The four Democrats vying for the Florida House District 70 seat participated Wednesday in a virtual debate. It was hosted by the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club. District 70 is an open seat being vacated by Democrat Wengay Newton, who is stepping down after just two terms in office to run for a seat on the Pinellas County Commission.

The district encompasses parts of four counties in the southern part of the Tampa Bay area: Pinellas, Manatee, Hillsborough and Sarasota.

There are four Democrats seeking to replace Newton – civil rights attorney Michele Rayner, disabilities trainer Mark Oliver, attorney and writer Keisha Bell, and Michelle Grimsley, who served as Newton’s legislative assistant for the past four years and has received his endorsement.

Here are the candidates’ positions on five specific questions and issues raised during the forum.

1. What distinguishes you from your opponents?

Michele Rayner says she can work across the aisle.

“I’ve done it as a criminal defense attorney working with prosecutors, making sure that we can get things done.”

Mark Oliver believes he can be the best representative of the voiceless.

“The work I do with the special needs community, that’s a hard community to work with. And you’ve got to be a different person to work in there. You’ve got to be a voice for the voiceless.”

Michelle Grimsley supports school choice.

“I do totally believe in public education, but I am a pro-education choice candidate.”

Keisha Bell considers herself the most well-rounded candidate.

“I’ve gone into almost every public school in Pinellas County, delivering workshops on bullying and discrimination and just trying to make a safe learning environment for our youth.”

2. Did you support consolidating USFSP and USF-Sarasota with USF as one administrative unit?

Mark Oliver did not.

Michelle Grimsley did.

“Prior to having conversations regarding the consolidation with people from those various universities, I would have not supported it. But after having spoken to them, and understanding the resources that they’ve gained now, and having that knowledge, I would have supported the consolidation.”

Michele Rayner did not support the consolidation.

Keisha Bell didn’t either.

3. What should happen in the District 7 Pinellas School board race? 

(The seat has generally been represented by a black candidate, but former St. Petersburg City Councilman Karl Nurse has entered the race. That’s led to some concerns in the black community – and with some progressive whites – that it would lead to an all-white school board).

“I’m never going to tell anyone to step aside, but I think there’s value in having diversity – not just based on race but based on the lived experience that your intersection of possibly being a black male, black woman candidate may have on the school board. Especially if the school board doesn’t have that diversity,” Michele Rayner said.

“I don’t believe we have the right or the place to say someone shouldn’t run for office. It’s our right, and I commend anyone that steps up to do this. It’s not an easy thing to do. But I do value diversify within our school boards and local organizations, I think that it’s something that is super important,” Michelle Grimsley stated.

“I definitely don’t believe you should tell someone who meets the qualifications for being on the ballot that they should not be on the ballot,” Keisha Bell said.

She later added, “I do believe that the voters have to make the decision on it,” and that they need to have “tough conversations” about how important diversity is to them.

“Diversity matters. Anyone can run for office, and I applaud any single person who will run for office because it’s not easy...but diversity does matter,” Mark Oliver said.

4. On the concept of “defunding” or reallocating funding from the police to other agencies…

“We are reimaging our relationship with law enforcement – the community’s relationship with law enforcement and law enforcement’s relationship with the community,” Michele Rayner said.

“Instead of defunding the police, if we’re going to reallocate money, if we’re going to look at the budget, and we’re going to put money elsewhere, I’d like to see it go towards mental health. I am not for abolishing the police. We do need police officers,” Mark Oliver explained.

“To me it means reallocating funds in short to implement reforms on the budget to fund community alternative programs and adequate funding for our police officers and sheriff’s department,” Keisha Bell stated.

“I just believe that’s redirecting and reallocating funding to our minority communities and diversion programs and programs such as what [St. Pete Police] Chief [Anthony] Holloway has implemented with the social workers,” Michelle Grimsley said.

5) On Encouraging growth while maintaining the character of the community… 

“Gentrification is real, and I think what we’re going to have to do is really look at the people that are coming into our communities, specifically, and building and buying up our properties and incentivizing and relooking at how those incentives work,” Michelle Grimsley said.

“We’ve got to incentivize. We’ve got to have minorities and small businesses in on these developments. If they’re going to our community, and they’re going to want to build a billion- dollar development, we’ve got to be in on those contracts getting a percentage of that,” Mark Oliver said.

“Home ownership is key. I think that, yes, there are folks who simply don’t want to own a home, so we need to make sure that rent stays appropriate. We need to make sure that the housing authorities are able to provide vouchers…to be able to live there, but also making sure that when we are building homes, they are within reach of folks who are in District 70,” Michele Rayner stated.

“Gentrification is real,” said Keisha Bell. “I would definitely support more programs to educate and for more programs to be made available to low-income residents to purchase homes.”

Because no Republican has filed to run for the open seat, the August 18 contest is considered a universal primary, meaning every registered voter who resides in House District 70 – Republican, independent and Democrat – can vote in the election.