Commissioner Murman mentioned in this Tampa Bay Times article on Kent King running for City Council:
Kent King files to run for Tampa City Council District 4
Richard Danielson, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 7, 2014 1:23pm
South Tampa businessman Kent King has filed to run next March for the Tampa City Council seat now held by first-term council member Harry Cohen.
King, 51, grew up in Tampa and has lived most of his adult life in South Tampa, which is covered by District 4. He works as business development manager for the Tampa Atlantic division of Southern Wine & Spirits of Florida.
A first-time candidate, King said he’s running “because I believe that the citizens and neighborhoods of District 4 deserve the most effective representation possible.”
“With 28 years of business, management and problem-solving experience, I will fight for the citizens and neighborhoods of District 4 to get the best return on their taxes and ensure needed infrastructure and services are delivered to them by the city,” he said in an announcement of his candidacy.
A big issue for King is what he describes as South Tampa’s “overloaded and antiquated stormwater system,” which he said has allowed silt to build up and plug residential canals in South Tampa.
In 2012, King helped pay for a study analyzing the economic impact of expanding Tampa’s program of dredging canals in Sunset Park. (The city is in the midst of a long-sought project to dredge some or all of 10 residential canals along West Shore between Kennedy and Gandy boulevards. The $2.8 million project is aimed at improving water quality, tidal flushing and the habitat for marine life, but it is not dredging every canal in the area nor is it cleaning out all of every canal being dredged.)
The study, by Urban Economics Inc., found 347 homes on a total of 14 canals that were so silted they can’t be navigated. Compared with similar homes on navigable canals, those homes sell for $254,293 less, the study found. Dredging those canals, it estimated, would raise home values by $88.2 million, generating nearly $506,000 more in annual city property taxes.
King has been lobbying Mayor Bob Buckhorn and other top city officials for an expanded dredging program. As a council member, he said he would work to focus more attention and money on the problem.
“After six years of fighting on an issue, it’s become clear that the process of prioritizing capital improvements and addressing needs is skewed,” he said Wednesday.
For his part, Cohen said he has worked “very hard to convince the administration” to start the canal dredging project in West Shore and noted that, after decades of petitions and frustration by the neighborhood, the work began during his term of office.
“I feel that I’ve really delivered on the canal issue,” Cohen said. He said he is working with Hillsborough County Commissioner Sandra Murman on the idea of developing a countywide program that could address the need for dredging not only in Tampa but in areas like Town ‘N Country.
The problem, he said, “exists all over the county and the city.”
Cohen, 44, is a lawyer and former chief deputy clerk of the circuit court for Hillsborough County. He works for the clerk’s office part-time on a wide-ranging project to update the agency’s information technology. On the City Council, he is vice chairman, chairs the finance committee and represents the council on the Metropolitan Planning Organization and the board of the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts.
“I’ve always expected to run (for re-election) and I’ve always expected to be opposed,” Cohen said. “At some point soon, I’ll forrmalize that and proceed.”
