He’s got the clout, but not the punchy title

April 22, 2013

 
 
Richard Danielson | Tampa Bay Times
 
As the top elected official in a strong-mayor form of government, Tampa’s Bob Buckhorn wields a lot of local authority, but he doesn’t have a job title with the linguistic vigor that he encountered on a trip to Germany last week.
 
In Munich, Tampa officials said, Buckhorn’s mayoral counterpart is known as the “über Oberbürgermeister,” or lord mayor.
 
“They have a lot of ceremonial names for the mayors in Europe, but they don’t give them as much power as they give them here,” said Rick Homans, president and CEO of the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corp.
 
Still, it’s got a nice ring, so Buckhorn’s co-delegates from the mission called him to the microphone for a news conference Monday morning by saying, essentially, come on, bürgermeister.
 
But that’s as far as it goes, Buckhorn says.
 
“I’m not the über-anything in my house,” he said.