Dr. Neil Manimala, 35, has watched Valrico grow from orange groves and two-lane roads to an area with nothing but golf courses for greenspace. He learned to drive on the congested stretch of State Road 60 that runs through Brandon. Now, the University of South Florida-graduate and urologist wants to join the county commission to address the sprawl and the traffic that has become emblematic of east Hillsborough County.
“I can only do so much as a urologist,” Manimala told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “People can’t even make it to their appointments, because they missed the bus in south county by a minute. If they’re worried about keeping a roof over their head, they have to decide between that versus making it into surgery the next day.”
The public transit and affordable housing advocate has raised over $100,000 in his bid to unseat Donna Cameron Cepeda, a Republican elected in 2022 who has since voted to reduce affordable housing and lobbied for reduced public transparency of county commission activities. She was also among the commissioners who did not sign a 2024 Tampa Pride proclamation.
The two will fight for the District 5 seat in November.
Manimala, a Catholic and a Democrat, said he first learned bipartisanship in church where he worshiped alongside Republicans with whom he shared the common ground of faith. He wants to bring that attitude to the county commission, where he views three of the five Republicans in office as reasonable moderates. “At the end of the day, the fundamental heart of our politics has still got to be kindness, still got to be service. Still got to be putting yourself in the shoes of the other.”
Manimala told CL he wants to collaborate with the other members of the county commission without sacrificing his values. “When you see something wrong in front of you, you have got to speak up about it. Yes, you build consensus, yes, you find ways to compromise, but there’s a certain point where you’ve also gotta be an unequivocal voice to truth and be an unyielding force for justice.”
Manimala said he believes in the dignity of every person and that he operates from a place of compassion. “There are issues like traffic, affordable housing and healthcare coverage that ensure citizens are taken care of and aren’t fundamentally partisan issues.”
During CL’s interview, Manimala routinely circled back to public transit. Congestion, he said, could be helped by fewer cars on the road. If the county continues to grow as expected, roads will only get worse unless more people can be transported with less space.
CL spoke with Manimala as his wife neared her due date for the birth of his first child. “Right now, if my wife calls me and I need to get to the hospital, I’m not going to be taking HART,” Manimala said. “But my dream is that perhaps in 35 years, when my daughter’s my age, if she ever wants to have kids, maybe she’ll be able to take HART and make it to the hospital.”
County commission decisions have consequences decades down the line, Manimala said, and he wants to think beyond the next budget cycle.
Manimala is inspired by the work of Phyllis Busansky, a former Hillsborough County Commissioner who he said was “instrumental in advocacy for those on the margins” in Hillsborough County.
In the 1990s, Busansky helped create the Hillsborough County Health Care Plan, which provides health insurance to people who don’t qualify for Medicaid. Manimala got his start in county government as a member of the board that oversees the plan. Her ability to reach across the aisle with compassion is a model of leadership Manimala wants to follow.
Manimala’s parents were farmers in south India before they moved to the United States. He lived in Chicago until he turned four years old, when his parents relocated to Valrico.
When asked his go-to Wawa order, Manimala said he sticks to black coffee. If he’s going to buy food, he’s always preferred to patronize a local restaurant like the now-defunct Mirro’s Pizza, Lucky Tigre, or Curry Leaves, which he says is the only Indian restaurant his Indian parents are willing to eat at.
Manimala doesn’t view his limited political experience as an inherent negative. “I have not had some carefully-engineered path into politics,” he told CL. He made the distinction between good experience and bad experience. Some politicians have political experience, Manimala said, but it’s experience maintaining the existing political machine that churns out the same old results. “We need something refreshing, we need something new, and we need to find a way to do things differently.”
Ultimately, Manimala said he wants to make sure the county is looking out for the best interest of everyone, especially marginalized people. “All of us, in so many ways, have the capacity to look out for our brothers and sisters. Economically, there’s a return on investment for that. … But beyond that, it’s also just the right thing to do,” Manimala said.
Change is possible, Manimala said, and the political stalemates common in Hillsborough’s county commission shouldn’t be a reason to give up on politics: “I don’t think that we can afford to put our hands up and give in to defeatism and cynicism and despair when it comes to this moment.”
Manimala asks people from the community to share their voice and ideas with him. He wants to hear ideas and feedback, not just during the campaign, but after the election too. Reach out to him @VoteManimala on most social media platforms.
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This article appears in Dec. 04 – 10, 2025.