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Column: Community Redevelopment Agency has served Tampa well

 
Published Aug. 21, 2017

With dramatic flair that included invoking the name of a famous novelist, Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran recently wrote a critical column about Community Redevelopment Agencies. No one should disagree with him about elected officials in Florida whose unethical or criminal behavior let their constituents down. But there are many, including myself, who firmly believe he is wrong to blame these crimes on CRAs.

CRAs were created to improve blighted areas, and they have been a successful tool in Tampa since their creation. I have served on the Tampa City Council and as a member of our CRA since 2011. We have eight redevelopment areas in Tampa, and we have been very diligent in how money is spent on infrastructure and special programs in each area. Corcoran's assertions about political malfeasance in other parts of Florida simply don't reflect the standard we have upheld in Tampa.

In our downtown Tampa development area, we have provided money toward infrastructure, parks, roads, sidewalks, water lines, lighting and special services. That has spurred an enormous investment of private dollars. Without our CRA investment, we would not have the proposed Water Street district, a $3 billion project by Jeff Vinik and Bill Gates that will transform our central business district.

In our Tampa Heights development district, a 40-acre project to change our northern riverfront is under way. This will take a once-blighted area and change its character with mixed uses of retail, apartments and restaurants that can be enjoyed by all. Our Drew Park area has experienced a renaissance using our facade grant program to change the look of older, dilapidated buildings into refurbished workplaces. Couple this with the park, sewer, water, sidewalk and lighting improvements, and the entire area has become a destination for light manufacturing and distribution companies.

In our East Tampa development area, one of the largest and most economically challenged areas of our city, we've invested in a number of innovative initiatives such as youth programs, small business development programs, road improvements in front of the historic Florida Sentinel-Bulletin office and updated lighting as part of our "Bright Lights, Safe Nights" program.

It is shortsighted to look solely at the financial success we have achieved without considering the public process we use to make these investments. All of our development areas have advisory committees made up of property owners, business owners and interested citizens. They represent real voices from our city's neighborhoods, making recommendations to our board on how to invest their CRA money.

While the House speaker correctly points out the excesses of a very small number of elected officials, his legislation to prohibit forming new CRAs almost at once, and phasing out existing CRAs by 2037, would effectively punish all of Florida's municipalities, counties and special taxing districts that have played by the rules and achieved so much to benefit their communities. Using the same procurement practices, annual reporting and ethics training (as passed and required by the Legislature for all municipal officials), the city of Tampa's CRA already largely complies with the standards his bill additionally seeks to introduce and enforce.

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During the speaker's long career that included serving as chief of staff to Marco Rubio when Rubio was House speaker, there can be no doubt he encountered dishonest public officials. On any given day the speaker, like anyone else, can call on the governor to remove from office individuals like those he calls out in his column. There's no need for his heavy-handed legislation to protect Floridians. He has that power today. He only needs to demonstrate resolve.

As a Tampa City Council member, I have witnessed firsthand the benefits CRAs have delivered for residents in Tampa and throughout Florida. I urge the public to join me in opposition to legislation that denies the continued use of this proven tool and willfully fails to maintain and protect well-run, high-performing CRAs like those in Tampa.

Mike Suarez is a Tampa City Council member.