Whoever the next mayor is, that person will face an immediate crucible. But it will be more than personnel cuts, infrastructure needs, tax rates, city-worker clinics and public-employee pensions. And it will involve more than consolidating services with the county, finishing the Riverwalk, pitching Tampa as a World Cup venue and brainstorming over JOBS-JOBS-JOBS.
The overriding challenge: How to lead where not enough people ostensibly want to go.
A generic leader, it has been said, takes people where they want to go. Or where they say they want to go. But a truly effective, visionary leader — and arguably tough times mandate no less — takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be. Tampa, the catalytic business hub of Hillsborough County, presents precisely that sort of challenge for its next City Hall CEO.
If Tampa cannot manage to incorporate modern mass transit into this region, it will have peaked as a city. And upon peaking, there’s no way to go but down. And the Atlantas, Charlottes, Austins, San Antonios and others will further rise like Phoenixes and gladly enable and accelerate the also-ran slide that we initiated ourselves.
To be candid, we needed grown-up transit a couple of decades ago. So, thanks, again, to those who vilified Ed “Commissioner Choo-Choo” Turanchik. Provincialism stayed on track.
The next mayor will have to do more than venerate the status quo on transit. Much more than concede that “the people have spoken” on a 2010 transit tax. That vote — and the future economic viability of this city and area that it has put into jeopardy — must be seen in context.
A minority of voters (46 per cent) “spoke” at all. Actually a few got out their bullhorns and others lip-synched. Many doubled down on the national anger against government. The 20-something demographic that is most enamored of modern mass transit stayed away from the polls and activism — and the ugly, divisive political process it came to represent — in droves.
The perfect political storm yielded the perfect rhetorical microcosm: “You want to add a penny to the sales tax during a recession! While regional unemployment is above 12 per cent! For a — all together now — government ‘boondoggle’ that won’t pay for itself and won’t be used by everybody!”
Tampa’s next mayor should, despite any political advice to the contrary, embrace a well-used mayoral bully pulpit and make the enlightened self-interest case for Tampa’s future. And present. Modern transit means, ironically, JOBS-JOBS-JOBS. As in the businesses we attract and those we retain. As in those in construction and those that are ripple effects of urban development — and redevelopment — around light rail stations.
And then there are quality-of-life upgrades — from anti-sprawl to anti-gridlock — that impact more than progressive businesses still searching for a “Megatrends” city. John Naisbitt, we are reminded, never noted our narrow thinking.
The next mayor needs to keep impressing upon the suburbs and rural Hillsborough that their stake, including road relief and enhanced bus service, is no afterthought. Any more than intrusive, sprawl-inducing development is a non-factor in their quality of life. Any more than a retro business climate in Tampa impacts everyone. The “No” transit votes were heaviest in Brandon, Plant City and Sun City.
The next mayor may want to heed the counsel of Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Not to get all apocalyptic, but that has to be a prerequisite for whoever takes over in April, even if it’s one of the charisma-challenged candidates. Tampa was behind in transportation. Time was no ally. Now it falls further behind — and sends all the wrong signals to the feds, Gov.-elect Rick Scott, U.S. Rep. John Mica and surrounding, synergistic counties. As of today, there’s an 88-mile, $2.6 billion high-speed rail line designated for a downtown Tampa terminus by 2015. And as of Nov. 2, it will be linking up with whatever HART buses can be spared for shuttle duty.
There will be no lack of residual, high-decibel naysayers who will seek to intimidate the next mayor if a tax for any reason — including one to prevent economic obsolescence — is ever encouraged. They will not want the mayor to deviate from a traditional jobs agenda. Less-than-subtle re-election threats will be a given.
Of course the next mayor can’t call out the electorate for being stupid and counterproductively selfish. Hardly public official-speak. However tempting. But if the next mayor has both vision and guts, he or she might consider quoting President Abraham Lincoln when he was confronted with a cabinet that resounded with nays on emancipation.
“The ayes have it,” said Lincoln.