With midterm primaries done and the November election ahead, Tampa voters probably haven’t given much thought to who will be their next mayor.
Excuse city councilman Bill Carlson if he isn’t among them. After all, he is among 12 people currently seeking to replace Jane Castor in March.
Carlson, president of the Tucker/Hall public relations firm, has represented the city’s District 4 — South Tampa — on the council since 2019.
Chances are you’ve seen his name in more headlines in recent months. He’s been among the more vocal council members against the original nonbinding agreement on building a Tampa Bay Rays stadium.
After finally getting the chance to present his own ideas to the team, he may end up being a catalyst in finalizing the city’s involvement with a multi-point plan that would also build a fund for infrastructure repairs without using or raising taxes.
He insists his involvement is not about himself. Or running for mayor. Rather, he says, it’s about a commitment to constituents to repair infrastructure, a lack of dollars to do so, and poor choices by other leaders that haven’t helped.
We learned that and more during Carlson’s Aug. 10 interview with host Matthew Peddie on WUSF’s “Florida Matters Live & Local.”
The following transcript excerpts have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Councilman, before we talk about the stadium, can you give us an update on stormwater funding or the budget around that?
Well, we obviously have a stormwater problem all over the city. It's especially pronounced throughout South Tampa. Thousands of homes were hit, and there are two different funding sources for stormwater. Unfortunately, for the first few years, the newest one was misspent on projects it shouldn't have been. We found that some of the stormwater resources were spent on parades, and we've been trying to stop that.
Sorry, did you say parades?
Parades, yeah. They used stormwater staff to prepare for parades. The (city) administration thinks it's OK, and we've been pushing back to prevent that. There are 20 or so places just in South Tampa that flooded, and we need billions of dollars to be able to fix the problems that are there.
That's billions with a “B”?
Yeah, billions. Because we're dealing with decades of lack of money and planning, but especially in the last 15 years. Money was spent on pet projects instead of infrastructure, and even basic maintenance was not done in 2016. A new tax was passed where the public was promised that maintenance would be done throughout the city, and after (Hurricane) Milton, we discovered that there are culverts with trees growing out of them. So that shows that maintenance was never done.
ALSO READ: Tampa City Councilman Bill Carlson joins crowded mayor's race
Isn’t this within your sphere of influence as a city councilman? Have you been aware of some of the misspending, as you say, up until now?
We've been. I've been on the city council almost eight years, and I've been pushing for more accountability and better spending of the money in the city. And some of it went through, and some of it didn't. The way the city is set up is that the mayor has equal powers to city council, and so on city council we need four or five votes to be able to overrule the mayor.
The workshop we had this morning (Aug. 10), which I encourage people to watch, was about the stormwater budget for next year, and some of the information presented to us was not true, and so we were pushing back, saying, "How can we trust anything when some of the data is not accurate?”
Which data are you saying isn't true?
They (city) showed us that certain line items in the budget were already approved, and they weren't.
Let’s talk about the stadium. The original memorandum of understanding between the city, Hillsborough County and the Rays included $180 million from the city. That was $80 million in Community Investment Tax money and $100 million from the Drew Park Community Redevelopment Area. You didn't support that. Why not?
I think the promises made around the Community Investment Tax were such that the money shouldn't be spent on this, and there were other concerns as well. Drew Park was concerned that all of the CRA money for its future was being taken away, and in addition to that, as we talked about a minute ago, the biggest issues facing the city are deferred maintenance.
ALSO READ: Councilman Carlson pitches new Rays ballpark plan with no CIT or new taxes from Tampa
We know that just in roads, we have $2 billion in deferred maintenance, and I've asked for a citywide accounting of deferred maintenance. This is where somebody spent on boat houses instead of on roads or flooding control or whatever. And so, if we have $5 billion or $10 billion — we don't know the number yet — in deferred maintenance, where are we going to get the money? The city can't raise taxes because the Legislature doesn't want us to and the public doesn't want us to. In fact, the Legislature may reduce revenues.
I'm not a baseball fan, although members of my family are, and friends are passionate about baseball. But what interested me was trying to figure out a solution where we could have baseball but also create a fund for infrastructure because that's really what the constituents of our city want.
The mayor was the chief negotiator for the MOU, right? I understand that didn't really sit well with you or some other council members.
Well, I think the county was the chief negotiator, and there really wasn't much participation from the city, and the Rays and the county were asking us as city council to weigh in, but we weren't included.
ALSO READ: City council's lack of input in Rays stadium talks reflects Tampa's strong-mayor system
Part of it is the style of government because we have a mayor and the county doesn't. County commissioners were very involved in the original deal. We were given the deal a week before we had to discuss it and approve it, and we didn't have sufficient time to look at it or get feedback from constituents.
I found out the Rays were very open to negotiating, and the things that I suggested they quickly adopted. Whereas six months ago, we were told that none of the ideas that we had could be adopted.
What's the substance of that discussion with Rays CEO Ken Babby?
It's very positive, and the Rays so far have told us tentatively that they've approved of the suggestions. The purpose of my pushing out the idea is to see what other feedback we might get. There are some things that we might be able to influence and some we cannot. So, the county will have a deal, and the city will have a deal. The city is more limited in what we can put in, but I think the deal is many times better than it was a couple of months ago.
So what would it take for you to sign off on a deal to get the stadium built at the Hillsborough College site in Tampa?
First of all, I think it's a great location because it needs to be redeveloped. There are concerns in Drew Park and West Tampa, and we're trying to address those. But it also is close enough for the folks in St. Pete to be able to go to Rays games. People who want it further east, like at the fairgrounds, don't realize that we'll lose the entire St. Pete audience if it's that far away because they won't want to drive two or three hours to get to a game.
I think the synergies with (Hillsborough College) are really interesting, especially in the tech area and AI area. I've been talking to some tech companies about what they can do there.
Specifically, to your question, it can’t include CIT money, and it needs to include this fund for infrastructure. Also, I'm proposing taking half the money out of the Downtown Tampa CRA, putting that into an infrastructure fund, so we can spend them on things like roads and flood prevention.
To clarify, you don't want CIT funding in the deal?
If CIT is included, I vote no. If any of the agencies refuse to take half the downtown CRA money, I say no. Downtown does not have slum and blight anymore. It would not qualify for a CRA, and even if we take half, it will have more than any of the other CRAs, and so it's not fair that the rest of the city continues to subsidize downtown when we could move even just half the money and dramatically change our budget for road repair and flood prevention.
So how do you raise that money?
One thing, our deal is with the county, not the Rays. So, with the county, once we open up one of the CRAs, which is Drew Park, then it gives us the opportunity to affect others, and so that's when I proposed taking half the money of downtown and also proposed extending the East Tampa CRA by 30 years. It seems like that's not connected, but if we have this contract open already, it makes sense to go ahead and do it.
ALSO READ: What is a CRA? And why does it matter in the Rays' stadium debate?
The Rays and the county have agreed to create a TIF — tax-increment financing — instrument that will go around just the stadium development, and the money from the project will be captured there. Drew Park will have a new boundary that will not include the Rays. That way, Drew Park can control its own destiny, and get 30 more years. The money inside the TIF would split three ways — city, county and a community development district — and the county's still working on the formula. None of it would go to the Rays, the CDD would be subject to public oversight, and all of it would have to be spent on government facilities.
Are you saying there's going to be enough tax revenue from the new district to pay for all of the infrastructure?
It won't pay for everything because we have billions in backlog. But let's say it's $750 million from that revenue stream, and we take half the downtown CRA money over 35 years; it should generate $1.5 billion on up. That at least gives us a pretty good head start. We don't have any other revenue streams without raising taxes. And what it means is, for the next eight years at least, we're not going to be able to spend on boat houses and other frivolous projects.
Editor’s note: Tucker Hall has a business relationship with WUSF.
This story was compiled from an interview conducted by Matthew Peddie for "Florida Matters Live & Local."
