JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan announced Friday that Chief of Staff Mike Weinstein will formerly take over as the City\u2019s Chief Administrative Officer.<\/p>\n
In what the city called \u201cjust a formality\u201d Weinstein has already spent the past two and a half months partnering closely with Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Kelli O\u2019Leary to oversee city departments, following the resignation of former CAO Karen Bowling in October<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAdditionally, Mike will be available to me for Mayor\u2019s Office priorities as I continue to evaluate our staffing needs,\u201d Mayor Deegan said in a statement. \u201cI am truly grateful for our entire team of dedicated public servants who have accomplished so much in such a short time for our citizens. Jacksonville has real momentum, and we\u2019re keeping our foot on the gas to build an affordable, safe, and healthy city.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everyone welcomed the announcement. City Council member Rory Diamond, a frequent critic of the Deegan administration, downplayed the decision, saying, \u201cYet another underwhelming move by Mayor Deegan. We need leaders for the future, not more failed retreads from the past. A real leader would have done a national search and brought the best to Jacksonville.\u201d<\/p>\n Weinstein has a long, successful history in City government, including coming out of retirement twice to serve in various roles. Most notably of late, he was the architect of the Jaguars\u2019 \u201cStadium of the Future\u201d deal<\/a> that will result in the city spending $775 million towards the renovation.<\/p>\n Bowling resigns as Chief Administrative Officer<\/b><\/p>\n A clear explanation for Bowling\u2019s departure was never provided. However, Action News Jax\u2019s Ben Becker learned that Bowling submitted her resignation via text message on Oct. 1, shortly after meeting with Deegan. Sources say both agreed during that meeting that it was time to \u201cmutually go their separate ways.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMayor Deegan, per our conversation today, please accept my resignation, effective October 24, 2025. Thank you for the opportunity, and I wish you all the best!\u201d<\/p>\n The leadership shake-up continued the same day of Bowling\u2019s resignation as a job offer was withdrawn from former Jacksonville Bar Association Executive Director Craig Shoup<\/a>, whom Bowling had previously recruited for a city role, according to Becker.<\/p>\n What\u2019s Next?<\/b><\/p>\n Weinstein will make the same $271,855 salary as Bowling and will continue Chief of Staff duties as needed for the time being, according to a city spokesperson. <\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan announced Friday that Chief of Staff Mike Weinstein will formerly take…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":443260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,3188,723,7324,7310,7327,48344,7325,7326,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,204256,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-443259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-fox30","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-jacksonville-fl","16":"tag-mayor-donna-deegan","17":"tag-northeast-florida","18":"tag-southeast-georgia","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-weinstein","26":"tag-wfox","27":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115709144500401299","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}