Tampa City Councilman Frank Reddick is lying low regarding current dispute with Bob Buckhorn

In the recent imbroglio between Mayor Bob Buckhorn and the Tampa City Council regarding who has the power to name the members of a police civilian review board, no one has been more outspoken in challenging the mayor than Council Chair Frank Reddick.

“It reminds me that we’ve been a puppet for the administration and I’m past the days of being a puppet,” Reddick said at last week’s meeting. “I’m tired that we’ve been embarrassed, overlooked, overshadowed. It’s disrespectful.”

The harsh dialogue between the two men transcends the current debate, however. In June, the Council debated hiring procedures for City Council aides. The incident that brought the issue to the forefront involved Lorena Hardwick, Councilman Mike Suarez’s legislative aide. Last year, Hardwick had asked to have her hours reduced to part-time so she could work on the campaign of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist.

The request was ultimately nixed by an outside attorney, prompting all types of speculation at City Hall about what led to such an action.

Reddick told his colleagues at a meeting that they should stop dancing around the issue.

“Let’s be real here — the mayor did not support Charlie Crist. Everybody knows that,” Reddick said. “And that decision was made based on his political position … those in the political arena know that. He made it known that he wasn’t supporting Charlie Crist …. and for a city employee, a city administrator, someone who invested that many years with the city, and that person is denied that investment by a few months. What kind of city is this?” he asked.

The mayor blasted Reddick’s comments, saying that, “If that wasn’t so pathetically juvenile it would be funny. I would have expected more coming out of someone who claims to be chairman of the Council. It’s absolutely absurd.”

The enmity actually goes back to 2012, when Buckhorn’s proposed rules for protesters at the Republican National Convention irked Reddick, who objected to the size of the mayor’s so-called “clean zone” that ranged several miles from the downtown site of the RNC. Reddick also was upset that he hadn’t been included in negotiations with city staff regarding the ordinance.

Buckhorn responded that Reddick’s comment was “so patently false that it’s pathetic.”

Earlier in 2012, Reddick took exception to Buckhorn citing Martin Luther King jr. in his State of the City address.  “It was surprising to me that he brought up MLK in his speech, when if you ask the average African American what has he contributed as a mayor of this city to improve the African-American community, it would be almost nothing,” he told this reporter on WMNF radio. Again, Buckhorn disputed the statement.

So it’s noteworthy now that in the wake of Buckhorn’s comments on Tuesday regarding who has the power to nominate members of the proposed civilian review board, Reddick is lying low — at least for now.

“For some, the Charter’s an inconvenience, and I’m sorry about that, but that’s the law, that’s the governing document that rules how this government works, ” Buckhorn said on Tuesday when discussing why only the mayor in Tampa has the authority to name members to an agency like a civilian review board. “I can’t change this. That’s not about me, that’s about the structure of the government. If they want to run a government, then run for mayor. I mean it’s that simple. Otherwise, Council has its authority. I don’t intervene in their stuff, and so I would be hopeful that they would respect that Charter.”

“I don’t have no comment about the mayor,” Reddick told this reporter, who confronted him after the Hillsborough County Public Transportation meeting came to a conclusion, a board that Reddick is a member of. “I think I’ll wait til the 24^th to make my comments. I’ll have plenty to say then.”

September 24 is when the Council is scheduled to resume discussions about the civilian review board. Specifically they are scheduled to hear from City Attorney Julia Mandell about hiring an outside attorney to review whether or not she has a conflict of interest in ruling that only the mayor under the city charter can name the civilian review board members.

When asked what he thought about the mayor’s vow he wouldn’t be permitting a board of appointees “from the Black Panther Party or any of these other fringe groups that want to do nothing but tear down our community,” Reddick smiled. “I read those comments,” he said. “Big Brother says some weird things at times,” he said, laughing.