Mitch Perry
For more than three decades, the seven-member Hillsborough County Commission has consisted of representatives from four single-member districts and three at-large seats. The county is much larger now, and a lot of people think its composition needs to change to reflect that growth.
In the past few years, there have been two futile attempts to add another single-member district and eliminate an at-large seat. The opportunity to debate the issue comes back Tuesday night in Tampa when the 14-member Charter Review Board considers this and other ideas such as making the entire county single-member districts or adding more commissioners.
“Hillsborough County is the only (Florida) county with over a million people that still has at-large districts,” said Commissioner Les Miller, who championed a previous effort through the board.
He’s right: Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach and Broward County all have county commission boards consisting strictly of lawmakers representing single-member districts, which Miller and others say would provide more accountability in a county now 1.3 million people strong.
The Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners hasn’t always had its current configuration. More three decades ago, it expanded its total number of members from five to seven, with four members representing specific districts in the county.
Leading that 1983 change was then-County Commissioner Jan Platt, who still contends it remains the best system. Platt is on the Charter Review Board, and says the current system continues to allow every voter in the county to choose a representative in their own district, as well as three others. That gives them the sense they’re weighing on a majority of the seven-member board.
Miller says that was fine for the mid ’80s, but not 2015. He considers arguments for the status quo tired, such as the fact that it was established after three county commissioners were arrested on corruption charges in the 1983. Without mentioning a name, Miller says the current system didn’t prevent the arrest of another county commissioner not long ago.
That would be Kevin White, expected to be released soon from prison after a three-year sentence on bribery and corruption charges.
Another issue that the Charter Review Board will consider is to increase the number of board members.
“The right thing to do would be to go to nine single districts,” said Norma Reno, a Charter Review Board member appointed by Commissioner Ken Hagan. Reno said at least five single-member districts and four-at-large seats would suffice, but doesn’t think that proposal has much of a chance.
“They’re going to say, ‘Oh, this is increasing government. It’s spending money, we don’t have that kind of money,'” she said, anticipating criticism of that plan.
However, Miami-Dade County has 13 single-member districts, and Broward County has nine members on its board.
Advocates for more board members say that when the BOCC expanded from five to seven members in 1983, Hillsborough County’s population was at 700,000. It has grown half a million more to about 1.3 million people.
“That’s crazy,” Reno said. “How can I talk to my commissioner if he or she has to attend to over 300,000 people? It doesn’t make any sense.”
The two previous attempts to change the board’s composition flamed out in recent years. In both cases, a major impetus in the change was a demand from the Hispanic community to create a minority-majority district for a Latino to represent on the board. Advocates say that with Hispanics comprising more than 26 percent of the county, the current structure makes it more difficult for such representation.
That argument became divisive and a flashpoint — and has largely been dropped from the current discussion.
