Jacksonville City Council member and former mayor
After a lifetime of public service, 76-year-old Thomas “Tommy” Lester Hazouri Sr. died Sept. 11 at his Mandarin home from complications related to lung transplant surgery in July 2020.
Hazouri is the only government official in Jacksonville elected to the state Legislature, the Duval County School Board, City Council and as mayor.
He began his political career at Jacksonville University, where he was elected student body president before graduating in 1966 with a degree in history and government.
A lifelong Democrat, Hazouri began his career in public office in 1974, elected to the state House of Representatives in District 20.
Chair of the House Committee on Education, K-12, Hazouri also was a member of the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Education Funding and the Florida Ethics Commission.
After leaving the Legislature in 1986, Hazouri ran for mayor in Jacksonville in 1987, winning the primary and then defeating Republican Henry Cook in the general election.
During his term as Jacksonville’s third chief executive after consolidation in 1968, Hazouri led the effort to remove toll booths on bridges over the St. Johns River and from Butler Boulevard.
He also is credited with leading the effort to enact environmental regulations that improved air quality in Jacksonville.
Hazouri was defeated in his bid for re-election in 1991 by fellow Democrat Ed Austin. (Austin later registered as a Republican.)
Hazouri ran for mayor again in 1995 and 2003 but lost in the Democratic primary election both times.
In 2004 Hazouri was elected to the first of two four-year terms on the Duval County School Board.
When he died, Hazouri was a second-term At-Large Council member, first seated in 2015.
Hazouri was elected Council president in May 2020 on a 16-3 vote, despite a Republican member supermajority.
In July 2020, Hazouri extended the Council Special Investigatory Committee established by former President Scott Wilson to complete the probe into the attempted sale of JEA.
He also helped advocate for Council’s support for the Duval County School Board’s request to place a half-cent sales tax referendum on the ballot to fund nearly $1.9 billion in deferred building maintenance and capital needs.
After a memorial service at Mandarin Presbyterian Church, Hazouri was buried Sept. 16 at Oaklawn Cemetery.
By Max Marbut
University of Florida Health in Jacksonville CEO
Dr. Leon Haley Jr., CEO of University of Florida Health in Jacksonville, died July 24 in Palm Beach County from injuries sustained after he lost control of a personal watercraft and crashed into a jetty.
Haley was 56.
Son of a public policy professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Haley was a high school athlete, but a knee injury made him consider a career in medicine.
After graduating from Brown University with a degree in human biology, Haley entered medical school at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and graduated in 1990.
Haley was senior vice president for medical affairs and chief of emergency medicine at Grady Health System in Atlanta before he came to Jacksonville in January 2017 to become dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine.
Twelve months later, Haley was named the first black CEO of UF Health Jacksonville.
When the first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccine arrived at UF Health on Dec. 14, 2020, Haley was the first person in Florida to receive the injection at a televised ceremony at the hospital.
Even before the vaccine was available, Haley was an outspoken advocate for its value in protecting people from the coronavirus.
Haley personally vaccinated UF Health staff, including 15 people the day before his death. After he died, hundreds of people in Jacksonville were vaccinated in his honor.
More than 150 staff and faculty members were vaccinated July 30 at a rally at UF Health dedicated to Haley’s memory.
On Aug. 5, JEA, the publicly owned electric and water utility where Haley was a board member, hosted a clinic where more than 140 employees and community members were vaccinated.
“He worked tirelessly with his business and civic partners to join forces against the pandemic, and indeed if there was an Olympics for fighting COVID in Florida, Dr. Haley would win the gold,” Kent Fuchs, president of the University of Florida, said at Haley’s funeral service at AME Zion Church in Pittsburgh, according to a report posted on abcnews.go.com.
By Max Marbut
