At NAACP forum, Tampa City Council candidates talk livable wages, red-light cameras and body cameras for police

Although Democrats Bob Buckhorn and Rick Kriseman are close political allies, they definitely don’t always share the same public policy prescriptions.

Throughout much of 2014, there was a demand among progressives in Florida and across the nation to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. The minimum wage in Florida currently is $8.05 an hour. Concurrently, there have been several high-profile fast-food worker strikes where those workers and their labor allies have been demanding a $15 hourly wage.

In reaction, last fall St. Pete Mayor Kriseman announced after negotiating with the Florida Public Service Union that he would be raising the minimum wage for St. Petersburg city workers to $12.50 an hour, with the goal to raise the rate to $15.00 in a couple of years.

But there’s been little push for a similar wage increase in Tampa, something that City Councilman Mike Suarez acknowledged Monday night at a city council candidates forum that was sponsored by the Tampa Chapter of the NAACP, the Tampa Organization of Black Affairs, and the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.

“We haven’t really looked at that, to be honest with you,” Suarez said when asked by a panelist about raising the wages for city employees. “I have not looked into what a livable wage has been.”

(Update: Florida Politics communicated via email Tuesday morning with Cheryl Schroeder with the West Central Florida Federation of Labor. She told us that in speaking with an official with ATU 1464, which represents city employees, there does not appear to be a “large number” of employees who earn less than $12.50 an hour currently and none who are at minimum wage.

“With that being said,” she writes, “we would be supportive of an effort to raise wages to a minimum of say $12.50 per hour.  Requiring contractors on city-funded contracts to pay a livable wage versus minimum wage would help the city economically, especially if the contractors hire local.”)

Suarez was much more enthusiastic about encouraging apprenticeship programs for contractors doing city community redevelopment projects of more than $150,000 — something that he and the rest of the City Council voted to support last week. He said that such apprenticeships would lead to jobs that pay much higher than the minimum wage.

But he was asked again: What about raising city employees wages?

“I will tell you this,” Suarez said with deliberation. “One of the problems is that we cannot make policy without the administration’s’ agreement whenever we go forward,” he said, adding that he knows Buckhorn isn’t supportive of such a plan. He acknowledged, though, that nobody on the council has even proposed it. “But it’s something that we should.”

Susan Long, Suarez’ opponent in his run for re-election in the citywide District 1 race, called it “appalling” that any city doesn’t pay its workers a livable wage. Long said that she initially opposed the minimum wage being raised back in the 1990s, fearing that she wouldn’t be able to make her small business payroll. “You know what?” she told the audience that gathered at the Tampa Park Plaza. “I never had a problem making payroll.”

Later, District 3 candidates Yolie Capin and Paul Erni were asked about their thoughts about fast-food workers striking to form a union — not that they would ever vote on such an issue on the Council.

“They’re right to unionize if that’s what they so wish,” Erni said.

Capin didn’t answer the question directly. Instead she took a shot at Gov. Rick Scott, who appeared earlier in the day in Tampa touting record breaking statistics about tourism last year. Capin said the state was relying too heavily on tourism jobs.

Later, the red-light camera issue was brought up. The issue has been a flashpoint in cities and counties throughout Florida, and the program was shut down in St. Petersburg last year. But in Tampa? There hasn’t been that much of an outrage.

Charlie Miranda, running for the citywide District 2 race, mentioned how he had initially voted against the cameras when the issue came before City Council a few year ago, but not because he had anything against such cameras. His issue was that the money collected from such fines for red-light camera violators wasn’t going directly into improving those particular intersections. Last April a majority of City Council members agreed with him, and voted to kill the contract with camera supplier American Traffic Solutions.

That prompted Buckhorn to address those concerns, and the Council then reversed itself and voted to continue the cameras through 2016.

Miranda’s opponents were a bit more wishy-washy on the issue.

“On the one hand, they are saving some people from accidents,” candidate Joe Citro said. “On the other hand, studies show they are causing accidents.” He went on to say that they should remain at major intersections such as Dale Mabry and Henderson in South Tampa. “But let’s quit a few more. … there are good and there are bad,” he said.

The third candidate in the race, Julie Jenkins, said she would keep the cameras, but said that going into the future she would “definitely want to look at it even more.” She said that if the money collected from the fines was going back into the communities, “that was good.”

Otherwise? “I would definitely not go any further with red-light cameras.”

Last month the City Council approved a five-year contract with Taser International to purchase 60 body cameras for the Tampa Police Department, at a cost of $83,845.

District 3 candidate Erni said that price was too much money for too few cameras.

“There’s no way to codify that information,” he complained. “If we’re not going to do something correctly, let’s not do it.” He said he’d prefer to shift that money into some other program, mentioning the Parks and Recreation Department. “I’m for the cameras, but I’d sure like to do something better than 60 cameras for $80,000.”

Capin said she was still mulling over the issue. She said initially she thought it was a “great idea,” but said now she has more questions. “Where on the body is it going to go?” she said.

Responding to a question about economic development in Tampa, District 6 candidate Tommy Castellano said he saw a lot of “foreigners” operating grocery stores in some black areas of town. He said more black entrepreneurs were needed, which would come from education and job training.

The results of a straw poll taken among the audience members was announced at the end of the two-hour forum.

Suarez took home 67 percent of the votes in the District 1 race. Jenkins took District 2 with 51 percent of the vote. Capin took District 3 with 71 percent of the vote. Harry Cohen took 72 percent of the vote over Kent King (neither attended the event), and Jackie Toledo took the three-way District 6 contest with 45 percent of the vote.