The next step is for the board to ratify a millage increase from a half-mill to a full-mill—aka from 50 cents per $1,000 assessed property value, to $1 per $1,000. If that happens, voters could decide on the referendum on the November 2026 ballot.
A new community group, Transit Now Tampa Bay (TNTB), pointed out that the millage has not increased since 1979. Without new funding, TNTB and HART staffers warned, the transit agency could face another round of drastic funding cuts resulting in service changes, layoffs and more.
HART’s lack of funding was something brought up by Melissa Zornitta, Executive Director of the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission, during this morning’s State of Tampa’s Downtown Forum—and it was referenced over and over again during public comment at the May 5 meeting.
Dr. Neil Manimala, a physician, told the board that he serves eastern and southern Hillsborough, a fast growing part of the county. Patients of his have missed appointments not because they didn’t care, but because a bus did not come on time.
“I’ve heard of families in Wimauma walking half-a-mile to a stop only to miss the bus by one minute and wait another hour in the heat. In that hour, what’s lost? Sometimes a job, sometimes a diagnosis, but it’s always a lost opportunity for a chance to move forward,” he said. “This isn’t just about a bus. It’s about who counts and who gets left waiting.”
Jade Scott did not plan on speaking at the meeting, but took the microphone during public comment to share three main reasons she loves the bus: the independence it gives her and her neighbors, how it gives her an opportunity to engage with the community, and because she hates traffic.
“Being on the bus, it really is a mix of people from all class systems, all values, all faiths, all languages—it really is like America is on that bus,” she told the HART board. “If citizens are the lifeblood of this great county that we live in, the buses are the veins.”
After the vote to amend the HART charter passed, board chair and Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera was heard uttering, “I’ll be damned.”
In a text to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Viera said he was proud to support the effort, and lauded the efforts of Temple Terrace Councilman Gil Schisler, even as political dynamics have changed in the last six years.
“Not only is the need still there, but it has gotten more acute in a post-Covid Florida,” Viera added. “Sometimes you have to take a stand and give people a choice on the direction that we can go as a community. But you gotta take a stand.”
After the vote, Dayna Lazarus, a longtime transit activist and organizer of the new TNTB group told CL the community wants functional public transit and that her organization will continue to rally so that people’s voices can be heard.
“I appreciate the HART Board for doing their duty by updating this ancient funding mechanism policy in their charter,” Lazarus wrote in a text message, while acknowledging that there’s still a long road to get a millage increase on the ballot, and that there’s a lot to worry about.
“Of course we’re concerned but we have no choice,” she added. “We’re not going to sit back and let HART die.”
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Next steps will be discussed during Transit Now Tampa Bay’s next meeting, happening virtually on Thursday, May 29. Also on the agenda for the open-invite meeting are short term goals for the group, updates on Tampa’s now-free-to-ride route one bus, and upcoming events.
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This article appears in May 15-21, 2025.