{"id":8475,"date":"2025-10-17T16:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T16:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/8475\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T16:32:09","slug":"tampa-city-council-district-5-runoff-candidates-make-one-last-pitch-in-on-air-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/8475\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa City Council District 5 runoff candidates make one last pitch in on-air debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1183\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Thomas-Young-Naya-Young-Photo-by-Ray-Roa-scaled.jpg\" class=\"attachment-247233 size-247233 wp-post-image\" alt=\"A portrait of Thomas Young and Naya Young standing together in a broadcast or office setting. Thomas Young wears a light blue shirt and a navy tie, and Naya Young wears a white top and a bright orange blazer. They are both smiling brightly at the camera.\" large=\"\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThomas Scott (L) and Naya Young at WMNF in Tampa, Florida on Oct. 17, 2025.  \/\/ Photo by Ray Roa<\/p>\n<p>With less than a week to the kickoff of early voting, Thomas Scott and Naya Young were back at WMNF 88.5-FM Friday morning to talk to voters who\u2019ll cast a ballot in the special election for Tampa City Council. District 5 seat.<\/p>\n<p>Scott and Young have qualified for the runoff election after being part of a field that included more than a dozen candidates.<\/p>\n<p>In the first half of a special two-hour collaboration between WMNF programs Down N Dirty and The Skinny, the candidates came on the air to discuss their views on Tampa\u2019s community redevelopment associations, gentrification, federal overreach, and the role council plays in the city\u2019s strong mayor form of government.<\/p>\n<p>Scott and Young also responded to questions about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cltampa.com\/news\/tampa-city-council-district-5-special-election-donation-finance-analysis-thomas-scott-naya-young\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">campaign contributions<\/a>, which show that Scott has been heavily favored by developers while Young gets support from educators.<\/p>\n<p>In the second half of the show, hosts John Dingfelder, Mitch Perry and Ray Roa were joined this panel to discuss what they heard in the debate and other citywide issues including zoning, impact fees, political violence and more.<\/p>\n<p>Robin Lockett, Regional Director Florida Rising<br \/>\nStephanie Poynor, President, Tampa Homeowners Association of Neighborhoods<br \/>\nTaryn Sabia, Urban designer, Assistant Dean for Research in the College of Design, Art &amp; Performance at the University of South Florida<br \/>\nValerie Smith, Editor-In-Chief Sapphic Sun\/Contributor Creative Loafing Tampa Bay<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the debate by visiting the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmnf.org\/events\/down-n-dirty\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Down N Dirty<\/a> page on WMNF and hear the roundtable discussion via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmnf.org\/events\/the-skinny\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Skinny<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-247234\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Stephanie-Poynor-Valerie-Smith-Robin-Lockett-Taryn-Sabia-300x139.jpg\" alt=\"A group portrait of four smiling people\u2014Stephanie Poynor, Valerie Smith, Robin Lockett, and Taryn Sabia\u2014standing in front of a dark backdrop decorated with the rainbow-colored sunburst logo of WMNF 88.5 FM.\" width=\"300\" height=\"139\"  \/>(L-R) Stephanie Poynor, Valerie Smith, Robin Lockett and Taryn Sabia at WMNF in Tampa, Florida on Oct. 17, 2025. \/\/ Photo by Ray Roa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Scott (L) and Naya Young at WMNF in Tampa, Florida on Oct. 17, 2025. \/\/ Photo by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[609,8695,8696,135,8697,137,136,8698,8699,611,8700],"class_list":["post-8475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-naya-young","tag-robin-lockett","tag-stephanie-poynor","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-city-council-district-5","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tampa-politics","tag-taryn-sabia","tag-thomas-scott","tag-valerie-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}