It was someone fitting that on her last daytime meeting serving on the Tampa City Council, Mary Mulhern chaired a workshop discussion on the update of the city’s comprehensive plan regarding climate change and raising sea levels. The environment has always been a central concern for Mulhern, who is leaving the Council after eight years next week due to term limits.
“I know that some of you and I have had our disagreements and we’ve always been collegial and I appreciate that,” Mulhern told her colleagues at the beginning of the meeting, after being given an commendation for her service for the city.”It’s not an easy job, but it’s been an incredible learning experience for me and it’s been an honor to…get to know people from all over the city.”
As we reported on last week at a party celebrating her eight years on the council, Mulhern leaves as the unquestionably most liberal voice on the seven-member board, a lawmaker who was frequently on the losing end of issues in which she opposed the Iorio and Buckhorn administrations.
For the first three and a half years of her eight year tenure, she was often joined by fellow Democrats Linda Saul-Sena and John Dingfelder on those issues, such as opposing a 25-year franchise agreement between the city and Tampa Electric Company. Despite the fact that the public supported at least delaying that pact, the Council adhered to Iorio’s wishes on a disputed 4-3 vote in 2008.
She was never a slick politician, but more of a citizen activist who constantly questioned the way things were run at City Hall. Early on in her first on the board in 2007, she questioned then City Attorney David Smith. As the Tampa Bay Times reported on at the time, “When Smith implied that Mulhern might not fully understand the issue, she responded: ‘I’m not a real estate lawyer, a land-use lawyer, but I have a pretty good b—s— detector.'”
But today she was magnanimous about Mayors Iorio and Buckhorn, both of whom she never backed down from in public, a notable departure from her colleagues who always seemed to value collegiality above all else. “Thank you to both mayors for teaching me a lot,” she said, laughing slightly at the irony of how that sounded.
All of the members of Council present at today’s meeting had at least a few words to say about her – all except Council Chair Charlie Miranda. Mulhern endorsed one of Miranda’s opponents in the March 3 primary election in his bid for the Council District 2 race, Julie Jenkins.
“As a colleague, I enjoyed serving with you,” said Frank Reddick, who presented the commendation to her. “I wish you the best.”
Councilwoman Lisa Montelione acknowledged that the two occasionally had their moments of disagreement on the board. When Mulhern briefly was a candidate for County Commission a year and a half ago, Montelione endorsed her then challenger, April Griffin (Neither Griffin nor Mulhern ultimately ran for the seat).
But the New Tampa representative said it was at an event at Sweet Water Organics in 2010 where Mulhern actually inspired Montelione to run for City Council, something apparently she had never mentioned before.
“You had talked to me about the passion that you had for serving here on City Council and how you hoped that other people would step up and serve on the Council, and in a large part that’s what made me run,” Montelione said, adding, “You may (have) regretted that at some point during some meetings,” she said while smiling.
“It’s been an adventure,” Yolie Capin said.
Councilman Mike Suarez remarked on how Mulhern, recently seemed surprised that Suarez knew of Banksy, the anonymous, British-born graffiti and political artist. “You of course, being an expert in art and being an artist yourself, heard that somebody as crass and as uninformed in art as I was actually who knew who Banksy was, and it made me laugh.”
He also acknowledged that while the board generally gets along well, “Yes, sometimes nerves fray, but at the same time, we all come back together,” he said.
But Mulhern won’t be coming back next week. On Wednesday, April 1, the new board gets sworn into office, with Guido Maniscalco essentially replacing Mulhern, as the six current board members will go at it for (at least) four more years.
