Blurbex

With the mayor facing only token opposition, it looks like the role of media target is falling to Tampa City Council Chairwoman Gwen Miller, who has drawn five opponents in her bid for a fourth term on the board.

Miller and her challengers — Rick Barcena, Randy Baron, Denise Chavez, Julie Jenkins and Joe Redner — spent last Friday taping a one-hour government access television debate. As the Tampa Tribune pointed out, Miller was flat-out misleading when asked why it took the City Council so long to cut taxes last year. Miller answered that the council planned for some time to roll back tax rates, but as the Trib pointed out, she voted in June against a discussion of a tax reduction that was brought up for a vote by Councilman Shawn Harrison.

(In the interest of full disclosure, in my previous career as a political consultant I ran a campaign against Miller’s husband, then-Sen. Les Miller.)

The Times followed on Monday with an analysis of the Miller’s capabilities, largely a negative view of the always quiet chairwoman of the City Council. This exchange is typical of the story’s findings:

And she regards the construction of a district police headquarters
in east Tampa as one of her biggest accomplishments, she said.

What was her role in that?

"The mayor asked me if I thought it was a good idea, and I said yes," she said.

Miller’s performance in the League of Women Voters-sponsored debates can be seen in upcoming days on the government access channel (Channel 15 on Verizon and Bright House), Mondays at 11 a.m., Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 10 p.m. For those without cable, or those who live outside the city of Tampa, I’m going to devote space in Blurbex to printing Miller’s verbatim answers to the debate questions. Today’s question was what unique experience or financial background do you have that you will bring to the council position:

“First at home you have your own financial problems. You have to start at home before you can help anyone else. Being on City Council I can understand the financial problems because everyone in the community needs different taxes cut, they need money to finance homes, they need money to keep their lives going. To have a budget to fit everybody’s needs is a big financial problem, and I’m willing to work, and I have worked with it, and I made sure everybody’s needs were met and we had a fine budget for that year. And I will continue to work with the budget with the mayor because the mayor knows the needs of the city, her financial needs, and she knows what the city needs and I will be working with her to make everything fine.”

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