Photo by Dave Decker
Carlson gets flack for his sometimes combative tone on the dais but he’s been a steady and studied force on council who’s ready to speak on a myriad of issues.
Blake Casper—a McDonald’s heir whose family recently sold off all of its locations for an undisclosed amount—had to fly in from Chicago to file his city council paperwork at the last minute. The businessman and developer initially said he ran because his opponent, incumbent Bill Carlson, was not pro-police enough—despite Carlson voting to increase cops’ wages by 18.5%. But as the race has worn on, Casper and Carlson tend to have more in common (most notably, an opposition to the mayor’s wastewater plan, colloquially referred to as “toilet-to-tap”).
Casper’s donations to Florida GOP figureheads—Ron DeSantis ($214K), Trump ($100K-plus in 2020) and Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna ($7,800), who once praised the hosts of a QAnon conspiracy theory show—are eye-popping, and so are his recent comments floating criminalizing panhandling as a solution to homelessness.
Casper has ideas about what needs to change in Tampa—the usual suspects of transportation being one of them—but has offered few specifics about how he’ll get it done.
Carlson gets flack for his sometimes combative tone on the dais—especially when it comes to transparency from the Castor administration—but he’s been a steady and studied force on council who’s ready to speak on a myriad of issues. He knows how council works and deserves another term to see his ideas through.
CL endorses Bill Carlson for Tampa City Council District 4.
See all of CL's endorsements and charter amendment recommendations here.
