Mitch Perry
Terrance “Terry” Power, a 59-year-old Oldsmar-based certified financial planner, is launching a 2018 primary challenge against House District 64 incumbent Jamie Grant.
“I’m running for the Florida House because I am the best candidate in the race to serve the residents of our District,” the Republican said in a statement released Sunday.
“I’ll let the voters decide how corrupt, unethical, and ineffective my primary opponent is as a legislator and whether he needs to be find another line of work outside of Tallahassee. I’ve made up my mind. That’s why I’m in.”
Grant was cleared in 2014 of ethics violations regarding his involvement in a project to bring high-tech jobs to a rural Florida county. The state Commission on Ethics found no probable cause that the lawmaker misused his elected position in the Hardee County development project.
Power announced on his Facebook page that if elected, he would donate 100 percent of his salary to charities located in the district. State lawmakers earn $29,697 annually.
District 64 encompasses northwest Tampa, including Westchase, Northdale, and Carrollwood and northeast Pinellas County including Oldsmar, Safety Harbor, and eastern Palm Harbor (East Lake area).
The 35-year-old Grant was first elected in 2010, and was easily re-elected in 2012 and 2014. However, a dispute over the voting process led to a rejection of the 2014 result, leaving the seat vacant until Grant won a special election in early 2015.
Under the state Constitution, a candidate is eligible to run for a legislative seat until he has held that office for “eight consecutive years.” Because of that break between the November 2014 election and the special election, Grant’s win in 2016 ‘reset the clock’ for his time in office, giving him the potential to serve eight more years in the House.
Grant had aspirations of becoming House Speaker, but his bid for that position in 2022 fell short to Palm Coast Republican Paul Renner.
The Stetson Law grad and tech entrepreneur founded LifeSync Technologies, the maker of CareSync, a Web and mobile application that lets people store and control their medical records online.
Grant later sold the firm to Continuum Labs, a Wesley Chapel-based application developer, and now works as a consultant to his former company, according to TBO.com.
5 comments
Henry Kuhlman
November 27, 2017 at 1:45 pm
Mitch, here are the checks that James Grant’s campaign manager, Jennifer Lux (co-founder of LifeSync) personally wrote by hand and signed herself with a single signature — totaling over $2,500,000 in eleven months. Most of those checks were to herself, James Grant, Travis Bond’s companies, Representative Jason Brodeur (Anchor Consulting), and John Grant III (James’ brother). There were NO Backup invoices, contracts, expenses reports or any records at all supporting a penny of these fees. The checks were taken by James and Jennifer to Econ. Dev. Dir. Bill Lambert’s Pickup truck each month in parking lots they cannot remember for Mr. Lambert to review. He cannot remember looking at the back of the checks or if they were Redacted before he saw them (as they are today). He stated under oath that he has no idea where the money went or if it was used for the purposes of the project. James Grant and Jennifer Lux will not verify the sworn deposition claims of Bill Lambert or that they met with him in his pick up truck to show him these checks — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Kcl4GeG-RdV1lNOW9iellpREk/view?usp=sharing
A victim of TP
November 27, 2017 at 4:09 pm
You left out information on Power. Perhaps you have a good investigative reporter that wants to look into it? Pretty interesting stuff there.
Tina
November 28, 2017 at 6:52 pm
Perhaps you should call Mitch and point him in the right direction. One can also connect the dots between him and First Husband’s Advocacy Group on Facebook. Go to Equityanddignity.com and educate yourselves about Terry Powers and his affiliations throughout the years.
Jan
November 28, 2017 at 7:02 pm
‘A victim of TP’ perhaps you should lead Mitch in the right direction.
Philip Blumel
November 27, 2017 at 4:53 pm
Regarding:
“Because of that break between the November 2014 election and the special election, Grant’s win in 2016 ‘reset the clock’ for his time in office, giving him the potential to serve eight more years in the House.”
This is the slippery case that Grant himself made, but it has NOT been tested in any court. In fact, U.S. Term limits does not know of any case in any state — ever — where a long-time state legislator busted a voter-approved term limit using this technicality. It flies in the face of precedent and has been ‘accepted’ only due to lack of opposition.
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