Tampa City Council voted 4-3 last Thursday to approve a community benefits agreement with the owners of the Tampa Bay Rays, but not without objection from community leaders who had issues with the rushed timeline.
The city is giving $80 million of taxpayer money to the team to go toward funding the new stadium. As a condition, the Rays are supposed to provide an eventual $21 million worth of benefits to the city.
Under the agreement, $4.2 million of that should be delivered in the next five years. The Rays are required to provide 70% of that—about $3 million—in direct cash spending towards several categories.
That means that for that portion, they can’t provide goods or services and claim they provided $3 million “worth” of contributions. Council Member Guido Maniscalco speculated that without that stipulation, the Rays could have given away unsold tickets and counted the face value of those tickets towards their total contribution.
Notably, the cash stipulation decreases to 50% starting in 2031.
The list of promises for the Rays to fulfill includes $200,000 for police in New Tampa and $300,000 for the Yellow Jackets Little League team in West Tampa. WFTS said that funding listed for improvements at Al Lopez Park—one of the city’s largest urban green spaces, which would be a short walk away from the proposed stadium—was reduced from $1 million to $625,000.
The “Housing Stability and Anti-Displacement” category gets $1.25 million under the new agreement.
“Eligible uses include rental assistance, owner-occupied home repair, title clearing for long-time homeowners, and gap funding for new or preserved housing units,” that section of the agreement reads.
But the exact value of each contribution, and when within the next five years it’s delivered, are subject to change without council approval.
The agreement was initially uploaded to the city council agenda with a blank page attached where the proposed benefits were supposed to go. The corrected agreement wasn’t uploaded until Monday, later than council rules ordinarily allow.
And, like last time the Rays brought a big vote before the council, they modified the language just hours before the meeting. Council Member Lynn Hurtak objected, saying she didn’t have enough time to review the proposal.
Council was only given a 15 minute recess to review the new version.
Council Member Bill Carlson, who is running for mayor, said he would have preferred that the city just give less money to the team and administer the funds itself.
“It’s not like the Rays are giving us something,” Carlson said from the dais. “We’re taking the people’s money, putting it in, and then we’re getting part of it back.”
Hurtak, who is also running for mayor, agreed with his sentiment, adding that by 2041, the $4.2 million the Rays will provide would only be worth about $2.39 million adjusted for inflation.
A visibly-frustrated Hurtak later said that more money should be allocated towards the neighborhoods physically closest to the stadium.
Tampa resident and East Tampa Activist Bishop Michelle B. Patty took issue with that during public comment, saying all communities have paid into the stadium: “Whether you vote this thing up or down, do not pit one community against another. The tax base do not stop because you’re in these property areas. We still pay the same taxes.”
Carlson’s criticisms ultimately weren’t enough to stop him from agreeing to the Rays’ proposal. Unlike Carlson, Hurtak voted against the agreement, which still passed 4–3.
Carlson voted yes, alongside Luis Viera, Naya Young and Alan Clendenin. Hurtak, Maniscalco and Charlie Miranda voted against.
Maniscalco has asked tough questions of the Rays throughout the stadium process, something he attributes to his understanding of the neighborhoods most affected.
“The reason I scrutinize this project so much is I was born in West Tampa, live in West Tampa, … the last class I took before I finished at HCC was on the Dale Mabry Campus, I wrote for the school newspaper,” Maniscalco said during the meeting. “West Tampa has given me and my family everything.”
Miranda—who represents District 6, where the stadium will be constructed—is another reliable critic of the stadium deal.
At the meeting, Miranda said the Rays are spending taxpayer money because they’re “broke.”
“Why am I getting paid back with my own money?” Miranda asked at the dais. “It ain’t their money. It is the taxpayers’ money. Taxpayers should say what they do with the money, not the Rays.”
“The Rays are only a visitor,” Miranda concluded.
There was no meeting scheduled for the day of this vote, but a special call was put on the calendar so Viera could vote before leaving office next week as a condition of his campaign for HD67.
Viera has been a consistent supporter of the stadium deal, and it’s not certain that his replacement would be (his old co-workers have already started the process of appointing the next District 7 Tampa City Councilmember).
The rushed schedule didn’t play well with everyone at the meeting, given one of the agreement’s special provisions.
The agreement comes with an exemption to the city’s typical community benefits process, which requires a public input period. The Rays feel as though they’ve done all the necessary community input gathering.
Tampa Monitor has also reported that “borrowing the full $80 million would cost roughly $140 million with 30 years of interest at 4.1 percent.”
Jaime Jones, president of the West Tampa Heights Neighborhood Association, took issue with that, saying more time is needed.
“Please reject and postpone this agreement,” Jones said. “Give more time to all of your constituents to provide input. Do not throw local control of this out of the window by exempting the Rays from the community benefits program.”
Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.
Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | BlueSky
This article appears in Oct. 29 – Nov. 04, 2026.
