State House Races
On September 16th at noon at the Ferguson Law Center, Tampa Tiger Bay Club welcomes in candidates for Florida House Districts 59, 60 and 63! This program will be recorded and ultimately aired on the Tampa Bay Arts and Education Network! You can RSVP for this exciting event here! Don’t be a spectator, be a Tiger!
Every single Florida House seat is up for election in 2016. We invited candidates from these races because each is a Tampa Bay-area seat and each should be competitive. Get informed before you vote!
District 59
Ross Spano
Ross Spano (R) is the incumbent and has declined our invitation citing a scheduling conflict. He is the owner of small law firm, Spano & Woody in Riverview. He is the husband to Amie and father to their four kids, Callie, Vincent, Caleb and Isaiah. Additionally, he is a member Bell Shoals Baptist Church and active member of the Riverview and Brandon Chambers of Commerce.
In the House, he is the Chairman of the Florida Human Trafficking Working Group and focused on family and small business issues. He is also a member of the following legislative committees: Judiciary Committee, Select Committee on Health Care Workforce Innovation, Health Quality Subcommittee, Higher Education and Workforce Subcommittee, Choice & Innovation Subcommittee, and Civil Justice Subcommittee. From http://rossspano.com/about/
Rena Frazier
Rena Frazier (D) is an attorney, mother of four, and Florida native. Born and raised in the Hillsborough County, she and her husband, Anddrikk, Rena Frazier moved to Brandon ten years ago to raise their family. She serves as a partner at Quarles & Brady, LLP with a focus on real estate litigation. They are the proud parents of four children, ages 2, 7, 12 and 19. Their oldest daughter is a cadet in the United States Air Force Academy.
Rena earned her B.S. in Civil/Environmental Engineering with honors from the University of South Florida before earning her J.D. at Stetson University College of Law. She is a past member of the Board of Trustees of Brandon Regional Hospital, and currently serves on the Board of the University Area Community Development Corporation (UACDC). From http://www.renaforflorida.com/bio
District 60
David Singer
David Singer (D) is a Tampa attorney who co-founded Singer & O’Donniley, P.A., a law firm specializing in the areas of land use, zoning and local government. Singer frequently advises new businesses and start-ups on how to develop, grow and expand.
Singer serves on the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, the board for Seminole Heights Charter School and the Real Estate Committee of the Tampa Community Development Corporation. He was an executive board member for the North Central Florida Make-A-Wish Foundation for several years. He also advised the pro-transit advocacy group Moving Hillsborough Forward in coordinating the business community, political leadership and citizens in a cooperative effort to bring a comprehensive, modern transit system to Hillsborough County.
As an attorney, Singer was named a Rising Star in Florida Super Lawyers magazine five times in the past five years. The Tampa Bay Business Journal added him to their Up and Comer list in 2011 and was placed in the Land Use and Zoning Law edition of the Best Lawyers in America guide in 2013. His AV Preeminent ranking is the highest ranking given to a lawyer by his peers. From http://www.votedavidsinger.com/about/
Jackie Toledo
Jackie Toledo (R) has declined our invitation citing a scheduling conflict. She graduated from Gaither High School and was awarded an academic engineering scholarship at the University of South Florida from the Latino Scholarship program.
In 2000, Toledo received her degree in Civil Engineering from USF. Toledo became a Licensed Professional Engineer and worked on several transportation plans in the Tampa Bay area, including master plans for the University of South Florida and Hillsborough Community College, as well as Hillsborough County’s Long Range Transportation Plan, the Florida Aviation Systems, and the 2012 Olympic bid process.
Recognized professionally as a Professional Traffic Operations Engineer (PTOE) and the recipient of the 2002 Florida State Institute of Transportation Engineer of the Year, Toledo has made great strides in her field and has a unique perspective on solving Tampa’s infrastructure and transportation challenges.
From http://www.jackietoledo.com/welcome
District 63
Shawn Harrison
Shawn Harrison (R) is the founder of the Tampa firm Shawn Harrison Associates where he practices in the area of commercial litigation, health care law, and government relations. Shawn is also a small business owner, founding Medical Collection Group, LLC in 2002, a background and asset screening firm serving the long term care industry.
In 2007 he was appointed by Governor Charlie Crist to the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority, where he served until his election in November 2010 to the Florida House of Representatives. He was reelected to the Florida House in 2014 where he currently serves. Shawn sponsored The Fallen Heroes Family Tax Relief Act (HB 93, 2012) which was successfully adopted into the Florida Constitution by statewide referendum in 2012 as Amendment 9.
Harrison is married to Susan (formerly Gall) Harrison of Panama City, Florida, an Attorney and Chief Operating Officer of Medical Collection Group, LLC. The Harrisons live in New Tampa with their two children. From http://www.shawnharrison.com/bio.cfm
Lisa Montelione
Lisa Montelione (D) began a career in banking. She eventually returned to school, graduating from USF with a degree in Interdisciplinary Social Science, concentrating in Social Work and Urban Policy. Montelione took a job with Hillsborough County as an intake planner assisting citizens with questions about how to improve their property, which they worked so hard to acquire. From there, she was offered a job in the private sector working for a small local home builder.
From there she found her way into politics, volunteering with a few campaigns and on get out the vote efforts. When the opportunity came to run for a seat on the Tampa City Council, she did so. Despite campaigning for just 45 days, Lisa defeated the incumbent in the first round of voting and won in the runoff election a few weeks later.
Montelione serves on several Hillsborough Countywide agencies as part of her duties as a Tampa City Council member. Her responsibilities include service on the Tampa/Hillsborough Metropolitan Planning Organization (as Chair of the Policy Committee and Chair of the Livable Roadways Committee), member of the Hillsborough/Pasco/Pinellas Transportation Management Area Leadership Group, and as Chair of the Interlocal River Board and member the Affordable Housing Advisory Board. She also volunteers as a board member of both the Ybor Youth Clinic and Northside Behavioral Health.
Montelione lives in Tampa with her partner of 14 years, small local construction company owner Josh Geary. From http://www.lisaforflorida.com/bio-1/
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