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Lunch with Ernest
Flair for personal relating
By ERNEST HOOPER
Published October 14, 2005
County Commissioner Ken Hagan, a second-term Republican who represents northern Hillsborough County, sat with Times columnist Ernest Hooper for a recent question-and-answer session. We invite you to join their conversation.
Q. You said you were in sales and marketing. What inspired you to go into politics?
A. The 2000 presidential campaign and how close it was in Florida. Following the aftermath and the bitter partisanship got my political juices flowing. At that point, to be honest with you, it could have been any office: city council, commission, state level. First of all, I just wanted to make sure my family and friends would be behind me. Every one of them was, so I started meeting with different elected officials and kind of got channeled into the County Commission.
Q. Were you disappointed about the accusations that the election had been stolen?
A. As a Republican, I have to say yes. I can recall being in my house, following it every day like a junkie. I knew I was a Republican, but that got me reading more. That got me asking: How can I get involved? How can I make a difference?
Q. In your initial campaign, people made a big deal about you not appearing at various political forums and debates. But your campaign was successful. What was the key there?
A. There's no substitution for speaking one on one with citizens. The petition drive period started Jan. 9, 2003. From that day forward, we started going door to door, precinct by precinct. Initially, I went to the first couple of debates and I started seeing it was the same people. In the hour and a half that you sit there, you can hit 40 or 50 homes if you're going through a list and you know the voters. You can hit a hundred people, maybe more, in the same time frame you might reach five or 10. It was really about maximizing my time.
Q. Are you against forums?
A. I'm not. People like yourself and the press will be there, and they cover what you say. You reach more people that way, but going door to door, you get more one on one and that's powerful. I knocked on a door in Seffner and an 85-year-old man came to the door with a railroad hat on. I said, "My grandad used to work on the railroad. His name was Big Mac." And he says, "I used to work the night shift with him." He knew half my family. I knocked on a door in Temple Terrace and the woman said, "I went to junior high prom with your dad."
Q. Is it true that Jim Norman coached you when you were a kid?
A. Forest Hills Little League. My dad, at some point, was president of the league and Jim was a coach. I was never involved in politics or the community groups or boards that a lot of people join prior to running for office. But having known Jim, having gone to high school with Commissioner (Kathy) Castor, it made the transition smooth.
Q. You went on to play baseball at the University of Florida, but an injury cut your career short. How tough was that?
A. To be honest with you, I still have dreams about playing. I believe that everything happens for a reason, and there's a reason I wasn't able to go further than I did. I'm very grateful I got to play Division I baseball. Few people make it that far. Baseball is timing and being in the right place at the right time. I could have gone to a smaller school, but I really wanted to go to the University of Florida.
Q. There's been a lot of talk about schools being overcrowded, and our impact fees are among the lowest in the state. Is the answer higher impact fees?
A. There's no question that the County Commission and the School Board need to do a better job in managing growth, but the problem is so many people think raising impact fees is the panacea. But that's not the case. The School Board will tell you even if you raise impact fees, it's going to make such a small dent. We do have one of the lowest impact fees, but we also have a dedicated funding source, the Community Investment Tax, of which 25 percent goes to the school.
Q. For a while, the CIT was helping the school district keep pace.
A. Six months after I was elected in 2002, former superintendent Earl Lennard came and met with us and said the school district had enough money for the next 10-15 years. Granted, we've had the class size amendment, but it's hard to grasp in that short time frame how we've gone from having enough money to a quote-unquote crisis. I'm not against raising impact fees, but the School Board has the ability to raise its millage. Not only have the members not raised it, but they just cut their millage rate. They also have the ability to put a sales tax on the ballot. It's going to take solutions like that to really generate the revenue that's needed.
Q. Some people have said you're too quiet. In fact, I may have been one of those people. How do you respond to that criticism?
A. I've been a leader all my life, going back to captain of the baseball team. My style has always been to lead by example rather than to talk. I think there is a reason God gave us two ears and one mouth. There is no question that when I first got elected, with the volume of information, there was a reason I was listening more. I had a lot to learn. But I think as long as I'm representing my constituents to the best of my abilities, listening to them and responding to them, I'm fine. So many things we talk about on the board could be done behind the scenes. I prefer to take care of most of my projects behind the scenes.
[Last modified October 13, 2005, 08:20:12]
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