and graduated from Middleburg High School. Curry began his higher education at St. Johns River Community College, then transferred to the University of Florida and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in accounting. He married his wife, Molly, in 2005. They have three children: Boyd, Brook, and Bridgett.

From 1994 to 2002, he practiced as a certified public accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. In 2002, he co‐founded a Jacksonville-based professional services firm, ICX Group Inc., providing finance and accounting consulting, executive recruiting, and staffing services.

At the end of the night, with all 201,227 votes counted, Republican Curry drew 51.3 percent of the vote -- a 5,285-vote margin over Brown.

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For both men, Tuesday's election ends well over a year of campaigning and a campaign that cost millions of dollars.

Brown registered to run for a second term two years ago, and Curry filed his paperwork in January 2014. The two came out on top in a four-way primary in March and spent a record amount of money on this campaign.

"We have almost tripled what was (spent) in the previous mayoral race," Election Supervisor Jerry Holland said last week."The dollars are just amazing."

Curry was able to tap into friendships he earned while leading the state GOP as well as party resources to defeat Brown, who four years ago became Jacksonville's first black mayor and the first Democrat to win the position in 20 years.

Brown narrowly won office then by positioning himself as a conservative Democrat who tried to avoid partisan politics. He said he wanted to work with Republican Gov. Rick Scott to bring jobs to the area and upset local Democrats by not appearing with President Barack Obama at a 2012 campaign rally.

On June 3, 2014, Curry filed to run for Jacksonville mayoral election in 2015. He decided to enter the race because beginning in late 2012 and early 2013, he began hearing about "leadership troubles" under incumbent Democratic mayor Alvin Brown.




Jacksonville

Jacksonville is the largest city by population in the U.S. state of Florida, the 12th most populous city in the United States and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city limits; with an estimated population of 868,031 in 2015, it is the most populous city proper in Florida and the Southeast. Jacksonville is the principal city in the Jacksonville metropolitan area, with a population of 1,573,606 in 2015.

Jacksonville is in the First Coast region of northeast Florida and is centered on the banks of the St. Johns River, about 25 miles (40 km) south of the Georgia state line and about 340 miles (550 km) north of Miami. The Jacksonville Beaches communities are along the adjacent Atlantic coast. The area was originally inhabited by the Timucua people, and in 1564 was the site of the French colony of Fort Caroline, one of the earliest European settlements in what is now the continental United States. Under British rule, settlement grew at the narrow point in the river where cattle crossed, known as Wacca Pilatka to the Seminole and the Cow Ford to the British. A platted town was established there in 1822, a year after the United States gained Florida from Spain; it was named after Andrew Jackson, the first military governor of the Florida Territory and seventh President of the United States.

Harbor improvements since the late 19th century have made Jacksonville a major military and civilian deep-water port. Its riverine location facilitates two United States Navy bases and the Port of Jacksonville, Florida's third largest seaport. The two US Navy bases, Blount Island Command and the nearby Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay form the third largest military presence in the United States. Significant factors in the local economy include services such as banking, insurance, healthcare and logistics. As with much of Florida, tourism is also important to the Jacksonville area, particularly tourism related to golf. People from Jacksonville may be called "Jacksonvillians" or "Jaxsons" (also spelled "Jaxons").