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By LAURA KINSLER
The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - Charles Perkins, who finished third in last week’s District 7 city council race, has endorsed Joseph Caetano for the runoff.
Caetano placed first in the close three-way race March 6. Real estate agent Frank Margarella placed second, 90 votes ahead of Perkins.
Perkins met with both candidates last week. His endorsement came at a price. Perkins demanded that the candidate donate his $40,000-a-year council salary to crime watch groups in north Tampa.
“I said they needed to make a sacrifice,” he said.
Caetano and Margarella face each other in a runoff for the District 7 seat March 27. In the March 6 election, Caetano won all of the Tampa Palms precincts. Margarella took Hunter’s Green. The two were virtually split in the rest of New Tampa.
Forest Hills resident Perkins won all of the precincts outside of New Tampa and garnered 29 percent of the total vote.
“I won everything south of Fowler,” Perkins said. “The big issue in those neighborhoods is crime.”
He ran an unconventional campaign, avoiding the media and refusing to participate in any candidate forums. Instead, Perkins said he walked the blue-collar neighborhoods of north Tampa every day for two months, knocking on doors and talking about crime. He spoke to crime watch groups and told them the rich people of New Tampa didn’t care about their neighborhood.
Perkins, who owns a media production company, raised no money because he didn’t want to be “corrupted” and he promised to donate his council salary to the police department.
“Nobody’s ever done something like this,” Perkins said.
Caetano owns three New Tampa businesses and several rental properties. He is 73 and has a net worth of $1.6 million.
Margarella, a commercial real estate agent, makes about $60,000 and has a net worth of $114,500, according to his public disclosure. He told the Tribune that financial troubles led him to refinance his Hunter’s Green house five times in the past seven years.
Reporter Laura Kinsler can be reached at (813) 865-4844 or lkinsler@tampatrib.com.
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