District 63 Seat Once Again Slated To Be A Close Battle

State House District 63 candidate Fentrice Driskell is hoping to return incumbent Shawn Harrison’s seat to Democratic hands in the General Election on Tuesday, November 6.

There was never any doubt, at least in her mind, that Fentrice Driskell was going to one day run for office.

It was just a matter of when.

Well, when…is now.

In February, Driskell filed to run for the Florida House District 63 seat currently held by Republican and long-time New Tampa resident Shawn Harrison.

District 63 includes New Tampa, as well as Carrollwood, Lutz and the Lake Magdalene and University of South Florida areas to our south and east.

Driskell’s entry into the race was greeted with great enthusiasm by many Democrats, who consider it one of the most flippable State House seats.

Shawn Harrison

Harrison won the seat in 2010, lost it to Mark Danish in 2012, then reclaimed it in 2014. In 2016, Harrison held off Democratic challenger and fellow former Tampa City Council member Lisa Montelione by 1,363 votes, or 51-49 percent.

“I’ve known for quite some time I would like to run one day,” Driskell says. “I thought it would be later in life, though. But, the 2016 election motivated me.”

Driskell was almost immediately endorsed by prominent local Democrats like Betty Castor, Alex Sink, Pat Kemp and State House Democratic Leader, State Rep. Janet Cruz, after throwing her hat in the ring.

Driskell felt that women’s voices were missing from the political debate, and felt like public schools, where her mother taught for 35 years, were under attack. She saw a political landscape dominated by acrimony and inertia, instead of focusing on providing affordable housing, a safe and clean environment and economic policies that would benefit everyone.

“After the 2016 election, I really decided that if I don’t like the way things are going, I can either keep talking about it or do something about it,” Driskell says. “I started attending candidate trainings and really thinking about some of the issues I care about the most.”

Driskell said her passion for government was ignited while she attended Lake Gibson High in Lakeland.

During her junior year, she attended Florida Girls State, a week-long workshop that focuses on government, politics and Americanism.

“It completely changed my trajectory,” Driskell says.

She graduated from Lake Gibson No. 1 in her class and attended Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, where she was the school’s first African-American female student body government president.

She graduated from Harvard and then Georgetown Law School in Washington, D.C., and has been president of the George Edgecomb Bar Association for black lawyers in Tampa. She is currently a partner and business litigator at the Carlton Fields law firm near Tampa International Airport.

When she decided to run and looked at the open races, she saw District 63 as a perfect place to bring what she says will be an inclusive style of representation.

“I looked at the level of representation that District 63 is getting and felt I had something better to offer,” Driskell says.

According to the Lakeland native, District 63 is roughly 38 percent registered Democrats, 32 percent Republicans and 30 percent unaffiliated.

“When you have a district that balanced, you have to be able to lead from a place that is reflective of that and inclusive of everyone,” Driskell says. “My opponent has moved too far to the right for this district.”

Driskell (see ad on pg. 6) has attended a few New Tampa town halls, and organized some meet-and-greets in local communities, most recently in Arbor Greene, and hopes to strike a chord with local voters, who trended Democratic in 2016.

“We’ve been able to build a lot of great momentum and enthusiasm around our campaign,” Driskell says. “What we’ve found is that people want to talk about the kind of bread-and-butter issues that affect us every day, like schools, gun safety, keeping kids safe. Because we have been able to engage them directly, people are excited to have the opportunity to have a representative who will listen to them.”

Transportation Sales Tax Is On Nov. Ballot

Tyler Hudson (left) of All For Transportation, helps deliver 77,000 Transportation Referendum petitions to Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer’s office to be certified.

Snarled traffic, hazardous roads, dangerous intersections. The solutions to all of these problems are out there. The question facing voters this November, however, are you willing to pay for them?

Against the odds and, in less than two months, a group called All For Transportation (AFT) used a charter amendment by petition process to collect enough signatures to get a one-cent county sales tax hike on the ballot for the Nov. 6 election, which would boost the county’s current sales tax from 7 percent to 8, or one penny for every dollar you spend.

Funded primarily by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik and local philanthropist Frank Morsani, AFT enlisted a host of volunteers and paid Revolution Field Strategies, a grassroots organizing and public affairs consulting firm, to collect the needed 48,760 signatures. In all, AFT collected 77,000 signatures and had 50,709 signatures verified in August to put the referendum on the ballot.

The group says that the tax will raise $280 million per year for Hillsborough County to fund transportation improvements for 30 years. Those improvements include road and bridge improvements, relieving rush hour traffic, making walking and biking safer and expanding and improving public transit options.

Previous transportation referendums in Tampa Bay have not had much luck. In 2010, Moving Hillsborough Forward was voted down 58-42 percent. In 2014, Greenlight Pinellas was soundly defeated 62-38 percent. And, in 2016, Go Hillsborough, to be funded by a half-cent surtax,  never even made it onto the ballot, as the Hillsborough County Commission voted it down twice.

In each case, a mistrust of government and its ability to properly spend the money worked against the transportation plans.

That is what makes this latest foray into transportation funding different, says Tyler Hudson, a Tampa lawyer and the chair of AFT.

“Our plan is the most balanced plan that’s ever been brought to voters,” he says. “Forty five percent of the money goes to transit, and 55 percent is for roads. And, it has the strongest oversight component of any plan ever offered.”

Hudson says an independent oversight committee comprised of 14 citizens will make sure the money goes where it was intended to, and an audit will be conducted yearly. Every agency requesting money has to produce a public list annually detailing how the proceeds will be spent, and the committee will vote to approve (or not) each item.

“This is not a blank check,” Hudson says.

Tampa Bay’s transportation issues may be reaching a tipping point, says AFT’s Christina Barker.

“It’s the most critical issue facing Hillsborough County,” she said. “In our polling, transportation wins every time.”

Like the half-cent education tax being proposed on the same ballot, AFT is letting voters know the details of their plans, releasing a list of signature projects and programs that the money would be used for.

Those that affect our area include improvements at the troublesome Cross Creek Blvd. and Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. intersections, the potential widening of New Tampa Blvd. from the New Tampa Gateway Bridge in West Meadows to BBD, upgrades to New Tampa’s multi-use paths and trails, and yes, even an East-West road extension from New Tampa Blvd. to a new exit at I-275.

The East-West Connector Rd., as it was often called, has been discussed since the 1980s and was at the center of an intense debate between many residents of West Meadows and Tampa Palms Areas 4 & 8 who were opposed to the project — and the rest of the New Tampa. It was eventually scuttled in 2008.

Jean Duncan, the City of Tampa’s director of transportation and stormwater services, says the money raised by the tax increase would have an impact in New Tampa, and throughout the county. She says more round-a-bouts, including some in New Tampa, can be constructed, streets can be made calmer, and things like a speed limit reduction on Tampa Palms Blvd., as well as road restriping, would produce changes that are noticeable.

“The plan certainly has a healthy distribution of money between maintenance and adding in some of the new things we need,” Duncan said.

Many of those things have been in the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO)’s Long Range Transportation Plan for years awaiting funding.

“If this passes, things will get done more quickly,” Hudson says. “We are telling people this is not a moonshot. You are going to see changes within months. You will see immediate improvements.”

The plan has its detractors, but has received endorsements from the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.

“The choice is on the ballot,” says Barker. “You either vote for a plan that is balanced and driven by community priorities, or you vote no and you get the status quo.”