If you’re looking for a formal, objective review of the candidate forum, you may want to close the tab or just read each candidate’s campaign site. But if you want some of my thoughts threaded together, please read on. Filing this under opinion as I have a vote in this election so beyond my general thoughts on the function and role of city council they will be representing my district.

So I attended last night’s forum. True confession: it’s the first one I’ve ever attended. Early on, it was more likely I was cooking or serving a council or mayor (or governor) candidate fundraiser than attending a forum. It’s amazing how much you can learn about the city from working those events. Later, I relied on familiarity, bar talk, Creative Loafing and WMNF (in no particular order).

I’ve attended plenty of candidate events, volunteered on a few. Just never attended a live Q&A between a diverse group of people vying for seat.

Turn out was great, standing room only with overflow into the hallway.

I should note I was unaware before attending this forum was only for candidates that were registered Democrats. It was hosted by the Hillsborough County Democratic Black Caucus and they chose to only invite party candidates despite it being a non-partisan race. I also assumed wrongly that more than 8 of the 13 candidates were Dems. (A 14th candidate entered late in the week and only qualified today. It’s possible there’s 9 candidates.)

The attendees were: Thomas DeGeorge, Darrell Ashley Dudney, Jose Figueroa, Naya Young, Albert Cooke, and Fran Tate. Ariel Danley was invited but did not attend.

Top take away?

Naya Young killed it. Particularly her being the only person able to answer a question about CBAs (Community Benefit Agreements) and how to attract better jobs within the agreement. After the other 6 candidates—including one who is running on his experience (Scott) having served on council—tripped over themselves trying to answer, Young simply need to demonstrate she knew what one was in her one minute. (Community Benefit Agreements are negotiated contracts between the city and a developer when a significant portion of public funds are being used. Once the CBA is approved, there is a board appointed for that project to conduct oversight to make sure the CBA is being followed. Without looking it up, Rome Yard might have been the first one negotiated by the city. They’re relatively new. To improve and attract better paying jobs through a CBA, the public funds would need to be going to something other than housing and mixed use retail. In case you need to crib an answer for the next time it comes up in conversation lol.)

Overall though Young’s energy and general command of the room was obvious. And reading their faces—even to some of the candidates seated around her.

Fran Tate was also much more assertive than what I’ve observed of her speaking before council. Though her talking about wanting to add more free bus routes that service East Tampa and saying “they found the money for Route 1″ clearly demonstrates she is focused on East Tampa and not the entire district. Route 1 services District 5 from north Tampa Heights into downtown. They might not “find the money” this year unless Council member Hurtak gets support from the rest of council to move funds out of the parking budget to fund it.

What I would love to hear from a candidate who supports public transit and expanding it within the city is to be knowledgable of the challenges of funding and the reasons why Route 1 was chosen. Encourage their potential constituents advocate council continue to support the trolley and Route 1; demand we find more solutions to expand service. Scott did remind the crowd that it takes 3 additional votes and the mayor or 5 council members to accomplish anything. “They” was tossed around by a few candidates on a variety of issues. Very few “we’s”.

Speaking of budgets, if you’re going to tout your experience being on the Citizen’s Budget Advisory Committee, or any board for that matter, you should have a command of the subject. Albert Cooke misstated the percentage of the CIT funding the city is getting from the county (he said 30%, it’s closer to 22%). He also referenced a “$12 million overage” in the budget. Not sure what he was talking about there. Maybe the $12 million council appropriated from unspent funds from the FY24 budget, but that was actually $25 million, the remainder went to replenish the hurricane emergency funds. And he had a phone in his hand—look it up! (though cell reception was spotty in the room for me).

There was a question about the reversals on DEI initiatives that I’m not sure any candidate did great with. Certainly not Tom DeGeorge or Albert Cooke who both talked about moving on. Cooke said we need a “DEI-less society”. Just learn a trade, go be a cop. As if there’s this giant opportunity machine if you can just figure out the cheat code to enter.

Housing was a common topic and I believe both DeGeorge and Ash Dudney touched on “rent control”. Tampa City Council has already explored what could be done to stabilize rents from a local government perspective and the answer is — nothing. State law pre-empts local governments from doing anything about that. They may want to consider running for the legislature if that’s a core goal. I didn’t hear anyone articulate a clear answer for addressing the housing needs but sometimes it’s better to blend in than stand out. Housing is a complicated issue that’s impossible to address in a one minute answer (I can hear the “just build more housing” crowd yelling at me now.) Young was the only candidate I heard though reference the upcoming comp plan in relation to the discussion of housing.

A question was asked about the city using AI to improve productivity and the overwhelming answer from all of the candidates is they simply don’t trust it. Cooke said he uses it but doesn’t understand it; “who’s on the other end?”. I found it interesting there wasn’t a full embrace by anyone or painting it as a magic bullet. (It’s not. In select situations it can be useful. The city is already exploring it.).

I did like that Dudney was the only candidate who had a solid answer for the “what would you accomplish in your first 100 days”. He directed folks to his website where he’s already outlined and drafted resolutions he would be focusing on. You can judge them on their merit, but he’s got a documented plan.

My final observation is that I was surprised that Thomas Scott didn’t have a prepared answer for “What would you do different from your last time on council?” If you are running on being the experienced leader who can hit the ground running, you should expect a question like that and have an answer. However benign it might be. Getting caught flat footed and not taking an opportunity to demonstrate you have the capacity to learn from your experience is the opposite of being prepared.

I look forward to hearing the other half of candidates; though I think my mind is made up.