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But some others running for mayor or city council have new ideas about improving life for Tampa's citizens.
Healthy Choice
Don Ardell's Tampa mayoral candidacy is suffering from more than a lack of dollars. He's also having a tough time coming up with a catchy slogan.
Ardell has centered his campaign on the concept of wellness. But he says mostly people think he's talking about exercise. Reporters have referred to him as a fitness author, although his best-selling book, High Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs and Disease, isn't actually about fitness.
The book was published in 1977 and has sold so many copies that Ardell hasn't had to work for a living since. However, he does have to work at getting Tampans to understand what he means by wellness.
Ardell says wellness is everything. It's what people eat, how they spend their time and how they work for the greater good.
"Life has no meaning," he asserts. "Which means we create our own meaning by the beliefs we adopt and the issues we get involved in. The healthiest thing that can be done is reaching out to others."
Ardell may sound more like a philosopher than a politician. He has a master's degree in planning and a doctorate in health and public policy from the University of North Carolina.
Nobody else in the mayor's race is talking about the sort of radical change in city government that Ardell thinks is necessary. "I want to remind people of what they learned in high school civics," he says. "Democracy is about getting involved. It's not just a lot of flag-waving on Bayshore."
Ardell believes in town-meeting-style governance, with weekly community gatherings where citizens can voice their concerns about issues without the city council's three-minute rule.
When Ardell speaks about "issues," he's talking about the ones that have a real impact on the community. "I think one of the biggest mistakes was supporting that crazy lap-dance ordinance," he says. "Not just because it was stupid, but it was an embarrassment to the citizenry to focus so much attention on something that involves consenting adults."
Grown-ups getting freaky on their own time shouldn't take attention away from the real issues, even if the crisis of consensual lap dancing is easier to deal with. "I can't imagine that people don't want to focus on things like the crisis with the homeless," he says.
Ardell is a member of the Hillsborough Coalition for the Homeless, which has drawn up a nine-point plan for confronting homelessness in Tampa. The problem is complex and there are no easy solutions. A little of that lap dance outrage might help.
So might a few of those Community Investment Tax dollars. The money that voters approved for infrastructure and schools, as well as a new football stadium, should have been used for infrastructure and schools, says Ardell, not for a downtown arts district and the Lowry Park Zoo.
But the focus has to be on the road ahead. Ardell says that means turning city government away from development and homing in on social issues. "There should be no development unless there is a public benefit," he says.
But how does Tampa become the Next Great City without new development?
"What is a 'great' city? That's what we should be debating," says Ardell.
It's easier to skip the philosophical questions about growth and quality-of-life and focus on the sort of things busy voters can grasp. Who wants to vote for somebody whose campaign is about making them think?
But Ardell wants people to think big. Not only about what kind of city they want to live in, but what kind of country and what kind of world.
As mayor, Ardell says, he would solicit community input on issues like the pending war in Iraq, the national economy and health care. Then he'd send a monthly letter to President George W. Bush and Florida's congressional delegation. It may not accomplish anything, he acknowledges, but it's the sort of participation that democracy is based on.
As Ardell speaks about democracy, an idea for a slogan comes to him. He sets down his cup of coffee. "How about existential democracy?" he asks.
Or maybe: Tampa, the Next Enlightened City.
Seeing Red
Many people in Tampa think they know Joe Redner. He's the guy who owns nudie bars where women shake it for their supper.
His name brings up visions of a younger Hugh Hefner, fighting the government to make the world safe for smut. But people who think that's what Redner is about don't know Joe.
Sitting in his West Kennedy Boulevard office, Redner is surrounded by bookshelves filled floor to ceiling, primarily with legal texts. A book on Florida constitutional law shares a shelf with Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society. Redner's formal education may have ended with a GED, but he's still a thinker. He knows more about constitutional law than some lawyers.
Redner didn't acquire that knowledge solely by fighting for the rights of women to take money from horny men.
While Redner does own the Mons Venus and pieces of two other adult clubs, most of his Tampa business empire is decidedly less titillating.
He owns property all over the city, including the building that houses the local Internal Revenue Service office. His production company does lighting for movies and commercials, and rents equipment to Tampa Bay area TV stations. Redner also owns a Hyde Park gym where the strict vegan does one hour of cardio training and lifts weights daily.
Redner expects that his new video production venture will put out more videos like the one his producers put together to explain the First Amendment to the Hillsborough County commissioners during last year's debate over public-access cable TV.
It's his business experience that Redner feels qualifies him to help run the city. He's had to navigate the permit process for zoning changes and he's had to pay impact fees. He's sued the city at least 15 times, he says, and it's sued him at least that many times. Only once has he lost, he claims.
"I've been winning against the city of Tampa for 25 years," he says.
He hasn't been winning elections, though. Redner is running for Tampa City Council in District 6, which encompasses West Tampa, and this is his fourth try at public office. He has lost every time.
Redner says he keeps running because he's tired of the inefficiency -- and, sometimes, the stupidity -- rampant in local government. "Their goals are laudable, but what they do to get there doesn't make sense," he says.
The taxpayer-funded arts district is an example. The city should build things that attract more educated and cultured people, but Redner says a museum isn't one of them. "I think people want to live where their children are going to be properly educated," he says.
People also want to live where basic infrastructure is not ignored. Redner points to unfunded projects like the $600-million in storm sewer upgrades. A new city tax is supposed to pay for stormwater improvements, but Redner suspects that isn't where the cash will go. "It will go to dig out the canals where the rich people live," he says. Meanwhile, the waterways will continue to be polluted and the streets will continue to flood.
The city should also refrain from practices that lead to corruption and greed, he says. If the city didn't use nonprofits to hire contractors to build low-income housing, Redner says, the Steve LaBrake scandal never would have happened.
Most of what Redner wants to do would benefit the whole city. But Redner believes there's a need for more green space in West Tampa and he thinks the city should provide it. Recently, he took matters into his own hands by spending more than $100,000 of his own money to develop a park on what used to be a vacant lot.
In spite of what Redner does, he says he'll always be working against the perception that he's nothing more than an immoral adult business owner.
"It's all about perception, and those people know that," he says of the city council. "If you want to talk about morals, I don't know what it has to do with sex. I think it's about lying, cheating and stealing -- and the city's full of liars, cheaters and thieves."
Combating Complacency
Kelly Benjamin has spent most of his 27 years in Tampa and, like the city he calls home, he has evolved.
Benjamin doesn't mention it on the campaign trail, but there's no way Weekly Planet can ignore his past life as Kelly Combat, the pirate radio station operator who was once the scourge of the Federal Communications Commission. Well, maybe he wasn't the scourge of the FCC, but he did annoy the regulator of the public airwaves.
That Combat was one spunky kid.
Then evolution started kicking in. Combat changed back to Benjamin. He graduated from the University of South Florida, where he studied anthropology. He won grants that sent him to Bosnia and South America, where he worked with local relief agencies. He spent time traveling around Europe, where he became acquainted with cities that had stores, entertainment and restaurants that people could walk to. And they had decent public transportation.
With his announcement for the District 2 seat on the Tampa City Council, Benjamin is now one determined man.
Tampa's inner city neighborhoods are either in a state of deterioration or gentrification, he says. Urban sprawl is out of hand and transportation is completely inadequate. "Now is the crucial time to start addressing some of those issues," says Benjamin.
While tony Hyde Park gets more green space and a community center, there are people in District 2, which is city wide, who don't have streetlights. Finding affordable housing in the city means ignoring the dictionary definition of the word "affordable."
"We have an economy in Tampa that's based on constant growth," says Benjamin. "It's an unsustainable trend that has to be curbed."
Benjamin wants to see the city spend more on job training in poor areas to combat drug dealing instead of relying solely on constant police presence. "The issue really isn't going to be resolved by throwing these kids in jail and perpetuating the prison industrial complex where young black males are in and out of the system," says Benjamin.
Nowadays, people may think that kind of talk is a bunch of liberal crap. But Benjamin insists that it's a realistic way of dealing with a problem at its core, rather than skimming the surface for votes.
With his Tampa Heights neighborhood becoming gentrified, thanks to its previously neglected stock of historic homes, Benjamin thinks the people moving in have a responsibility to confront the issues of poverty that preceded their arrival. If they don't, then the people who had lived in the neighborhood for years will be forced to move while the middle class takes over.
Benjamin isn't faulting the new arrivals. In fact, his goals are the same as theirs. "I don't want drug dealers attacking me on the street. I want to feel safe walking my dog and I want my girlfriend to feel safe walking around," he says.
But he also wants new homeowners and businesses that come into the area to make improvements that benefit everyone, not just themselves.
That's not the kind of thinking that many city council members are capable of taking seriously, Benjamin says. "I think it's hard for people living in gated communities to relate to the people they claim to represent."
Like most grassroots candidates, Benjamin is low on funds and even lower on political experience. Still, he has attracted a dedicated volunteer force that has gone door to door on his behalf and helped him to raise money.
"My issues speak to a lot of people. People who are concerned with the future," he explains. "So it really hasn't been a difficult thing to galvanize groups of people."
Already Benjamin has the endorsement of the Green Party and he's hopeful about getting the Sierra Club's.
As for his lack of political experience, Benjamin says, "I also don't have any experience with political double-talk, with political scandal or corruption."
Gwen's GoneWhen Ali Akbar lost to Tampa City Council member Gwen Miller in 1999, he said he'd never run again.
But, with Miller forced out of her District 5 (Tampa Heights and parts of Seminole Heights) seat by term limits and seeking a citywide seat, Akbar is back.
He says he's not running because Miller's gone, leaving a race with six relatively unknown candidates competing for her seat. He's running because he's tired of seeing his district left behind. "I was asking myself who I was going to support and all fingers pointed back to me," says Akbar.
The longtime community activist and small business owner is used to taking matters into his own hands. When he started his contracting company in the 1980s, he thought that he would be able to get a share of the work the Hillsborough County School Board was supposed to give to minority contractors. Then a report came out that said minority contractors had only received $1,200 worth of work.
"When that report came out I said, 'Wait a minute, there's no way I'm going to get work as a new minority contractor when they already had minority contractors who aren't getting work.'"
That realization turned into the African American Contractors Alliance, which Akbar founded to help minority contractors compete for jobs.
Contractors often had to purchase pricey building plans in order to bid on jobs. Many minority business owners couldn't afford to buy plans that they were unsure would lead to paying jobs. As a nonprofit, the alliance was able to get plans for free by becoming a designated plan holder. His business office housed building plans filed by the school district, says Akbar, and alliance members could access them for free.
"That worked well and the county designated us a plan room," he says.
The result was that when it came time to build the new stadium for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, minority contractors won more than $10-million in contracts, according to Akbar.
Working with Tampa government has been another matter. "The city has always been reluctant to improve its minority program," says Akbar.
Economic development is a big issue in District 5, says Akbar, and assisting minority businesses is part of the larger picture.
As minority contractors got more jobs through the African American Contractors Alliance, they were able to hire more minority subcontractors who hired local workers. On some school jobs, contractors took on untrained workers. After months of working with more experienced mentors, the trainees were able to get permanent jobs.
"If small businesses get their share of the construction dollars, they can hire within the community," Akbar says.
Akbar is a proponent of "smart growth," building in areas that already have infrastructure so new roads and schools aren't required. It also means taking care of the people who have lived for generations in neighborhoods the middle class is just now discovering.
"We'll help them with fixing their houses and cutting their yards so they won't be hit with code violations and they'll fit in with the houses around them. That's smart, isn't it?" Akbar says. "To push people out who have been here for years and years, that's not smart."
Akbar would be able to hit the ground running on the city council, he says, because he's worked with the council frequently over the past 20 years.
"All of them know me, all of them know that I'm straight forward and all of them know that my concern is strictly for District 5," he says.
Akbar has lived in the district 45 years and his interests are those of his neighbors. He believes he can't lose this time: "The reason I feel so confident is that I believe that people are ready for a change."
Contact Staff Writer Rochelle Renford at 813-248-8888, ext. 163, or rochelle.renford@weeklyplanet.com.
