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Politics

Redner sees his shot at office

Joe Redner wants to stick to the issues in the runoff for Tampa City Council.

By JANET ZINK and KEVIN GRAHAM
Published March 8, 2007

TAMPA - Can a man who has been arrested more than 50 times, earned millions from nude dance clubs and announced to the world in 2005 that he is gay win a seat on the Tampa City Council?

Strip club owner and iconoclast Joe Redner has run for public office five times. Five times voters rejected him.

But his political fortunes turned Tuesday, when he advanced to a runoff election against City Council incumbent Gwen Miller.

Darryl Paulson, a political science professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, said Redner stands his best chance yet of winning.

The fact that Miller attracted five opponents in the primary election shows that Redner is taking on someone who is vulnerable, he said.

"He's got two great advantages as a candidate. One is he's got extraordinary name recognition, and, two, he's got deep pockets," Paulson said.

Redner can overcome the strip club king label, but he'll have to campaign hard and get his supporters to the polls.

"I think he can do it," he said.

Redner, who is worth $18-million according to financial documents filed with the Supervisor of Elections Office, vowed to spend his own money for the runoff campaign and do all he can between now and the March 27 election to "get my ideas across instead of my name."

Les Miller, campaign manager for his wife, Gwen Miller, said they won't focus on how Redner has made his millions.

"Tell me who does not know Joe owns strip clubs," Miller said. "We're going to run a campaign that deals with issues."

The Miller camp immediately set about raising money Wednesday for the last leg of the campaign, Les Miller said.

She still has $25,000 of the $83,000 she raised for the primary election.

"Redner has access to a lot of money," Miller said. "We understand that and we're prepared for that. We've just have to raise a lot of money in the next two weeks to get our message out."

Much of Gwen Miller's support to date has come from the black community in east Tampa and from the lawyers and developers who regularly make appearances before the City Council.

The vast majority of Redner's arrests over the past three decades occurred early in his career as a strip club owner, when the city tried to close him down. In 1976 alone, he was arrested 30 times, according to state records.

He has only had three convictions, one in 1978 for allowing a lewd act, one in 1983 for battery and another in 1983 for possession of cocaine at a Buccaneers game. Redner acknowledges past problems with alcohol and drugs and says he touches neither now.

He casts his self-financed campaign as a guarantee of independence.

"The people who have the big money, they want to know what you're going to do for them," Redner said. "I'm in the unique position of not having to take any money."

Where they won

Miller's clearest victory was in east Tampa, where she took 3,005 votes to Redner's 722.

Redner was strong in politically active South Tampa District 4, where he got about 2,800 votes to Miller's 1,700, and West Tampa, where he beat Miller by 300 votes.

Neither had a strong advantage in North Tampa, although Miller beat Redner there by about 120 votes.

So that area could turn into a battleground, particularly since it also has a runoff race in District 7 to attract voters.

Miller said his wife met with people in South Tampa to work out solutions to flooding problems. And she supported a stormwater fee to pay for drainage improvements, although Miller initially voted against increasing that fee, then changed her vote after meeting with Mayor Pam Iorio.

"People talk to you, you say okay I see your point, and you change your vote. There's nothing wrong with that," he said.

Kelly Benjamin, a Redner strategist and one-time Tampa City Council candidate, said Mary Mulhern's win over Shawn Harrison for the District 2 seat Tuesday and the popularity of Linda Saul-Sena indicate the time is right for Redner.

"They see eye to eye in a lot of ways," he said. "The environment is one of the top issues for Joe."

If Redner is elected, he will be able to join Mulhern and Saul-Sena in fighting for environmentally sensitive development, smart growth and mass transit.

Growth management is Redner's top issue. "That affects traffic, it affects water, it affects schools, it affects the quality of our life," he said.

He wants the City Council to work hard with Iorio to bring mass transit to the region. He wants to stop "paving over" New Tampa, arguing that it needs open spaces to catch the rain that feeds the Hillsborough River. He wants to dramatically cut property taxes.

Miller, a 12-year veteran of the council, said she wants to continue to work to make neighborhoods safe. She said when constituents have called her to complain about problems with drugs or illegal dumping, she has contacted city officials to get those problems addressed.

Miller also said she's concerned about the Hillsborough River. "We need clean water," she said. As for how this is achieved, she said that's the city water department's responsibility.

On property taxes, Miller has wavered. She originally said she supported rate cuts, then said she didn't, then said she wanted to wait to see what happens in Tallahassee.

Now she says the city needs to address the issue, too.

"We also need to work on something, because we need to keep our city services going," she said. "When we get a new council, I'm going to work with them and work with the mayor to see what we can do."

Miller also said she wants to push developers to provide more affordable housing.

Miller said the fact that she's running against such a colorful figure as Redner makes no difference to her.

"It's just a race like any other race. I don't look at it as Joe," she said.

Bob Buckhorn, a political analyst and former Tampa City Council member, said winning the runoff depends on turnout, which typically is very low.

"That only means Gwen is going to work harder to turn out her people," he said. "Joe has proven he has the ability to turn out a segment of this community."

"It's Gwen Miller's to lose, but in a low turnout race, anybody has a shot and that includes him," he said.

Times researcher John Martin and staff writer Bill Coats contributed to this report. Janet Zink can be reached at jzink@sptimes.com or (813) 310-0995.

[Last modified March 7, 2007, 22:38:07]