More Seats At the Table

Republican blogger Jim Johnson points to a William March post about Patrick Manteiga and Doris Weatherford starting a petition drive to add more members to the Hillsborough County Commission. Their group is called Citizens for Equal County Representation.

It is not clear how many commisioners CFECR wish to add. They do wish to rid the Hillborough County Commission of the three county-wide seats.

And finally, she said, if the petition drive for a county mayor is successful, “It would not be wise to have at-large commissioners who might challenge his/her authority.”

It would be rather redundant.

Jim correctly points out that the county's growth demands more seats. Here are Census numbers from 1960 to 2000.

1960 - 397,788
1970 - 490,265
1980 - 646,960
1990 - 834,054
2000 - 998,948



The Republican members of the commission will resist this idea.

In other news: Tampa City Council member Mary Mulhern wants the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission to add two board members from City Council and one each from the Plant City commission and Temple Terrace city council. Temple Terrace Mayor Joe Affronti and environmental activist Mariella Smith are supportive of the idea. No one will be shocked that Brian Blair hates it.

"I don't think it's broken," Blair said. "Why fix it?"

Pam Iorio is another pol that is unsupportive. I never viewed her as a green Democrat. She was dragged kicking and screaming into signing the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Her office then sent out a hysterically defensive and rambling press release.

Mulhern needs a sponsor in the state legislature to add more seats. Jim Norman wants to lump Tampa Sports Authority and the Hillsborough Planning Commission into the legislation. Mulhern is against this. She has a difficult task with the Mayor and Blair against her. I hate to see this be another good idea that dies.