Candidate: Lisa King

I’m Lisa King, a native of Jacksonville, and I offer myself for service as a member of the Jacksonville City Council. I love Jacksonville. I was born here, educated in our public schools, and raised my three children here. I have lived in many areas of our city, having grown up on the Southside and then residing in Riverside in the 1980’s. With my husband John, a retired business manager, we settled our young family on Heckscher Drive in 1998. I am a proud Navy mom. My son Ian, a Stanton and UF graduate, recently separated from the Navy and settled in Tampa with his wife Brittany, a public-school teacher, and my two grandchildren. My daughter Kelsey, a Paxon and FSCJ graduate, is a nurse at Mayo Clinic and expecting my third grandchild with her husband, Eli. My daughter Callan, also a Stanton graduate, has been continuing her education at both FSCJ and UNF.

I have been a small business leader for more than 25 years, advising cities and counties throughout our state on program and resource development, and working in real estate development in downtown Jacksonville, Gainesville, and Sarasota. In 2014, I was recognized as a "Woman of Influence" by the Jacksonville Business Journal for small business leadership and community service.

I have worked to serve our community throughout my life. I helped establish the Heckscher Drive Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and serve as Incident Commander assisting in disaster response. I have served as Vice President of Friends of the St. Johns River Ferry and as a ferry ambassador, volunteering to greet ferry riders on weekends. I am proud of my work to secure grant funding that helped save the St. Johns River Ferry. These grants – totaling almost $11 million – have funded operations gaps and ferry slip replacement. The Ferry is important to our city as it plays a role in the economies of the Village of Mayport, the Timucuan Preserve, and the A1A corridor, and is a critical link for Mayport NAS military and civilian personnel servicing ships drydocked at BAE on Heckscher Drive.

I was honored to serve on Jacksonville’s Planning Commission from 2012 – 2015, ending my service as Chair. In this role, I worked to study all sides of each request and balance the needs of both growth and neighborhoods by preventing decisions that negatively impact our community and families. I’m especially proud of helping to prevent the proliferation of cell phone towers in the Timucuan Preserve and other city parks such as Alexandria Oaks. I was also gratified to play a key role in helping the citizens of Black Hammock Island solve a suburban approach to fencing that was being implemented on their Island, truly one of Jacksonville’s unique places. While fencing sounds like a small thing, each family was confronted with costs running into the tens of thousands of dollars. My favorite part of serving as a Commissioner was finding the “Win-Win” and solving problems.

I have also served as Chair of Riverside Avondale Preservation, as Vice Chair of the Jacksonville Housing and Community Development Commission, on the board of the Timucuan Parks Foundation, on the Vestry of St. George Episcopal Church, and as a Lay Reader and Eucharistic Minister. In 2018, I organized and led the “JEA is OURS” campaign.

I am a leader who understands that real solutions require all of us working together. As Chair of the Planning Commission, I heard from citizens again and again that efforts to improve many neighborhoods fell short. For your family and mine, I want a Jacksonville that keeps its long overdue promises, plans for the future, and values the safety of every family.

I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me through my website www.LisalovesJax.com or through my Facebook page /KingforCouncil.