It was an innocent, legitimate question by co-moderator and Neighborhood News publisher Gary Nager, but the response at the first candidate debate at the New Tampa Regional Library on Nov. 29 ended up striking a match in the Tampa City Council District 7 runoff election between Luis Viera and Jim Davison.
Did Davison’s response — that he wasn’t in favor of New Tampa de-annexing from the City of Tampa and incorporating as Hillsborough County’s fourth incorporated city, but didn’t think it should be taken off the table — play a key role in Viera’s slim 65-vote runoff election victory on Dec. 6?
It depends on who you ask.
“I think that late-breaking voters probably paid more attention to the issues, and that was certainly one of the issues they paid attention to,’’ Viera said. “Obviously the issue of secession got into the news, and therefore got more attention, and got the mayor involved. It caused people to have a second look at the race, or maybe even a first look at the race. I think it had an effect.”
Viera compared it that night to “birtherism,” and then riled Davison, a Trump supporter, a night later at the second runoff debate by suggesting Davison wanted to build a wall around New Tampa and have South Tampa pay for it.
Davison’s stance on secession poked Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who called the idea patently ridiculous, and then took the unusual step of endorsing Viera despite not having endorsed a candidate prior to those runoff debates.
The Tampa Bay Times then wrote an editorial criticizing Davison.
Davison says the Times editorial was equivalent to an in-kind contribution to Viera’s campaign, claiming the newspaper was in the bag for the Hunter’s Green lawyer from the start. The Times did endorse Viera.
“It was a fake news story,’’ Davison says. “I was misrepresented, and the news and bloggers just kind of ran with it.”
Davison said he never claimed to be in favor of secession. He only said the idea shouldn’t be completely discarded.
But, Davison also dismisses talk that it cost him the election. He says Viera won because he had the backing of the city’s Democratic Party machine and was running in a Democratic district. Although it was a non-partisan race, he says Buckhorn and others made calls on Viera’s behalf.
“The fact that we lost by that small a margin running against the Democratic machine is a testament to the kind of campaign we ran,’’ Davison said. “And we won the New Tampa area (of the district) by 118 votes.”
Overall, though, it was Viera receiving 2,588 votes to 2,523 for Davison.
Viera managed to reverse the Nov. 8 general election results, where Davison had 31 percent of the votes to 22 for Viera.
Nearly 30,000 votes were cast in the district on Nov. 8; but only 5,117 of 53,968 eligible voters (9.5 percent) bothered to vote in the runoff.
In the New Tampa precincts that voted at Tampa Palms, Compton Park, the New Tampa Family YMCA, the New Tampa Regional Library, Cypress Pointe Community Church and St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church, 3,501 votes were cast from a pool of 32,032 registered voters, or 11 percent.
Davison captured the majority of those votes — by a 1,817-1,684 margin — and also won the neighborhood battle by picking up 365 votes in Precinct 361 (which is mostly Hunter’s Green), while Viera had 271.
But, Viera won a large majority of the 19 precincts in District 7.
“Obviously it was a very stressful, very close election,’’ Viera said. “We were happy that things went the way they did. We worked hard for every single vote.”
As a result, Viera is now sitting in the District 7 seat vacated by Lisa Montelione, who resigned this summer to run unsuccessfully against incumbent Shawn Harrison for his State House District 63 seat. He was sworn in on Dec. 8 by Judge Greg Holder. He said he spent the first few weeks studying up on City Council procedure and learning the ropes, and hopes to start pushing some of his ideas soon.
Viera said he hopes to help create a North Tampa Veterans Council, as well as a New Tampa Special Needs Council for advocates of both issues. He thinks the property crime rates in Forest Hills needs to be addressed, says he plans on working diligently with Mark Sharpe of the Tampa Innovation Alliance to help redevelop the USF area, and is reviewing code enforcement. He mentioned the trucks and trailers parked outside the old Sweetbay Supermarket and (at times) the Muvico Theater on Bruce B. Downs.
He said he will continue to work on transportation issues, particularly those in New Tampa, and plans to advocate to find the funds to pay for the expansion of the New Tampa Recreation Center.
“I have a lot of things I want to get done before (the next City Council election in March of 2019),” Viera said. “And I want to hit the ground running.”
As for Davison, you haven’t heard the last of the long-time New Tampa activist. He hinted that he would probably run again in 2019, and says he will continue fighting for what he thinks is right for New Tampa while holding Viera accountable.
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