Wednesday night, Tampa mayoral candidate Bob Buckhorn reached out to potential voters in a different way, conducting what he called a "Town-hall" meeting on Facebook.
The hour long production was pretty basic but went off without a hitch technologically speaking. Buckhorn, wearing a white shirt and dark striped tie sitting directly in front of the camera in his Ybor City campaign office, responded to questions being recited off-camera from campaign aide Siobhan Harley that came in from viewers either via Facebook, Twitter or other means (with occasional choo-choo noises from CSX trains leaking in the background).
Buckhorn answered questions about the economy, panhandling, creating jobs, and what he wants to do to put Tampa back on the map as the next "Great City".
He said after his "dream of a lifetime" of entering into a Navy flight school in Pensacola went awry when he first moved to Florida in 1982, he drove down to Tampa, where he didn't know a soul but "what I did know was that Tampa was a place that was hip," mentioning that it was referred to in John Nesbitt's book, Megatrends, an international best-seller. "It was a place everybody was talking about," he said, reciting what is becoming a theme in his discussions and speeches. "We've become less and less competitive," he continued, emphasizing that there weren't any culprits for the city's loss from grace. Buckhorn says his victory in the mayor's race will allow Tampa to "reclaim that glory again.
(Excuse the gratuitous editorial comment here, but personally that may be the first time I've ever heard anyone use "Tampa" and "hip" in the same sentence. But I digress).
Buckhorn is also seizing on the antipathy that the electorate is showing regarding panhandling on city rights-of-way, saying "our medians are beginning to resemble Gilligan's Island." Saying he is tough on panhandling, yet "tender" in dealing with the homeless situation, the former city councilman has been taking a hard line here, though we're sure we'll hear equally condemning remarks on the issue as the various mayoral forums commence (of the six people running for office, only Tom Scott and Arthur Richardson do not favor a complete ban on panhandling). He said he hoped that Governor Rick Scott will not cut funding for treatment facilities for the homeless.
This article appears in Jan 20-26, 2011.