Ashley's Blog: Mark Sharpe

Mark Sharpe has been the district seven Hillsborough County Commissioner since 2004. Prior to that, in the 1990’s Republican candidate Sharpe ran three races for Congress but lost them all. Also before obtaining a seat in the Hillsborough County Commission he served eight years as an active duty officer in the United States Navy as well as twelve years in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He was also a development officer for a private school as a government relations consultant.

Mr. Sharpe is a native of the Tampa Bay area, although he did make a shot trip to the states capitol in Tallahassee to attend Florida State University where he got his bachelor’s degree in multinational business; but he did return. He continued his educational endeavor to get a masters degree in strategic studies at the University of South Florida. He was born on January 26, 1960. Sharpe is married to Stephanie Ann (formerly known as Stephanie Ann Jennings) Sharpe and they have three children. Mark and Stephanie were both previously married and divorced. They got married to each other on June 23, 1998 by Reverand Charles W. DeArmon. Stephanie was born on April 4, 1969.

Mark Sharpe currently resides in a single family house in Grey Gables at 113 South Glen Avenue in Tampa. The assessed value of his home is $226,543, the exempt amount is $50,000 and the taxable value is $176,543. Sharpe pays $3,958.63 in property taxes annually, but has not yet paid for this year. In 2001 the assessed value of the same house was only $86,371 and he only paid $1,549.23 in property taxes. He and his wife took out a mortgage for this property in June of 2002. They borrowed $210,000. Then on November 17, 2006 they modified their Washington Mutual Home Equity line of credit by increasing it by $75,000. In January of 2007 Sharpe used Dreby Construction Inc to add a pool house onto his home. their Washington Mutual Home Equity line of credit by increasing it by $75,000.

Sharpe is only one of seven County Commissioners for Hillsborough County. Four of them were selected from single member districts and three, including Sharpe were elected county wide, or at large. So what exactly does a county commissioner do? Well, the Board approves the county’s operating and capital budgets and the county’s capital improvement program. According to the Hillsborough County website, “Under a Charter Ordinance that went into effect May 1985, County Commissioners are directed to perform legislative functions of government by developing policy for the management of Hillsborough County.” But the Board also has other responsibilities; they also serve as the Environmental Protection Commission and individual members also serve on other boards. Sharpe is also a Board member of The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, is the Vice Chairman of Tampa Bay Water, sits on the Children’s Board, and is a Board member for the Metropolitan Planning Organization. Sharpe has two Commissioner Aides, Sandy Chan and Eric Larson. They work in the County Building at 601 East Kennedy Boulevard on the second floor and his office phone number is (813)272-5740.

Sharpe is an upstanding citizen as one would expect with this Naval background. He has never been arrested in Hillsborough County and his driving record is squeaky clean, not even a traffic citation.

According to a October Tampa Tribune article, when he was up for re-election in 2006, Sharpe said his top issues during a second term include transportation, economic development, and building a new emergency operations center shared by the city, county and other agencies. In the same article former commissioner Joe Chillura criticized Sharpe for behaving more like an administrator than a board member because he focused more on issues that were not as attention grabbing like other commissioners did. Others focused on issues like banning gay pride recognition or building sports parks while Sharpe overhauled the county’s health care plan while serving as chairman of a 2005 taskforce. Chillura also said “He needs to get involved in more issues that are exciting to the hearts and minds of the public.” But he also said that Sharpe has “the will and determination to slay giants, I’d like to see him get a little more passionate about the things he believes.”

In 2006, Sharpe began making regular visits to Hillsborough schools to meet with student and teachers, he even made an appearance at his Alma Mata, USF. He was quoted as saying he loves to teach and thinks he will “return to the classroom when he is done with politics.”

Sharpe can also be linked with the Rail chatter. He used to be a skeptic of mass transit but later realized the importance of mass transit’s role in sustaining a thriving economy. Sharpe partook in an interview with WMNF 88.5 FM Radio host Mitch Perry in April 2008 about his thought transformation when it came to light rails. Before he supported Rails he thought the solution was actually more toll roads. Perry said “Mark Sharpe’s conservative pro-rail message is a local breath of prominence that outdoes, dare I suggest it, the early work of Ed Turanchik [“he laid out ambitious plans for a city neighborhood; he famously failed with the Civitas project, which was intended to transform downtown's public housing projects through the "new urbanism.” –Creative Loafing] Just a few weeks ago, on November 16, 2008 Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio spoke about bringing better mass transit including rail to Tampa. While mass transit sounds like a lovely idea to many citizens of the Bay Area, it f course means more taxes, but Iorio is still hoping to see this measure on the ballot in 2010. This fight has been fought before but was shot down by the County Commission which need to approve putting any tax referendum on the ballot. This year, two years after Iorio’s first request, the Commission does have the votes to add the mass transit tax on the next ballot. Sharpe was among those supporting the idea and he even has a countdown to the referendum on his wall at his office. He was quoted in a St. Petersburg Times article as saying he came to believe a better mass transit system that includes rail would not only help people tired of paying high prices for gas, but also would boost efforts to transform the region from a low-wage service economy to a high-wage information economy.

Mark Sharpe is also a big supporter of Senator John McCain. In fact, when McCain held his National Security roundtable in Tampa in January 2008, Mark Sharpe was one of the participants. I guess we know who he voted for in the 2008 Presidential election! (http://www.viddler.com/explore/realvideo/videos/67/)

In all, republican Mark Sharpe seems to be a pretty good politician. He follows his own ideas of trying to do what is best for the people that he represents instead of just following party lines. He has kept his nose pretty clean for the only criticism I found of him was from Mr. Joe Chillura, the former county commissioner who thought Sharpe’s issues were not flamboyant enough. But the citizens of Hillsborough County approve of their District 7 County Commissioner as he has been re-elected twice.

http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/bocc/commissioners/sharpe.cfm

http://www.tbo.com/news/politics/MGB1KYXTATE.html

http://www.tamparail.org/comment.asp?entry=439

http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/mark-sharpe.asp?cycle=04

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/article512108.ece

http://www.viddler.com/explore/realvideo/videos/67/

http://www.implu.com/lobby_firm/4529

http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/article904947.ece

http://www.city-data.com/elec2/94/elec-TAMPA-FL-94-part2.html

http://www.hillstax.org/taxapp/property_information.asp?pmid=3816781

www.hillsboroughcounty.org/transtaskforce/resources/publications/agendas/minutes/2008/0408ecap.pdf

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/11/10/Hillsborough/County_to_refocus_hea.shtml