2022 Election – Board of County Commissioners District 5
This one is a no-brainer. I spoke with both candidates, and man, what a difference.
Mariella Smith, the Democratic incumbent had a clear understanding and command of the real issues facing Hillsborough County. She talked about the 250,000 cars per day that drive into Tampa caused by sprawl. Her solution is to encourage commercial development to coincide with where residential developments are being built. She pointed out there is a $13B deficit for transportation and 13 too few fire stations.
She recognizes the long-running issue of mismanaging growth and fought to finally get impact fees raised. She also has areas of interest related to a range of environmental issues.
“Dr.” Donna Cameron Cepeda, (she never doesn’t use that “Dr.” honorific…more on that) is her Republican Challenger is just a hot mess. Here website is a litany of MAGA issues that aren’t part of the portfolio for a county commissioner: Transgender Indoctrination, Protecting Borders, and Pro-life. The only thing on her website that fits the office she’s running for is “Fix our roads.” She finally returned my calls late Tuesday evening. I pointed out her website’s lack of addressing local issues, and all she did was apologize for that, but those are the things “important to her.” Well, OK then, but you can’t have an impact on those things from the dais at Commission meetings.
I tried to pin her down on specific policy proposals or ideas she might have, and I could get nothing. She’d try to apologize again for the lack of information on her website, and I’d remind her the reason for my call wasn’t to get her to fix her website but to tell me her specific proposals. Finally, I got, “well many people in the county have low water pressure.” Well, OK, so what are your plans to address that? She couldn’t provide any specifics. Then she asked if I’d talked to Ms. Smith (which I had) and wanted to know what we talked about. I explained I was more interested in hearing about her issues. That was the purpose of the call. She was clearly exasperated that I was pressing her for specifics, and I called her out once for sighing.
Her “unconstitutional mandates” were, of course, masks and closings. Never mind that her husband nearly died from COVID. I got the usual, “masks don’t work,” and “the quarantine was unconstitutional.” I pointed out that studies make it clear masks do reduce risk, and that the supreme court had ruled in the 1800s that states have the authority to mandate quarantines. She asked me to send her the information, which I’ve done with the promise that she’d me the list of examples of “transgender grooming” which are happening all over the place. I’ve sent her the links to my supporting studies; I’ve heard nothing back from her.
She introduced herself on the phone as “Dr.” Cepeda, and self-references almost exclusively that way. Her website says her Doctorate in Ministry is from LCU, and she’s an adjunct professor there. She never spells out the name of the school. As it turns out, good ole LCU is the unaccredited “Life Christian University” housed in the fairly small, River of Life Church at 413 East Chapman Road in Lutz. Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting a DMin, and I’m sure LCU is a fine training camp for conservative evangelical minister wannabes. But please don’t overplay the accomplishment. It’s a grift by the pastor at that church.
The pastor is a primary contributor to her campaign, and sadly, Capdevila’s and LaTerracita Restaurants made sizeable contributions to her.
As I said, this one is an easy one. I have no reason to think that Cepeda’s candidacy is anything more than an attempt to grab attention and advance some MAGA Christian Nationalist agenda, which Commissioner Smith has demonstrated her understanding of the issues important for a county commission to address, and can build a coalition to get things done. Keep Hillsborough County safe from an unhinged MAGA agenda, and vote for Mariella Smith.
