Checks, balances would be created
The key advocate says Hillsborough needs a county mayor.
By BILL VARIAN, Times Staff Writer
Published December 17, 2007
It's been a year since the group Taking Back Hillsborough County won approval to put two questions on next year's general election ballot that would remake county government.
The first would replace the appointed county administrator with an elected, nonpartisan county mayor. The second would give that person veto power over County Commission decisions, and give the board override ability.
In a recent talk with the St. Petersburg Times, Taking Back's leader, Tampa lawyer Mary Ann Stiles, discussed what she's been up to, how she has refined her argument for creating a county mayor and how she's responding to concerns about the proposal.
So make your case for why these two proposals are necessary.
We feel that the County Commission doesn't have any checks and balances on it. We need to have a person who has the mandate from the people, who can speak for the people, who can challenge the commission and who can veto some of the ideas they come up with.
Have the actions of the county over the past year weakened or strengthened your belief in the need for a change?
Strengthened it. When you listen to them speak over there, it doesn't seem like they speak with one voice, and they all have different opinions about things, and that's fine, that's wonderful. But I don't see any real vision for Hillsborough County coming out of that commission.
The Justice Department has to sign off on the mayor proposal. There are some folks who say it would diminish the voice of minorities. What do you say to that?
I disagree. We have seven commissioners now, three elected at large countywide. It would seem to me that if the at-large commissioners didn't violate the Voting Rights Act, I don't see how the elected county mayor can violate it. (Minorities) have no voice right now with a person who has a lot of power in an appointed county administrator.
A related concern about this proposal has been that it concentrates power in one individual. Why are you not concerned about that?
Because it creates checks and balances that we don't have now. Today we have the power concentrated in seven people who have seven different ideas on how that power should be used. And nothing really gets accomplished because of it. I don't look at it as power as much as the ability of someone to concentrate on what is good for Hillsborough County.
You talk about checks and balances. But you can vote your County Commission out now, and that doesn't happen often. Isn't some of the advocacy for your proposal rooted in some people's dissatisfaction with this board?
I don't see it as dissatisfaction with the County Commission. There's just no way this form of government works for a county this size. And, yeah, you can vote them out of office, but you can't do it at one time.
You got involved with this because of how this commission was treating the county's transit agency, which you used to do work for. How is that experience relevant here?
I don't know if it's relevant but it did get me going from an inactive to an active person in this county. I feel very strongly that we have not looked with any vision for many years to the need for transit. All we do is continue to ribbon this county with roads, if we fix them at all.
Today, you have seven people to lobby for transit. What if the new mayor doesn't support transit and won't even agree to talk with you about it?
Well, that is very true. But you know what? Isn't it interesting that (Tampa Mayor) Pam Iorio has come out with transit and now transit is the charmed word that everyone wants to do. And you know why? Because one person that's in power says, "This is a good idea." Will she ever make it happen? Probably not. But at least she got people talking about it.
By putting so much power in one person, doesn't that diminish the public's ability to see how its government arrives at decisions?
This is someone who will fight for the people, for ideas and issues. But it can't happen unless the County Commission says, "Yes, we agree with you. Let's go for this." If the county commissioners say, "We're not going to vote for that," they'll vote it down. That takes place in public.
There's another group trying to get a proposal on the ballot that, if approved, would make all seven commission seats single-member districts, meaning they would represent defined regions of the county. How does that affect your proposals?
I wish them all the luck in the world, but I think it's going to confuse the issues. Single-member districts give minorities an easier way to get elected. For that reason, I do support it, but not at the same time with my proposal. The voting public, if there's a lot of misunderstanding, they'll just vote no.
Bill Varian can be reached at varian@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3387.