Neighborhood report
Fair Oaks/Manhattan Manor: Landlady is out, now so is her building
After ousting Margie Kincaid as party head, the county GOP also moves its headquarters from a building she owns.
By RON MATUS, Times Staff Writer
Published October 24, 2003
First, the party chair got the boot. Now her building is out, too.
The Hillsborough Republican Party abandoned its red, white and blue headquarters on S Dale Mabry Highway this month, not long after the ouster of longtime party head Margie Kincaid, who owns the building.
For now, the GOP war room is in the Austin Center on N West Shore Boulevard, a block north of Cypress Street.
"It was just appropriate," said party activist Al Higginbotham, who was elected Kincaid's successor Tuesday night.
The former headquarters, south of Euclid Avenue, played a role in Kincaid's removal.
Party officials accused her of double-billing the party for sales taxes on the rent - a charge she denies. But state party officials thought enough of the allegations to remove her from her post Sept. 5.
Kincaid, 81, a Beach Park resident, did not return repeated calls for comment, but she has not conceded defeat. "Nothing's over until the fat lady sings," she told the St. Petersburg Times a week after she was cast out. "I haven't had a chance to sing yet."
The Dale Mabry building was a political landmark.
The Republican Party used it for at least 20 years, for everything from meetings to phone banks. It sits in front of Kincaid Brick, the business owned by Kincaid's late husband, Bill, also a GOP stalwart.
Despite the emotional attachment many had to the building, there had been talk in recent years about moving, Higginbotham said.
"There was a growing feeling that we were outgrowing the facility," he said.
Whether the new digs in Austin Center are temporary will depend in part on the new chair's wishes, said April Schiff, the party's acting chair. But chances are the party will move again because the new office is small. The lease is month to month.
The old building still is being used to further the Republican cause - as headquarters for the Tampa Bay chapter of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, a group dedicated to making inroads among Hispanic voters.
Kincaid, the assembly's vice chair, "wants to keep some type of party business going in that building," said Jacqui Knight, the group's spokeswoman.
The assembly is using the building rent-free.
- Ron Matus can be reached at 226-3405 or matus@sptimes.com
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