Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms says this is how Tampa works:
In February 2000, after she and three colleagues refused to cram 251 more homes into a 1,830-house subdivision plan for U.S. 301, Storms received Tampa lawyer Theodore C. Taub and two others in her office.
Storms claims Taub asked if she realized that retired TECO Energy Inc. Chairman H.L. Culbreath, former state Sen. John Grant and automobile dealer Carl Lindell were investors in the site that she had just turned down for the expanded subdivision.
Taub admits that, on behalf of the land partnership, he expressed disappointment in her vote. In a letter challenging her account, however, Taub was silent on whether he dropped a few big names on Storms.
Happily for Taub and his pals, the prospective buyer of their property — Atlantic Gulf Communities Inc. — was eventually able to proceed with the bigger subdivision after Commissioner Chris Hart III switched his vote.
The episode strikes at the heart of a dilemma facing Hillsborough primary voters on Sept. 10.
The county commission is uncivil, we are told. Business leaders complain it has been hijacked by a cabal of fiercely anti-tax Republicans.
The embodiment of commission incivility is Storms. Obnoxiously self-righteous at times, Storms is nevertheless disinclined to wait hand and foot on powerful downtown businessmen.
She is the kind of impolitic politician who, instead of gracefully accepting Taub's alleged suggestion that she get with the program, had to announce it before the whole world at a public hearing as Hart did his flip-flop.
So what will be the program at the County Center?
Is the electorate's only choice between dysfunctional right-wing lackeys or a better-behaved bunch that sells you out to silk-stocking hucksters behind closed doors?
Fortunately, there are a handful of candidates — with solid platforms and impressive resumes — who have shown they will put the public's concerns before the narrow interests of ideological egomaniacs or the University Club crowd.
Let us tell you about a few of them — and warn you about the rest.
District 1: A Tested Candidate
Don't bother with the Republicans in this Riverview/South Tampa/Town N Country district.
Chris Hart, a term-limited refugee from a countywide seat, is the weakest name in the field hoping to succeed Stacey Lyn Easterling. Gene Wells has gotten slicker since a 1999 Tampa City Council run. But Wells is beholden to Ralph Hughes, one of the aforementioned conservative string-pullers.
Hughes has made it his goal in life to abolish development impact fees. Grab your wallet whenever you see Hughes-backed candidates coming. They want to continue Hillsborough's long, ignominious tradition of taxpayers subsidizing builders.
Democrat Kathy Castor is the darling of the downtown set, her candidacy blessed by a Tampa Tribune endorsement. But guess who Storms says was a mute witness to the squeeze play in her office by Taub, Castor's law partner at the time? Castor says she cannot recall the 2-and-a-half-year-old incident.
A land-use lawyer, Castor says the "overwhelming majority" of her clients have been governments and citizen groups, not developers. She said local homebuilders didn't endorse her in 2000 for an unsuccessful state Senate bid and they haven't again this year.
John Dingfelder has an uphill fight against the Castor family name and Mimi Kehoe Osiason's early entry into the race. But Dingfelder has the best track record among three strong Democratic contenders.
Dingfelder has been an assistant county attorney and public defender, as well as a Tampa zoning variance board member and public school teacher. In 1997, he and future Hillsborough Commissioner Pat Frank fought gamely but in vain on the old Tampa General Hospital board to stop privatization of the county hospital.
For that alone, Dingfelder deserves support. He showed then that he will stand up against Tampa's elite when the public good is at stake.
District 2: A GOP Tree-hugger
There's only a Republican primary here on Sept. 10, and Denise "Dee" Layne is the class of this gang of four.
A veteran Lutz environmentalist, Layne has been green-baited by some of her opponents. That might scare the building industry into a new flurry of check writing to her opposition. But the problem for builders and Layne's rivals is that her roots run deep in this north Hillsborough district.
Layne has served with a variety of community groups and county committees, particularly those concerned with growth and water. She knows those issues backward and forward.
Another Denise — Lasher — is also knowledgeable about county government. But Lasher's developer-enhanced campaign treasury and ties to Hughes taint her.
In the District 2 contest, Ken Hagan is the designated flunky of Sam Rashid, whose sway over the current commission has upset Tampa big shots. Although Hagan is said to be ahead in some pre-election polls, Sam's man has acted like he's lost in a New Tampa traffic jam.
ER doctor Jim Davison is personable enough to play one on television.
District 4: Voters, Good Luck
The scene was tenser than anything on public access cable. Storms and reelection challenger Arlene Waldron were getting interviewed last month by the Compass Project — better known as the Get Rashid Squad.
Storms was blabbering for an unsympathetic audience of three white men. One of them, the usually mild-mannered retired Tribune publisher Jack Butcher, looked as if he had all he could do to keep his hands from lunging for Storms' jugular.
"My main job is to give power to the powerless," Storms told the Compass jury. "I don't pander well."
Charles "White Chocolate" Perkins, Saheeb and the rest of the naughty boys over at public access would beg to differ.
Storms saw the nudity and heard the undeleted expletives on public access earlier this year — an election year — and must have sung out in full Baptist throat: "Thank you, Jesus!"
She has milked her anti-public access crusade for all it's worth — at least a few hundred east-county votes in Hillsborough's most conservative commission district.
The freshman commissioner can be forgiven for playing cheap tricks to energize her political base. After all, District 4 voters have ousted or run off Storms' two predecessors.
Unforgivable, though, are: 1) her bigoted statements about the ability of black law graduates to pass the bar; 2) her mistreatment of county staffers and the public with the misfortune of having to appear before Storms at commission meetings; 3) her dimwitted stab at dumping the county's construction-dependent economy into recession by crying wolf about a building moratorium and; 4) her affinity for the Hughes agenda.
Storms is a marked woman, as far as the downtown power brokers go. The Compass Project embraced Waldron with a big bear hug and the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce has dissed Storms.
But Waldron is running the campaign that former Commissioner Dottie Berger didn't have the nerve to run in District 4 in 1998. Berger opted for a countywide seat and still got beat, no small thanks to Rashid.
Backing sports palaces and other taxing projects of marginal interest to District 4 was a loser for Berger. Waldron, a damn Democrat until 2000 for crying out loud, will have a tough time convincing the many Republicans in this district that she hasn't picked up the old Berger banner. (All registered voters may cast ballots in this winner-take-all primary on Sept. 10 because no Democrat or other party candidate qualified.)
On the stump, Waldron looks out of her depth. A banker by trade, she is a good girl by Greater Brandon Area Chamber of Commerce standards. Don't expect her to make waves in downtown Tampa, either.
Pity the poor District 4 voters. You don't have much of a pick here.
District 5: Good Luck, Again
Jim Norman and Stacey Easterling are two more reasons for the widespread disenchantment with Hillsborough commissioners.
Each of these incumbents comes complete with their very own Republican Svengali. Norman promptly returns calls from Hughes. Rashid seems to have planted a chip in Easterling's head that eliminates the need for phone calls.
Norman is a champion of sports programs for kids. But only for kids whose parents have a good HMO, since Norman is not a fanatic about the county's indigent health care plan. He favored the overdeveloped county's bizarre experiment with impact fee-free zones, which have proved a boon to Hughes and a burden on taxpayers.
Norman flopped around about public access before voting to strip funding for it. Probably a decision made for the kiddies.
On health care, impact fees and public access, Easterling tends to vote with Norman. She's only been on the commission for two years but has swiftly become just as untrustworthy.
Easterling talks about integrity at the few candidate forums that Rashid has let her attend. If you miss her drift, she's reminding voters that Norman is lucky he and Commissioner Tom Scott weren't indicted for trying to muscle ex-TGH boss Bruce Siegel into buying medical equipment from one of their political backers.
When voters think of integrity, however, Easterling's name isn't the first to pop to mind.
The Florida Bar might discipline Easterling, a former county prosecutor, after a grievance committee found probable cause to believe she made prejudicial statements about defense witnesses during a 1999 criminal jury trial. Easterling has denied that.
Easterling also has been accused of using county money to send self-promotional mailers outside of District 1, which she currently represents, in anticipation of opposing Norman countywide. She claimed the mailers weren't campaign materials but contained county information of vital interest to taxpayers.
No matter who voters pick in this race, they won't end up with a winner.
District 7: Independence Counts
This primary leaves voters with a tough choice between thoughtful incumbent Pat Frank and progressive HARTline spokesman Ed Crawford.
Frank is commission chair, supposedly a perk, but that has caused unfair criticism of her because she has to be the ringmistress at this circus. In spite of the guilt by association, Frank has distinguished herself as an independent thinker on a board so beholden to GOP donors that meetings resemble a puppet show.
She is dedicated to the county's poor. Frank fought the TGH privatization and is a staunch supporter of the indigent health plan. She also supports the rights of baser elements in the county and doesn't want to censor or de-fund public access.
Frank fiercely guards the public's interests and money, and she doesn't care who she pisses off while doing it.
She has battled with Tampa Bay Water and is a vocal critic of HARTline managers. She won't be bullied by the Tampa chamber into putting a transportation tax hike before voters.
Crawford agrees with Frank on social issues like health care and public access funding. Like Frank, he wants developers to pay for development and thinks impact fee-free zones should exist only where taxpayers don't have to foot the bill for infrastructure.
Where the two candidates diverge is on transportation and other aspects of growth management.
Crawford is a big fan of "smart growth," sometimes known as the New Urbanism.
City folks swoon over Crawford's vision of efficient mass transit and neighborhoods where people walk to restaurants and stores. He talks about community planning that includes fewer lawns and denser urban areas.
Yes, his plans are expensive. However, growth isn't free. We can plan for it or react to it badly.
People view Crawford as a light-rail messiah and he is a proponent. But Crawford doesn't think the county's ready for light rail, though we should prepare for it. Even if we really, really love our SUVs, the county will run out of roads to widen someday.
Critics call Crawford a downtown pawn. A tacit endorsement by the Tampa chamber won't lessen that impression. Neither will his ties to Olympian promoter and former County Commissioner Ed Turanchik. New Urbanism can sometimes be translated as "stomping on the poor to build cool stuff," or — as we used to call it in Tampa — Florida 2012.
As much as we like Crawford's plans for more urban goodies, losing Frank would mean losing a voice of reason when commissioners confuse the word "constituent" with "contractor."
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2002.