Hagan is new Hillsborough County Commission chairman
November 8, 2007 at 12:39 pm by Wayne GarciaTimes is reporting that Republican Ken Hagan, long known for staying out of the spotlight and away from the news media, won’t be able to keep that up any longer; he’s been chosen as the new chairman of the Hillsborough County Commission.
Hagan replaces Jim Norman, who is still stinging from the defeat of his $40 million Championship Park proposal. That puts Hagan front and center for the run-up to the 2008 elections, with some controversial transportation and planning questions ahead, not to mention the resolution of the Environmental Protection Commission wetlands fight and god knows what else will come in front of that dysfunctional board.
Commissioner Rose Ferlita, at the same meeting in which Hagan was chosen chairman, was essentially stripped of her seat on the Tampa Port Authority, which was given to Commissioner Brian Blair. Unsurprising given that Ferlita has been an outspoken critic of several of her colleagues’ actions, including Norman, Hagan and Blair. Norman kept the key perc of a seat on the Tampa Sports Authority, where members get free tickets to Bucs games and get to spend our tax dollars on flat-panel HDTVs for the luxury suites and club level.
The one spot of good news from the county commission today: the pragmatic Mark Sharpe was chosen vice chairman.
(addendum disclosure: forgot to add that Ferlita was a client of my political consulting firm in the 1990s and that I was consultant to the Jim Davidson campaign against a field that included Hagan in Hagan’s first campaign. Davidson lost in the Republican primary.)Â
