La Gaceta Newspaper

From As We Heard It, by: Patrick Manteiga July 17, 2020

There are six candidates running for School Board District 3 to replace the retiring Cindy Stuart, who is running for Clerk of the Circuit Court.
All the candidates we interviewed should be thanked for running for public office. It’s not a fun process and people can be exceptionally mean. The whole group seemed to genuinely care for our students and teachers and wanted to improve the district.
Alexandra Gilmore has two children in public schools and has been a substitute teacher for three years. She tells us of failures in the district she witnessed as a substitute and knows the problems well.
Leo Haggerty has 32 years as a school district employee. He served on the teachers’ union bargaining team. He knows the system and wants to be holistic in serving students. Haggerty is also a man of great faith.
Rick Warrener is a retired CFO and controller and became interested in politics after helping his son run for State House. His focus and claim is that he understands the school district budget and wants to use the Board position to pressure the Legislature to increase school spending.
Jessica Vaughn was a classroom teacher who started substituting after her son was born. She feels her experience as an elected member of her CDD board will help her navigate the School Board and its budget. Vaughn would be a strong advocate for children with disabilities.
There are two candidates we feel stand above the others.
Jennifer Hill has over 17 years of IT and special education teaching experience. She is very focused and excited about technology. She is also preparing to open her own business.
We found Hill to be honest, humble and passionate. She seemed to be a good listener and has a calm and patient demeanor that would serve her well on the School Board. Her knowledge of technology and its use in teaching would be valuable as the district will continue to expand online learning.
Mitch Thrower also impresses us. He currently works for the Aviation Authority and is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Internal Auditor.
He has a lot of experience on public boards from the County Charter Review Board to the Hillsborough County Planning Commission, where he was elected chair six times. His leadership experience is needed on the School Board, as are his skills in understanding the budget.
With six candidates, this race will likely go to a runoff in November. La Gaceta co-endorses Jennifer Hill and Mitch Thrower for School Board District 3.

From As We Heard It, by: Patrick Manteiga July 10, 2020

The race for County Judge Group 7 has four candidates, Nancy Jacobs, Monique Scott, Rickey “Rick” Silverman, and Bill Yanger.
Nancy Jacobs has the most years as an attorney, with 35. She was a prosecutor for the state attorney’s office for close to 10 years and has been in private practice ever since. She focuses on criminal defense and family law. Jacobs is smart and experienced.
Rickey “Rick” Silverman came from humble beginnings and saw that college and a law degree would be his best way out. He joined the Bar in 1988 and worked in South Florida in general law practice and later in The Ticket Clinic. He moved to Tampa in 1995 and opened his own practice, specializing in traffic and criminal. He has 32 years of experience, with most of it in county court.
Silverman shows great compassion and would be a people’s judge in a people’s court.
Monique Scott started on the path to be a police officer and was sworn in with the Tampa Police Department, but she discovered she had epilepsy and had to end that career. She became a teacher in elementary and middle schools in Pasco County but had a passion for the law and started to attend Stetson Law School. She was admitted to the Bar in 2013 and joined the state attorney’s office. She has served in several divisions.
Scott volunteers in the community and works with children with epilepsy through the Epilepsy Services Foundation.
We really like Monique Scott. She is bright, involved and while young, she has life experience. She will make a great judge one day.
Bill Yanger has 34 years of experience, having joined the Texas Bar in 1986 and the Florida Bar in 1989. He has an AV Preeminent Rating by Martindale-Hubbell and has experience in workers compensation, criminal law, family law and Social Security disability. His focus has been on business litigation for the last 20 years.
In this field, Yanger stands out. He is knowledgeable, ethical and exhibits judicial temperament. He is a Tampa native who has grown as a candidate after having run and failed two years ago. The election process is humbling and makes a better judge.
La Gaceta endorses Bill Yanger for County Judge Group 7.

From As We Heard It, by: Patrick Manteiga July 10, 2020

In the Group 39 Circuit Judge race, incumbent Judge Scott Stephens is being challenged by Wendy DePaul.
The reason Judge Stephens has a challenger is last year he made it known he would leave the bench to pursue other opportunities. He then changed his mind to say he may be leaving the bench. Later, he said he was staying because other opportunities were no longer options. He told us he enjoys the job and would likely keep on until 65, but he told others during his campaign he might stay on another two years out of the six-year term before retiring.
Judge Stephens is smart, experienced and runs his court well, although he seems to have some critics among lawyers. He has also contributed much more than sitting in the court over his 19 years on the bench. He wrote a manual for judges on family law and helped bring technology to the courts. He conducts himself in a professional manner, which might come from his 23 years of on and off teaching at Stetson, USF and University of Tampa.
Being a judge is a public service, it’s not a job. If you’re not passionate about it, you should leave. It’s not where you suffer another year or two to pad your retirement account. It’s not to be used as something to do for those fearing retirement. To us, it’s clear Judge Stephens doesn’t have the passion and is already focused on retirement and finding something that excites him more.
Wendy DePaul is passionate about wanting to serve and has the credentials to make a good judge. She has 22 years of legal experience. She owns her own firm Cohen and DePaul, P.A. since 2004. Her experience spans family law, foreclosure defense, collection, bankruptcy, corporate, criminal defense and civil law.
Equal access to the justice system is important to her. That’s why she joined the Board of Directors of Bay Area Legal Services in 2013 and has volunteered since 2011. Her list of community service is long and a lot of her focus is on helping our four-legged friends.
DePaul has been the nicest candidate we’ve been around this season. She has a great judicial temperament, she’s smart, ethical, hardworking and she won our vote.
La Gaceta proudly endorses Wendy DePaul for Circuit Court Judge Group 39.

From As We Heard It, by: Patrick Manteiga July 3, 2020

Voters can’t go wrong in this race for Circuit Court Judge Group 9 between Kelly Ayers and John Schifino.
Schifino has been practicing for 25 years and is currently a trial and litigation attorney with Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart, P.A. He is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell and has been included in the Best Lawyers in America. Schifino is active in the Bar and was the president of the Hillsborough County Bar in 2019. He is also very involved in civic work and served as president of the board for PACE Center for Girls.
Schifino is a complete package – experienced, professional and involved. He would make a great judge.
Ayers, formerly Kelly Ayers Overfield, has one more year of experience than Schifino and her experience seems to be broader. She started her career at a big law firm, Fowler White, and soon opened her own private practice. She now owns three firms and handles county criminal, civil litigation, family law and private dependency.
Ayers has a friendly personality and would offer a courtroom where people could feel they had their side heard in court. She is smart and would be able to handle a busy docket.
It’s a hard choice. Schifino has a longer résumé of community service, but Ayers offers insight into part of her practice that we find interesting. One of her firms handles a lot of cases involving Hispanics. That practice has made her handle cases in Pasco, Polk and Hardee counties. She has a first-row seat in seeing how unfair law enforcement and the system can be to some of the poorest people in our community. That is experience and knowledge we would like to see sitting on the bench.
La Gaceta endorses Kelly Ayers for Circuit Judge Group 9.

From As We Heard It, by: Patrick Manteiga July 3, 2020

The race for Circuit Court Judge Group 31 is between three men – Scott Bonavita, Gary Dolgin and Greg Green. Dolgin and Green previously ran for judge.
Bonavita is new to the process. He has 18 years of legal experience and is a Florida Supreme Court Mediator. He has owned his own law practice since 2012 in the areas of commercial litigation, real estate, business law and employment law. He started his career as an assistant state attorney. He became a lawyer after an injury ended his professional soccer career.
Bonavita rails against the way people pursue judicial elections. He does not accept endorsements and doesn’t want large contributions from lawyers. He believes that it compromises judges to receive endorsements and contributions. He also thinks to win, candidates have to be political and connected. He paints the whole system as bad. But he did not offer specifics on how a political donation caused a judge to rule inappropriately or how being connected created an injustice in a courtroom.
A judge should be unbiased, follow the law and listen to evidence. Bonavita condemned all judges and lawyers who get involved in the election process and the system and offers no evidence. His approach is very biased. Also, his advocacy for a change in the process only began since he started to run against opponents who attract contributions from their peers and are connected because of previous runs.
Dolgin is on his third try for the bench. He’s been practicing for 30 years with most of that time in private practice in family law. Early in his career, he served as an assistant public defender and an assistant state attorney. He’s been selected to Super Lawyers for family law and is a Supreme Court Family Law Mediator. He is a proud Tampa native and involved in the community.
Dolgin is smart, experienced and offers a calm demeanor, all of which makes him very qualified to serve on the bench.
Green has practiced for 21 years. He has his own firm and like Dolgin, he specializes in family law. He started his career as an assistant state attorney and later practiced in the area of criminal defense. He also worked for the attorney general’s office in the Children’s Legal Services Department.
Green is involved in his community and coaches girls’ flag football at Robinson High School.
Green offers judicial temperament, experience and is hardworking. While Dolgin has more experience, we believe Green’s personality will better serve the public on the bench.
La Gaceta endorses Greg Green for Circuit Court Judge Group 31.

From As We Heard It, by: Patrick Manteiga June 26, 2020

Circuit Judge Michael Scionti is being challenged by Ashley Ivanov for his Group 19 seat, but we have no idea why.
Ivanov has been a Florida lawyer for only five years and has 10 years total as an attorney. She is a solo practitioner who reported $70,000 in income from her practice. If she won, she’d get a raise. We didn’t interview Ivanov. We didn’t have to. Everyone we’ve spoken with knows Judge Michael Scionti deserves to be reelected.
Before COVID-19, Judge Scionti’s vehicle was one of the first in the courthouse parking garage in the morning and one of the last to leave in the evening. He is hard working, dedicated and serious about his job. He is also uniquely qualified to be the only judge serving over the Veterans Treatment Court and has made it a national model.
He has 25 years of legal experience, served as a judge for five and a half years and served in the military for 20 years.
On the civilian side, he has been an assistant state attorney, assistant attorney general and a criminal defense attorney. He was elected state representative from West Tampa and later appointed by President Barack Obama as deputy assistant secretary of defense.
On the military side, he served in several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and was awarded the Bronze Star. He served as a military magistrate and military judge advocate. He currently holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and commands the 139th Legal Operations Detachment.
Scionti has earned respect and admiration from his peers at the courthouse. He has always had ours.
La Gaceta wholeheartedly endorses Judge Michael Scionti for Circuit Court Judge Group 19.