Mitch Perry
Shawn Harrison is hitting Lisa Montelione hard in the final days of their competitive House District 63 race.
The ad begins as an homage of sorts to Montelione’s own television ad released last month, which depicted a commercial film set with a director, cameraman, technical crew — but no candidate.
“Seen the Lisa Montelione commercial? You know, the one where she doesn’t show up,” asks the narrator at the beginning of Harrison’s ad, titled, “Where’s Lisa?”
“Well, Montelione doesn’t show up as a Tampa City Councilwoman either,” as the narrator says Montelione has a 33 percent absent rate on the council.
The ad goes on to criticize her supporting Mayor Bob Buckhorn‘s $906 million budget for FY 2017 back in September, which included a five percent property tax increase and a new stormwater fee.
The ad then goes to reference a measure proposed by Councilwoman Yolie Capin that would given Tampa City Council members the ability to park in any city parking lot or metered space for free. Montelione was one of five members of the council to support the proposal, which has not come to fruition.
The narrator then says that while voting on that, Montelione was also voting to increase the parking fees “on the rest of us.” That could be a reference to the council’s 2015 vote to increase the rates at the city’s parking garages at Centro Ybor in Ybor City, which were notoriously cheap for years in a deal originally negotiated by former Mayor Dick Greco. The city had been subsidizing the two garages as part of an agreement between the city, movie developer Muvico, and the developer of the Centro Ybor project.
Montelione was participating in her last meeting at city council on Thursday, and was not immediately available for comment.
The HD 63 race is considered to be one of the most competitive of any state legislative race in the Tampa Bay area. The swing district was captured by Harrison in 2010, but he lost it to Democrat Mark Danish in 2012. He then came back to defeat Danish in 2014.
House District 63 encompasses parts of New Tampa, Pebble Creek, Lutz, Carrollwood, Lake Magdalene, and the USF area.
