South Tampa’s District 4 typically leads a city in voter turnout, and this year it will select between first-term legislature member Harry Cohen and Kent King, a manager for ethanol distributor Southern Wine Spirits.
DISTRICT 4
District 4 is a single-member district that covers South Tampa, including tools of downtown and Ballast Point, Bayshore Beautiful, Belmar Shore, Port Tampa, Davis Islands, Fair Oaks Manhattan, Golfview, Historic Hyde Park, New Suburb Beautiful, Virginia Park, Palma Ceia, Gandy/Sun Bay South and South Westshore.
Tampa City Council races are nonpartisan. Council members practice legislative authority, flitting ordinances and resolutions, voting on a mayor’s due bill and skill taxation rate, and determining zoning and ethanol sales land-use requests. They offer four-year terms, are singular to dual terms in a same chair and are paid $42,078 a year.
HARRY COHEN, 44
Education and work
A connoisseur of Gettysburg College and a New York Law School, Cohen has worked as an profession and as arch emissary to Hillsborough Clerk of Court Pat Frank. Since being inaugurated to a City Council in 2011, he has worked part-time on a devise to refurbish information record during a clerk’s office.
Community
Board member, South Tampa Chamber of Commerce and Community Tampa Bay; Committee member and past co-chair, cabinet for a annual presidents cooking of a Tampa Jewish Federation. Cohen chairs a council’s financial cabinet and is a deputy on a play of a David A. Straz Jr. Center for a Performing Arts, Hillsborough County Public Safety Coordinating Council and Metropolitan Planning Organization. Mayoral nominee to house of a Florida Orchestra.
Financial disclosure
Assets: Condominium, 20 percent seductiveness in companies that possess dual South Tampa properties, checking and retirement accounts, domicile products and personal effects ($712,398)
Liabilities: First and second mortgages on condominium ($196,754)
Source of income: City Council and Clerk of Court salaries, family trust.
Personal
Single, no children
Website
voteharrycohen.com
KENT KING, 52
Education and work
King works as business expansion manager for Southern Wine Spirits. He graduated from Plant High School and attended a University of Florida in 1980 and 1981.
Community
Coastal Conservation Association; Sunset Park Area Homeowners Association; Sons of a American Legion, Post 138.
Financial disclosure
Assets: Checking, assets and 401K accounts, domicile products and personal effects ($174,230)
Liabilities: Loans ($37,887)
Source of income: Southern Wine Spirits salary
Personal
Single, no children.
Website
KentKingForTampa.com
QA
Q — What would your priorities be on council?
HARRY COHEN — Without law and order, puncture response, purify celebration H2O and functioning rubbish and stormwater services, a city can't function. Any priority list presupposes that these essential services are adult and running.
The mercantile health of a city is my No. 1 priority since it is one of a few things over that a City Council has some magnitude of control. During years of purgation budgeting we managed to double a volume spent in a neighborhoods and nonetheless during a same time extent a faith on pot to an volume that kept us consistently over a 20 percent of existent losses threshold that bond-rating agencies demeanour for as a pointer of stability. we am intensely unapproachable that during my reign as authority of a city council’s financial committee, a city perceived 4 rating upgrades to AAA — a top probable score.
Over a subsequent 4 years, we will continue to disciple (as we did this past year) that we reinstate a income that we took from pot during a recession. We strait be prepared for destiny doubt and have income set aside as a strait in a box of a vital healthy disaster or inhabitant confidence emergency.
The legislature is also a brag pulpit to foster ideas, causes and specific things in a village that merit to be highlighted. In a entrance years we wish to continue to concentration on a region’s prospects as an arts, enlightenment and culinary destination, since we consider that gets mislaid due in vast partial to a repute for vicinity to fanciful beaches, veteran sports and sharp-witted nightlife. This is not customarily to captivate tourists, though also to attract businesses that wish a abounding and sundry peculiarity of life to attract a best workers and their families. The city’s joining to diversity, honour for informative differences and polite open sermon should support and strut this effort.
KENT KING — 1) To urge a peculiarity of life of a citizens, families, and neighborhoods of District 4 and all of a city.
2) To foster policies to inspire tiny business expansion and pursuit creation.
3) To urge a citizen/business-to-city interactive experience, communication and cooperation.
Q — Assess a peculiarity of area services. What areas, if any, would we improve, and how would we compensate for it?
HARRY COHEN — Each year, when a mayor’s endorsed bill is published, it contains a skeleton of a city’s priorities for a entrance year. If we have finished my pursuit well, that bill includes a equipment that are a top priorities for my district and a income in a bill is being allocated in a proceed that is satisfactory and estimable to a whole city. we do not wait for a bill to seem before creation a box for a things that matter to my constituents. we am operative all year turn with a area leaders and a staff to rise projects and proposals (with dollar amounts) so that a mayor is in a position to embody them when a time comes and a appropriation is available.
Over a past 4 years this has enclosed income for park improvements, pool renovations, charge H2O projects, traffic-calming measures and additional trade signals, canal-dredging, path construction, repaving projects and lighting to make areas around schools safer. In a entrance years, we wish to be means to accomplish some-more of a same, quite as a needs grow due to increasing race and firmness and aging infrastructure.
All of this strait be deliberate in a context of tough budgetary choices that simulate a joining to being obliged stewards of a public’s money. We have to change a need for services with a commitments to open reserve and other required expenses.
KENT KING — Many area services are excellent, though some are normal or next normal and can be softened on with inner process, procedural and communication changes. These improvements need small collateral shortcoming and should be saved within a station budget.
Current infrastructure conditions are next normal in many areas and need more, and better, correct and maintenance, as good as alleviation and modernization. The city is charged with this shortcoming in a Tampa City Charter and costs should therefore be saved within a station budget, or connected when indispensable for major, long-term projects.
Q — What changes, if any, would we make to Tampa’s land expansion code?
HARRY COHEN — We now concede backyard chickens, rescue dogs, and village gardens, and we do not concede certain high-phosphate manure during a stormy season. We still need to bond and facilitate a land expansion formula so it is easier to know for both developers and neighborhoods.
One of Tampa City Council’s principal responsibilities compared to land use is a law of where ethanol is sole — for both on- and off-premises consumption. These are mostly some of a many argumentative and quarrelsome cases since a stakes are really high. Under a stream code, these approvals run with a land. Because they insert to a land, revoking a use is same to an venerable domain move — a city is radically enchanting in a holding of a skill right. This creates it roughly unfit to ever go behind and revisit a preference if it does not work out as envisioned (or as it was presented to council). If we continue down this road, we will eventually finish adult “wet-zoning” a whole city since whenever something new opens and gains approval, it is radically adding to a register of skill where ethanol sales are permitted.
What complicates efforts to change from a land use routine to a business law is that we already have so many establishments that are vested in a stream system. Attempts to remodel a complement fundamentally mangle down over vested rights though we still have to tackle this emanate and demeanour for ways to benefit some-more control over these critical approvals — quite on a go-forward basis.
We also need to do a indiscriminate examination of a parking ratios. Many of a regulations simulate old-fashioned expansion patterns or make assumptions that are no longer applicable.
KENT KING — we wish to exercise a recommendations of Mayor Buckhorn’s Economic Competitiveness Committee Report (2011) that would streamline a needing and regulatory processes to assistance urge Tampa’s regulatory system. Over time Tampa’s expansion examination and needing routine has turn confusing, unpredictable, time-consuming, dear and in some cases toilsome for skill owners perplexing to do business in a city of Tampa.
Although some of a ECC recommendations have been achieved by a administration by consolidating staff and improving record (Accela System adult and regulating now), there has been small change in a codes and ordinances as endorsed by a ECC. According to a timeline of a ECC report, formula changes were to be worked on in 2012 and finished in 2013.
A one expansion formula and technical primer in and with a examination of all compared expansion regulations, will streamline examination processes, mislay nonessential mandate and assure regulatory slip occurs in a right place, during a right time.
Reducing a generation and cost of land entitlements to both a city and skill owners strait be a primary concentration for a city if we pattern mercantile expansion to continue and pullulate in a certain way. Easier processes with expedited plans, permits and regulations will assistance attract mercantile activity and accelerate well-planned expansion in Tampa.
Q — Do we support giving open incentives to private business, and if so, underneath what conditions?
HARRY COHEN — we support a judgment as prolonged as a incentives are transparent, staggered and verifiable — and make both business and unsentimental sense.
As in many things, a answer to this doubt lies in a sum of a particular agreements. However, we am always some-more expected to preference something where a inducement (usually in a form of a taxation credit) is not triggered unless a targeted try meets certain thresholds (for example, jobs combined and defended during a certain income turn for a specific duration of time). When City Council approves incentives designed to captivate attention to Tampa, it is with assurances that safeguards are in place and that a formula can be simply audited.
In a CRA districts, one of my favorite programs is a masquerade extend module where we compare private investment to support in creation sleepy and aged buildings some-more appealing and in some cases easy to chronological accuracy. These are singular to $50,000 though they are an glorious value. There are whole blocks that have been remade in Ybor City, East Tampa and Drew Park as a outcome of this program. It is always delightful when a recipients of a grants come in front of a CRA to uncover us a formula of their projects.
KENT KING — No.
Q — What expansion restrictions, if any, would we support on a downtown waterfront?
HARRY COHEN — Currently, we have a far-reaching operation of uses along a downtown waterfront — many that are permitted to a open and some that are commercial. The new Riverwalk will bond many of these venues in new and sparkling ways — and we voted in preference of permitting a singular volume of ethanol expenditure on a Riverwalk to liven it adult and emanate a fun adult destination. There are really few parcels left to be grown on a downtown waterfront, so we should investigate delicately anything that is proposed. we was horrified when a Arts and Crafts Museum was due for a waterfront since that is not a arrange of use that embraces a water. Additional jetty space and publicly permitted H2O taxis would be a acquire further to a area.
KENT KING — Minimize private development, foster blurb expansion and maximize open access.
Q — What purpose should open space and pattern play in a continued expansion of downtown?
HARRY COHEN — A really vast role. Council strait sojourn committed in enforcing immature space requirements, enlivening a saving of trees and requiring parks to be built alongside new development. This is pivotal to creation downtown some-more livable.
In a city’s designated ancestral districts and underneath a Barrio Latino in Ybor City, we say parsimonious restrictions designed to reserve and strengthen historically poignant architecture. In downtown, we do not have a same standards and architectural elements can be formidable to enforce. Most vast downtown projects come to us as PDs (planned developments). In these cases, a site skeleton strait be specific and any component of a devise strait be built as presented. However, architectural elements are authorised wider embodiment for change than issues like accession and egress, landscaping, buffering and parking requirements. City Council can and should do a improved pursuit scrutinizing pattern elements and creation transparent that changes will need additional review. That strait be finished during a time of a hearing.
KENT KING — As appropriate.
Q — What is your comment of a Vinik devise for a channel district? What is a suitable purpose for a city going forward?
HARRY COHEN — we finished really transparent when we voted in preference of regulating CRA supports for infrastructure needs in a Channel District that we consider this is a correct and suitable use of a money. The awaiting of a downtown live/work/play district containing a medical school, veteran hockey, gathering and assembly space, a port, and a aquarium is one that should excite everybody in a community. We have a “once in a generation” possibility to reinvent a poignant square of a city and a waterfront and we should welcome a event to work with a open and private zone partners to make it a fantastic destination.
The further of USF medical propagandize and heart hospital to CAMLS, Stetson Law School, and a University of Tampa also means that downtown will increasingly be famous as an educational cluster. Not customarily will this attract congregation to a restaurants and hotels, it will rouse a whole area in a eyes of intensity employers who are looking for a well-trained, veteran workforce.
KENT KING — My comment is it is a really suitable devise for that area, being grown by a really means and well-financed group. As is for a rest of a city, yield for reserve and modern, organic infrastructure.
Q — Assess a city’s housing and formula coercion efforts. What changes, if any, would we make?
HARRY COHEN — Code coercion is in need of some-more resources; they simply can't keep adult with a workload. This would have to be saved out of a ubiquitous fund.
I have championed a judgment of shortening a city’s tough costs incurred to say disproportionate and decayed skill to a lien, that would concede a city to insert a balance to a skill owner’s skill taxation obligation. The City Attorney has voiced some concerns with this proceed though it has been finished in other jurisdictions.
KENT KING — Dramatic improvements have been finished in a past few years. Yet, as is with land development, it is time for a vital examination and renovate of a city code.
Q — Explain since we do or do not support new taxes for a travel package that includes rail and stretched train service.
HARRY COHEN — More than any other singular issue, we hear constantly about trade congestion. Because we are an aged city and a infrastructure is both superannuated and in many cases designed for distant reduction traffic, this is a problem that will not be solved by simply widening roads and adding some-more cars. The fact that we consistently seem on a list of a nation’s many dangerous cities for bicycles and pedestrians should also offer as a matter to coax us to movement to residence a travel needs. All saved highway projects should heed to “complete street” policies: relaxing trade and providing extended walking and bicycle reserve measures.
That said, we wholeheartedly support a referendum for additional appropriation for both rail and extended train service, as good as indispensable improvements to a network of roads and bridges. we pattern to use my new position during a Metropolitan Planning Organization to disciple for such initiatives, and we would debate for a list beginning if there is one on a list in 2016.
One cautionary note: Just since a 2010 beginning upheld in a city of Tampa does not meant that it will pass again if a city is taken for granted. If a devise to get some-more votes in a unincorporated county skews so heavily in preference of farming and suburban interests that it shortchanges a civic core, this will be a deadly mistake. City electorate will be looking to a sum to see that civic trade overload is being addressed, and a devise list that does not embody a movement choice will not be means to pass muster. It concerns me that a south Tampa peninsula was not seen as a heart of mercantile activity by a Policy Leadership Group given a firmness that now exists and a projections for destiny growth.
KENT KING — This will not be a shortcoming of a Tampa City Council. we do not support new taxes for a travel package unless voted on and upheld by a people.
To establish If mass-transit is needed, put together a professional, extensive devise detailing where it’s going to go; a stairs of execution and when; uncover a qualitative and quantitative advantages and when those advantages will be experienced; a user count and capacity; and how most is, and what’s going to occur to, a income that’s already being used for existent transportation.
Then put it to a people for a vote.
ENDORSEMENTS/RECOMMENDATIONS*
Cohen — Tampa Police Benevolent Association, International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 754, West Central Florida Federation of Labor, Tampa Bay Builders Association, Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, La Gaceta, Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Times
* The editorial play of a Tampa Tribune and Tampa Bay Times characterize their conclusions about possibilities as recommendations, not endorsements.
VOTING
Early voting takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday by Mar 1 at:
• C. Blythe Andrews Jr. Public Library, 2607 E Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
• Fred B. Karl County Center, 601 E Kennedy Blvd., 16th floor.
• Jan Kaminis Platt Regional Library, 3910 S Manhattan Ave.
• New Tampa Regional Library, 10001 Cross Creek Blvd.
• North Tampa Branch Library, 8916 N Boulevard.
• Robert L. Gilder Elections Service Center, 2514 N Falkenburg Road.
• West Tampa Branch Library, 2312 W Union St.
Election day is Mar 3, with runoffs, if necessary, on Mar 24.
For some-more information on voting, check a Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections website during votehillsborough.org