Tribune Picks Rose
The Tampa Tribune picked Rose Ferlita as its recommendation for Hillsborough County Commission District 1 Republican Candidate
"The clear edge in experience goes to Tampa City Council member Rose V. Ferlita. She has worked effectively in her neighborhood and in eight years on the council has voted with independent thoughtfulness. She correctly says the commission has supported too much growth in the wrong places."
They go on to say:
"The candidate promising the least change is Brad Swanson, who works for a consulting company. Despite the backlog of county needs, he is campaigning for lower fees and more sprawling growth.
Swanson would expand the urban service area and put more houses farther from the county's business centers. He thinks, incredibly, the county does too much to preserve land.
Swanson's campaign has made irresponsible attacks on Ferlita. He is jovial but gives the impression of a candidate being told what to say." A zing at Raph Hughes
Ferlita is by far the best choice. She has been active in improving the city neighborhood where she runs a drugstore. She understands that Tampa is a vital part of Hillsborough County.
When tax dollars are at stake, she pays careful attention to detail. Ferlita tolerates no nonsense and is feisty without being petty.
Most appealing is her independence. She told us, "I would rather go back to my drugstore full time than to be a puppet." A second zing at Ralph Hughes
In the District 1 Republican primary, The Tribune endorses Rose Ferlita.
Interestingly for a vice president of marketing, Swanson is doing a lousy job of marketing himself.
18 comments:
Worked effectively doing *what*? City council is mostly a rubber stamp for the mayor's office, so it's not like they've done any heavy lifting. It's easy to be a team player when the coach has all the power.
All I can say about the Trib's endorsement is that she's the best of a bad lot.
I disagree. The last time I looked this country was a democracy. Look at Rose's previous votes. When It should have mattered the most, Rose was the always the one lone voice voting against items that were unfair or unjust to the community. She almost always votes against our wonderful Mayor's hairbrain ideas. If you want to create Change in this city, be sure to Oust Iorio in 2007. Rose has my vote!
Yeah, the country is a democracy. And maybe she's not as useless as she seems, but I'm not optimistic. The biggest problem I have with her is that she is a Republican. Yeah, maybe she's a moderate. But for the foreseeable future any Republican is going to have the stink of the Christian Coalition and the Talibaptists on them. There aren't enough moderate Republicans to matter, and all she'll do is put a moderate face on a Ronda Storms agenda.
If Rose and Ronda got into a cat fight, Rose would rip her to shreds and eat her liver.
That is STILL wrong. That is why labels are bad. Just because she is republican- That is like saying just because someone is a certain color, religion, nationality, gay, etc. You can't lump all people in a category. Do your homework, look at Rose's record. She has voted in a way that is best for the citizens/city a majority of the time. Rose has not backed down to the Mayor, has publicly questioned her decisions and has the guts to ask questions. She continually fights against overdevelopment, etc. I am a registered Democrat, but I can never see the logic behind voting for a party versus voting for the substance of a candidate.
Baaaaaa Baaaaaaa
Yeah, but being a Republican is a "lifestyle choice". None of the rest of those are. As to fighting against overdevelopment, exactly how many of those fights has she actually won?
Her being a Republican is still way too big a negative, btw. Anything that gives aid, comfort, encouragement, or political cover to conservative/theocratic Republicans is a disqualifier.
Anonymous 1:25, I hate to interrupt you while you're feeling all virtuous for indulging your wise larger vision. But when you do manage to come down off the high horse you're riding, you might think about the irony of a majority Democratic district being represented by a Republican.
Anon 1:25 seems to be the only person with any sense in this discussion! To say that a majority of Republicans are conservative Christians is completely ludicrous.
Most of our political views are moderate. Why do you think elections are so close these days? Politicians know the only way to get votes is to ride the party fence. Since politicians don't like close races, we have this new breed of extremist political views - Those on the far right and those on the far left and each side is hoping to get a majority of their party's votes when in actuality they are just pushing voters further into the middle and creating a polarizing effect.
"As to fighting against overdevelopment, exactly how many of those fights has she actually won?"
Well just because she fought and did not win, don't attack her. Your beef should be with the other council members that voted against her to cause her to lose.
Has Rose joined the Log Cabin Republicans? No? Another lying Republican politcian kissing the ass of the Christo-fascists to get elected!
Why does her sexuality have to be an issue? Gays can be Republican or Democrats. What one does in the privacy of their own home is thier own business. Believe it or not, sometimes, other issues are more important than "Gay issues".
Anon 7:45 - If she fought and didn't win that doesn't say much for her effectiveness. And we already have enough ineffective grandstanders on the commission as it is. Why do we need one more? More to the point, why do we need one who can be used to put gay-friendly lipstick on the Republican pig?
* How would she work to stop Jim Norman and his edifice complex?
* How would she have tried to derail the beltway boondoggle?
* How would she stop to the East Hillsborough hillbillies and local bluenoses from poking their noses in other peoples' sex lives?
* How would she *find* wasteful county spending, let alone try and cut it? On the City Council, she has the excuse that the mayor controls the agenda and has veto power over what the council passes. That helps keep the egos and grandstanding and pork barrel spending at a minimum. But on the commission? There's really nobody to ride herd on them; it's more like Congress writ small.
Answer some of *those* questions, because her web site certainly doesn't.
Let me Guess, Kathy Castor is the best Commissioner ever? I think Rose has stood her ground regarding gay issues. She has been the only council member to stand up and say it is none of the governments business. She has been the only council member to stand up, question and vote no on many issues...ie pay raises. No matter what anyone says on this site, you will never be enlightened to even consider a republican because you vote with your crotch. It is unfortunate that your sex life has so much power over your life that you would not educate yourself on a good candidate because they don't put gay right at the top of their list.
Anon 8:53 - from today's St Pete Times endorsement of Kathy Castor for Jim Davis' congressional seat:
"[Kathy] Castor has been a strong voice of common sense since winning election to the commission four years ago. Through hard work and tactical savvy, Castor has blocked attempts by the Republican-dominated board to cut mass transit, ease growth restrictions and reduce health care for the poor. The 39-year-old lawyer's work at the state planning agency and Tampa Bay Water gives her a broad grasp of regional issues. Looking beyond parochialism is important in a House district that covers Tampa, parts of southern St. Petersburg and northern Manatee. Her familiarity with the legislative process complements an open, honest personal style that would be a breath of fresh air in Washington."
As to not being "enlightened enough to even consider a Republican", there aren't really any Republicans worth considering. Mark Sharpe comes closest, because he doesn't have his nose wedged up between Jim Norman's butt cheeks all the time. But until he comes over from the dark side and puts a 'D' after his name, he doesn't make the cut.
"Voting with my crotch"? How would I grip the smart card to put it in the machine, or operate the touch screen on the machine? :-)
You sound like you think Rose is a lesbian and that I'm against her because of it. Far from it. Her sexual orientation is of absolutely *no* interest to me. Who cares who she sleeps with? Other people in this thread keep dragging that into the discussion, and I wish they'd quit. I'd rather talk about what she would *do* on the commission... and I'm curious about why nobody else does.
I wouldn't disacree with you on the Rose issue, I don't think you have a hang up on the Gay issue. I think you have a hang up on the party. Just because she is Republican, she will never get your vote. The vote comment was referring to your stereotypical gay voting, never vote republican. There are greater issues than gay rights. While they are very important, I would much rather worry about making our county a more livable area. What good are your rights if you are broke, homeless, etc. The funny thing about the Kathy Castor comments your mentioned are all big ticket items she is looing to fund.
I do see why many want to question mass transit. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing the busses pass you. They are always so big with 2 people riding them. That is if it is a busy peak time. It think the most I have ever seen on a bus is 10 at one time. This is rush hour.
Anon 1:16 - Thank you, thank you, thank you! Finally we have a substantive discussion.
Health care for the poor shouldn't even be on the table. Poor people aren't going away, and it's better (IMHO) to fund a health care system for them than it is to have them getting sick and dying on the streets both morally and practically.
Mass transit isn't done properly in Hillsborough County for a lot of reasons. One of the most basic ones is that the city and county weren't planned with it in mind; it's always been easier politically and cheaper tax-wise to just let developers build in cow pastures and orange groves and hit the state or the federal government up for grants to help the roads and sewers catch up. The end result is that we have a city where having a car is almost a requirement for having a job or going to school, and the roads are set up so that buses are the only practical mass transit option available. But they're expensive to run, and they're an easy whipping boy for the county commission and their constituents who are jealous that most of the buses run in Tampa (which has the largest population center and most of the commuters, but I digress). How do you get more riders on county buses? Run more buses more frequently on the routes that people actually use, add wireless on the buses so people can use laptops on their way to work, soup up the air conditioning systems to suck up the riders' body odor, provide more actual bus shelters instead of those benches - who wants to sit on one of those benches for forty-five minutes in July? Add telemetry to the buses and add "arrival time" displays at the bus shelters to let riders know how long it will be until the next bus comes along. Add a "bus on demand" service to pick riders up at their houses and take them to work. The list goes on and on. It all costs money, however.
Will Rose do any of this? Has she even thought of it? I doubt it very much. Nothing she says gives any indication of that. Living in a metropolitan area means paying taxes for city and county services. It also means that as prices go up those taxes go up, and it means not pandering on taxes the way the GOP does.
Growth management is another item where the commission says one thing and does another. (See above paragraph.) They pay lip service to the need for growth management, but let some of their landowner contributors make noise about wanting to sell open land for housing developments and most of them fall over with their heels in the air. Managing growth means saying 'no' to developments in the wrong places, and means saying 'yes' to infill developments in places where the road, sewer, power, and other infrastructure is already in place or can be easily expanded.
A perfect example of rubber stamping approval is Westshore South of Gandy. They have approved 1000's of residences in this small area. Now they are whining the roads are too narrow coming in and out, the water pipes and services cannot keep up with the demand. Which was there first? I don't even think they took this vital information into consideration when they approved such developments. In the meantime, the develop laughs his way to the bank with millions while the taxpayers are left on the hook to solve the problems.
Um, isn't Westshore south of Gandy in the Tampa city limits? And isn't that the purview of City Council to approve or deny the zoning requests for those developments?
In other words, could Rose have stopped it and just didn't? Or did she try and was totally ineffective?
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