Candidates debate issues at Manatee Black Chamber forum

Six city and one state candidate for November’s elections attended a candidate forum hosted by the Manatee Black Chamber of Commerce Thursday night at Touch of Class on 14th Street West.

About 20 people attended the forum, not including the candidates, staff and members of the chamber. After receiving an initial ground rule not to “mud-sling or make personal attacks” on their opponents, the candidates remained mostly civil. The rule applied to opponents, however, not to Gov. Rick Scott, who Dan Fiorini, a Democrat candidate for District 70 called “Governor Skeletor” and attacked the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as the “Department of Don’t Expect Protection,” under Scott’s leadership.

Local candidates were asked to identify the three biggest challenges facing the city of Bradenton.

Ward 5 challenger Keenan Wooten fired some early shots at incumbent Harold Byrd Jr. citing the failures of the Minnie L. Rogers Plaza, which was never developed after a 2012 ground-breaking ceremony and long delays in redeveloping Love Apartments.

“I’m eager and have the energy to make Ward 5 issues everyone’s issue,” said Wooten.

Byrd fired back, noting the plaza was under the guidance of the Central Community Redevelopment Agency at the time, but as a councilman he continued to push the project forward. Now, as CRA chairman and councilman, Byrd said he is in talks with other stakeholders not brought to the table by the CCRA. He pledged to see the project through.

Ward 1 candidates Devon Davis and Tamara Goudy never addressed one another directly, focusing on questions from their perspective. Goudy said public safety is her top priority and noted Bradenton police and fire departments have not expanded for several years while the population those departments serve continue to grow.

Davis said the three pressing city issues are, “Change, change, change.” She said the city is being run by a “good old boy” system and stressed the need for term limits and unseating incumbent Gene Gallo, who Davis said has retained his seat for too long. Davis cited traffic and intelligent development with more mixed use components as her goals.

When asked about affordable housing, mayoral candidate Eleuterio Salazar Jr. said the issue affects everyone in the city.

“We have to have affordable housing for younger people, seniors, the homeless population and also those people still hurting from the housing crisis,” he said. “We also have to address the heroin crisis in Manatee County. If the city can have a One Stop Center that is helping the homeless, we should have some type of heroin rehabilitation center in the city as well.”

The candidates all agreed affordable housing is a top priority for the city, public safety is another issue to address and no one in city government should be beholden to developers.

Salazar called out Neal Communities in particular and Davis said, “I’m not anti-development. I’m anti the same developers getting rich off of taxpayer dollars.”

This story was originally published May 19, 2016 at 9:34 PM with the headline "Candidates debate issues at Manatee Black Chamber forum."