Reflections on the Past Week

I was caught off guard. I didn’t see Council member Carlson changing his vote coming. Then again, I wasn’t expecting the Tampa Bay Times to send a reporter¹ to the special call meeting and make public a letter the mayor sent to then Council Chair Maniscalco in March. A letter Maniscalco hadn’t shared with the rest of his council, even during the special call meeting. And truly, from a leadership standpoint, the chair didn’t do a very good job handling it. To this armchair QB, a chair should have immediately addressed the behavior issues with a blanket statement and a warning that any future behavior would be met with what ever consequences the rules and charter outline. As to the other part of the mayor’s letter, the “too many motions” stuff, that needs to be bifurcated and pushed back on some. Instead, there was an agenda item number 101 cryptically about decorum and efficiency that was danced around. That resulted in the equally cryptic special call meeting. So was this really about Maniscalco naming Carlson to the public safety committee, the police union raising an objection and Mansicalco reversing his decision²? Carlson said no. Maniscalco was convinced it was. And while I have no inside knowledge, I haven’t spoken to anyone on the subject, I believe on it’s own, no, it wasn’t the reason he flipped his vote. But if you don’t have conviction in your decisions to stand up to special interests, maybe a leadership spot isn’t where you belong.

Will changing chairs miraculously make things better? Hell no. We are demanding from 7 diverse elected people—who only recently started making $1400 a week—7 legislative aides already doing the work of 21 people, a single lawyer and a recently added budget analyst to be more than they can. When council’s interests diverge from the mayor, we wind up in the situation we are in now. This government system might have worked when we were broke ass “America’s Next Great City”, but we’ve neglected it along with the sewer pipes.

If we want a strong, functioning co-equal branch of government in the City of Tampa we need to demand this and future councils act like one (the charter is very clear on the separation of powers but the words “strong mayor” do not appear in the text). And with that, it requires people. Chair Clendenin recently started a discussion around this topic in a broad sense. The charter does not preclude council from hiring additional staff. What would 7 even part-time research assistants and a paralegal require budget wise? Politicians aren’t inclined to spend money on themselves, see the battle over salary³, so it’s going to take enough people asking for it. Or we need to be realistic about our expectations of what Tampa City Council can do. Tallahassee is already doing their best to take the rest away.

1. I’m looking forward to more coverage of Tampa government from TB Times. That a reporter who I don’t believe had written about the city or council prior to the special call meeting was able to get the mayor’s letter via public records request prior to or immediately after the special call hearing I find curious. When I reached out to council and the chief of staff asking about an element of that letter (the 60 motions being tracked) it took a couple of days via a public records request. My first. That I didn’t initiate, I just sent an email that was converted into a request. And I was fine with the timeline (the list provided was a spreadsheet of motions that included the mayor’s budget presentation and the ordinance renaming a park after a victim of the mass shooting in Ybor. Basically everything on the clerk’s calendar in spreadsheet form with attorney assignments for review). The point is, either someone tipped off the Times and a request was filed and fulfilled prior to the special call meeting, or a request was filed after the special call meeting that was fulfilled in time to publish a story that day. Curious. ↩︎
2. During council’s discussion, there wasn’t specific reference to which committee or why the change. TB Times referenced a Florida Politics story. But this is why I focus on what’s happening on the field. I couldn’t care less what a former police chief who backed into the job and never lived in Tampa has to say. ↩︎
3. I’ve debated Council member Viera on this issue. He’s quick to wrap himself in 27th Amendment, but then I point out Congress has no problem giving themselves a $1.4 million per district budget and expanding on what they can expense. Which is part of my point. Council members pay their own parking. There aren’t “district” offices with staff. We either elect rich people or we start building an infrastructure for an independent city council. ↩︎