Donna Lee Fore
Hillsborough County native Donna Fore knew she was a shoo-in to be the Democratic candidate for the District 4 County Commission seat because she would be running unopposed in the primary.
The seat, which represents most of the geographical area covered by this newspaper, was being vacated by Al Higginbotham, who was first elected in 2006 and has consecutively served all the time allowed to occupy a Commission seat.
After beginning her campaign for Commissioner, Fore said the concerns she heard from residents were things that can’t be corrected at county level. So on Tuesday, May 27, Fore dropped out of the Commission race and announced she would be running for the state House of Representatives, District 59.
Born and raised in the Seminole Heights area of Tampa and a resident of Riverview for the last 13 years, Fore said “There are things that have to be voted on the state level that need to be done.”
Her main concerns are making a better climate for small business, public transportation and children’s issues.
“There are incentives in place to attract large businesses, like Amazon going in Ruskin now, and the new St. Joseph’s [Hospital],” she said. “These are good incentives. But now we need to do something for small businesses. They’re the backbone of our society.”
Fore has experience with both small business and community leadership and is running on a platform that says she is one of the “common” people, not someone groomed from childhood because of political connections.
She and her husband Pat own and run PF Auto Glass Inc. in Riverview. They have a blended family of five children and 10 grandchildren.
“I do the marketing, sales and clerical work, and Pat does the installations,” she said. “It’s a family business and I understand the problems small businesses are facing today.”
As for leadership, her experience comes not only from business but from being a past president of the Greater Riverview Chamber of Commerce and co-founder of the Riverview Woman’s Club. Under her leadership, the club formed a Foundation that awards scholarships to worthy area high schoolers who want to attend college.
“We have got to give small businesses growth incentives and help all our children,” she said. “I don’t know how many students face problems furthering their education, but there are many, for different reasons.”
Fore recently met with representatives of Fast for Families, a group of migrant workers who go from city to city and hold hunger strikes all over the United States on the steps of state capitols.
“They want to call attention to the fact that they’re human beings, too, like everybody else,” she said.
She said that although our public education system pays for migrant children to go to public schools when they move, often their documentation paperwork does not allow for college.
“I sat next to a boy who could have been the next Einstein,” she said. “It tears my heart out. I wish I had gotten his name. His documentation wasn’t done and he can’t attend college even though he is brilliant. Who knows how many others there are just like him?”
Besides small business and children’s futures, another of her concerns is mass public transportation.
“I was 12 and 13 years old, going everywhere I had to go by bus,” she said. “That was in Tampa. We can’t do that here. There are many places in the area that have no bus service at all, and others where there is just not enough,” she said.
She envisions transportation that can be counted on to get people to their jobs and other necessary destinations locally, and also transportation between cities and far-reaching areas. She said “It’s impossible to get to places like Lutz or Wesley Chapel if you don’t go by car.”
To find out more about Donna visit http://donnaleefore.com.
