By Matt Wiley
New Tampa’s representative downtown really wants to know what her constituents think.
District 7 Tampa City Council member Lisa Montelione says that she currently is working on ways to streamline and improve communications with residents of her entire district, including all of the city-based portions of New Tampa.
Most recently, with the technological help of Cory Lake Isles resident and volunteer Cyril Spiro, Montelione sent out a city budget survey for residents, as part of her monthly email newsletter, to get an idea of what her constituents think should be the city’s priorities heading into Tampa’s upcoming budget talks.
“It’s really important to me to engage in this kind of activity,” Montelione says. “The more my constituents see me asking for their opinions, the more they’ll feel that they really do have a voice downtown.”
Although the survey had only received about 90 responses at our press time (and, Montelione says, 87 percent of those responses came from New Tampa and Tampa Palms; District 7 has a total population of more than 85,000), she says the answers were “surprising.”
The survey first asked residents to rank several categories in order of importance. Among the categories were investing in strong neighborhoods (code enforcement, neighborhood empowerment), economic development (business incentives, housing programs), transportation (parking, sidewalks, roadways), Tampa Police Department (TPD), public utilities (solid waste, potable water, storm water, waste water), Tampa Fire Rescue, parks & recreation and government operations.
According to the survey, District 7 residents (the 80+ who participated, at least) ranked strong neighborhoods the highest. When asked why they ranked neighborhoods as a top priority, responses varied, but many agreed that there should be more emphasis on cleaning up communities and enforcing code violators in the budget.
“We need the help of the City to enforce code violations and keep our developments looking good,” one respondent commented.
Montelione says that she thought transportation would be the main priority, especially in New Tampa, but it finished third, behind economic development.
“I believe that economic development and good roads will boost economic activity and make the area more prosperous,” wrote a respondent.
“I’m constantly looking at ways to increase citizen engagement,” Montelione says. “In addition to the survey, I’m trying to come up with other ways to involve residents (in city government).”
Montelione already has held two “office hours” meetings in New Tampa — one in September at the New Tampa Regional Library on Cross Creek Blvd. and the other in Tampa Palms (at the New Tampa Rec Center on Commerce Park Blvd. in December) — as her attempt to offer an ear to residents, but both were poorly attended. Both of which were advertised on our social media sites, although we weren’t able to advertise them in these pages because the dates were in between issues.
Although no additional “Office Hours” meetings currently are planned, and the time to participate in the budget survey itself has passed, Councilwoman Montelione says that residents with concerns always can reach out to her on social media sites Facebook.com and Twitter.com and can that she also can be reached at her office through her new legislative aide Cesar Hernandez at 274-7073.
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