Jacksonville City Council member Kevin Carrico will not run for re-election in a decision that gives voters another wide-open race next year for a City Council seat.
Carrico won a partial term in a special election in 2020
and then a full-four year term for the District 4 seat on the Southside. He still could have run again for District 4 because term limits don't kick in until after two full four-year terms in a row.Carrico said Sept. 28 the timing is right for him to serve out his current term through June 2027 and then step away from politics so he can focus fully on building Alignment Global Partners, a new business he co-founded with his wife that will open an office in downtown.
"I feel like I accomplished a lot serving the people of District
4," Carrico said, pointing to leadership posts that included a one-year term as council president that ended June 30.
![City Council president Kevin Carrico speaks at a soccer mini-pitch groundbreaking ceremony in Jacksonville, Florida, on Oct. 1, 2025. [Clayton Freeman/Florida Times-Union]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2025/10/01/NFTU/86464435007-100125-carrico.JPG)
District 4 becomes one of eight open seats up for election in 2027 on the 19-member council. In wake of Carrico's announcement, City Council member Raul Arias is the only incumbent able to run for re-election who has not yet filed for re-election.
Carrico's time as council president scored political wins on the city budget and downtown development but was marked also by a state attorney investigation that has not yet announced any findings.
Carrico would have faced a contested re-election campaign. Former City Council member Scott Wilson, who represented District 4 before Carrico, filed for the seat along along with Lisa Dirnberger and Robert Todd Jeffers. Carrico is a Republican as are Wilson and Dirnberger. Jeffers is a Democrat.
Carrico's political committee has about $280,000 of cash on hand that he could have drawn from for a run. He said he has not backed any of the candidates running for the seat and does not have any plans at this point to make an endorsement. He said his focus for the rest of his time on City Council will be district-focused including enhancements of its parks.
As council president, Carrico successfully pushed to get a 1% property tax rate cut in 2025. He supported downtown development including its riverfront parks and he championed the proposed Culinary Institute of America regional campus in downtown.
He faced an investigation by State Attorney Melissa Nelson's office about his nomination of Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida CEO Paul Martinez to the JEA board while Carrico was serving as a top executive at the nonprofit. Carrico nominated Martinez after the Nassau County affiliate of the non-profit had been trying unsuccessfully to acquire land from JEA for a youth club.
Records released June 25 by the State Attorney's Office show Carrico told Martinez, "Guess it's time they get a new board member to show them who's boss" in a January text message exchange about the Nassau County land. He then nominated Martinez who later withdrew from consideration before City Council voted to confirm him.
Carrico has said he nominated Martinez based solely on his qualifications. Martinez has said the JEA board seat had nothing to do with the Nassau County land.
Carrico said he is confident the investigation will not show any wrongdoing and he hopes it is resolved in the next month.
The Boys & Girls Clubs and Carrico said last week he had stepped down from the nonprofit where he had worked more than a decade and rose to be vice president of strategic initiatives.
He and his wife Daysi Jacobson Carrico started Alignment Global Partners to build on her Daysi Jacobson Accounting, based in Ponte Vedra.
The new firm will use the couple's "complementary strength" in U.S. tax expertise, business strategy, operational leadership and relationship-building to work with business owners and nonprofit leaders in Northeast Florida while expanding to Europe by starting in Madrid, according to the Sept. 28 announcement.
The firm will "connect businesses across the Atlantic with the knowledge and partnerships to move forward with confidence," the announcement said.
"I had a great opportunity with the business to branch out and work for myself and I'm really excited to do that," Carrico said.
He said the downtown office will be on Bay Street in a building overlooking the city-owned land that's been proposed for a development containing the Culinary Institute of America campus.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Kevin Carrico won't run for re-election. Here's what he'll do instead
