Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio formally announced her re-election bid this morning, touting her first term accomplishments to lower crime rates, revitalize neighborhoods and bring residential development to downtown:
Four years ago I said that “I want my administration to be a can-do organization of real accomplishments – making life better for people in real, tangible ways…†As I look back over these past four years I see just that – real, tangible achievements that collectively make Tampa a better place to live. These have been four years of change – a new team in place at City Hall, a new emphasis on issues that directly affect the quality of life for the citizens of Tampa, a new vitality in our downtown.
Iorio's first-term goals could best be described as "the basics," and working on crime at a time when the national crime rate was falling was not real hard to do. Making the neighborhoods feel more loved was easy, too, given that her predecessor didn't have a great rapport with neighborhood leaders. As for the goal of residential
development downtown, she benefited from a wave of condo speculation that spread across the entire state. If anything, Tampa's central business district (not counting the growth in the Channel District, which is physically cut off from the rest of downtown by train tracks and bridges) underperformed other downtowns' growth, such as in St. Petersburg.
Iorio set slightly more ambitious goals for a second term, including mass transit for the entire region and a focus on redeveloping such areas as East Tampa, West Tampa, Ybor City, and the Channel District. She also said she wants to expand her initiatives aimed at Tampa's young people. In her first term, she created the Mayor’s Youth Corps, a Mentoring Program, an Arts Education Fund, and the Make the Grade Program.
This article appears in Jan 3-9, 2007.