By Wayne Garcia
Published 01.03.2007
http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=170397

What a difference four years makes.

In 2003, John Dingfelder raised a total of $40,171 in his successful bid to win a seat on the Tampa City Council.

Today, powering up for a re-election bid in March, Dingfelder has already raised more than $80,000, he says.

One of the opponents in his South Tampa district, novice politician and former assistant city attorney Julie Brown, likewise says she will report more than $80,000 in contributions when campaign reports come out next week. Both Brown and Dingfelder expect to top $125,000-$150,000 in fundraising.

These are prodigious amounts for a municipal race in Tampa Bay. Come the March 6 elections, Dingfelder and Brown won't be alone in having raised substantially more money than city candidates did four years ago.

Take Shawn Harrison. The two-term city councilman represents a north Tampa/New Tampa district, and in 2003, he raised a total of $44,000. This year, running for a citywide district because of term limits, his January report will show more than $125,000 in hand, and he expects to top $200,000.

With record fundraising, can negative mailers and radio advertisements be far behind?

Dingfelder and Brown right now are steering clear of attacks. (There is a third candidate filed in that district, hair stylist and code enforcement board member Joseph Citro.)

They have some strong similarities, including stints in government attorney's offices and work as real estate lawyers.

Dingfelder has emerged as a leading voice on the council, with a pro-neighborhood and historic preservation bent. His campaign benefits from the expertise of his wife, Lynn Marvin, who has put her Democratic political consulting business on hold while Dingfelder serves in the nonpartisan office.

Dingfelder, 49, made headlines when he was out in front of a revolt-of-sorts against Mayor Pam Iorio. When the mayor responded to the council's call for a reduction in property tax with a suggestion to cut grants to nonprofits, he successfully led what one newspaper called a "rebellion" against those cuts.

Dingfelder plays down any dramatic reading of his move as anti-Iorio. "I think it's been overplayed," he says. But "on that tax issue, I really thought it was my job to listen to the constituents. And they said 'Why don't you give us some relief?' This Council said, 'You know what, we can lower the [tax rate] and no one is going to get hurt.'"

Dingfelder has been omnipresent at South Tampa civic and neighborhood events, including appearing on a congratulatory TV commercial during the telecast of Plant High School's state championship football game. Brown acknowledges that the appearance garnered Dingfelder high name recognition. And she downplays differences with him, initially, as I question her about her platform. "My backyard is South Tampa; why would I run in any other district?" she asks. "I have a lot of great ideas for South Tampa."

Her candidacy has puzzled Dingfelder, who believed her to be a friend from her days at City Hall. But Brown, 31, says they weren't friends, and that she believes she'll be a stronger neighborhood advocate and an effective champion of "more sustainable growth." When pushed for differences between herself and Dingfelder, she comes up with two: First, she would have voted in favor of allowing cigar factory owners to opt out of city historic preservation standards (Dingfelder voted against that); and she claims that Dingfelder flip-flopped on a vote in her neighborhood, saying he would oppose a parking garage for a hotel next to Bern's Steak House and then voting for it. (Dingfelder says he never tells anyone how he will or won't vote, and that Brown mistakes his initial disappointment with project details and subsequent work to improve its design for a promise to vote against it.)

Brown, who is married to a developer putting together an environmentally friendly "greenbuilding" project at the corner of Howard Avenue and Platt Street, has hired Republican political consultants April Schiff and Ann Voss to guide her first campaign.