Clearwater Democrat Tim Hughes is challenging Republican incumbent commissioner Brian Scott with a campaign focused on flooding, transit and tighter controls on growth.
Hughes spent two decades working on stormwater systems and watersheds in Northern Virginia, and he believes Pinellas County is behind on some of the same work he was doing there 15 years ago.
Hughes is challenging Scott for the countywide District 2 seat in the Nov. 3 election. The race puts a first-term incumbent and transportation business owner against a political newcomer whose résumé is largely in environmental management.
Hughes retired in December 2023 after 20 years with the Prince William County Public Works Department’s Environmental Management Division. His work included inspecting and maintaining stormwater facilities, conducting stream assessments, writing watershed studies and managing county-owned land along waterways and floodplains. Before entering government, Hughes worked in the environmental field in the private sector.
His application to serve on Clearwater’s environmental advisory board also lists work managing volunteer reforestation and Adopt-A-Waterway programs. Hughes served as project engineer for an in-stream trash collection project at the headwaters of a Potomac River estuary that received a statewide environmental award in 2022.
He has since become chairman of the Suncoast Sierra Club’s conservation committee, and was appointed this year to Clearwater’s Community Resiliency and Leisure Services Advisory Board. City records show his term began Jan. 15.
“I’ve been battling urban sprawl issues in the Chesapeake watershed,” Hughes said. “I know the organizational structures of government.”
But his move to Pinellas had more aesthetic motivations: “I fell in love with my first sunset here on the beach in Clearwater,” Hughes said. “With my wife.”
The place he fell in love with is also driving much of his campaign. Hughes wants Pinellas and its municipalities to develop a more complete Geographic Information System (GIS) inventory of stormwater infrastructure. He argues that gaps in mapping make it harder to identify drainage problems, coordinate maintenance and determine where failures could contribute to localized flooding (something he notes Virginia has already capitalized on, and he hopes to emulate in Pinellas).
“I think those gaps contribute to unexpected, localized flooding,” Hughes said. “Virginia, where I originate, has been using that system for 15 years, and Pinellas is about 10 years behind.”
He wants the county to bring municipalities into the same effort rather than treating drainage systems as isolated networks. “Having an advanced GIS system will supercharge our inspection and maintenance projects countywide,” Hughes added.
That proposal closely tracks the work he did in Prince William County, where his responsibilities included stormwater inspections and watershed studies. Hughes describes the approach with his favorite government acronym: SMART, for “specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely.”
Transit provides a sharper contrast with Scott. Scott is president of Escot Bus Lines and serves on the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) board. PSTA has spent the past several years redesigning its bus network, including removing some stops, replacing routes and reducing frequency on certain lines in an effort to concentrate resources where ridership is higher.
Hughes argues that applying an efficiency test too aggressively misses the purpose of public transportation.
“Scott reduced the PSTA bus routes, bus stops for efficiency. He’s made it lesser for ridership. I’m for the working families and workforce labor and the elderly that rely on bus stops near where they live.
“The unintended consequences of Scott adopting his private practices and overlaying them in public transit is not working,” he continued.
Hughes’ criticism comes after PSTA considered a series of service cuts this summer. The board voted Aug. 26 to eliminate the low-ridership Safety Harbor Snapper service but kept Routes 16 and 58. It also postponed a decision on Route 90, which connects south St. Petersburg with St. Pete Beach and is used by hotel and restaurant workers, after PSTA staff recommended eliminating it because of low ridership. Staff will continue tracking Route 90 through the end of the year before returning with a recommendation.
Hughes is also proposing a two-year moratorium on new artificial intelligence data centers in Pinellas while the county studies their potential demand for electricity and water.
According to his campaign website, he’s calling for studying noise, heat, water consumption, power demand and infrastructure costs before approving new facilities. Hughes said developers could also be required to use onsite solar and other technologies to reduce pressure on utilities.
Paying for his other priorities, including affordable housing and infrastructure, would require help from Tallahassee. Hughes wants lawmakers to loosen restrictions on tourist development tax revenue so counties could direct more of it toward public works.
Hughes faces a significant financial gap against Scott, but is confident in his platoform to bridge the distance: “We can win by doing a better job of protecting our vulnerable peninsula,” he said.