Tampa Mayor Jane Castor will be in Tampa Heights on Thursday morning to hear from residents, as part of her 2022 “Coffee with Castor” series.
The event is set for 9 a.m.-10 a.m. inside the McDonald’s at 501 E Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd near Interstate-275.
The series is an effort by Castor to hear feedback from constituents on a range of issues, like the rapid growth that’s led to staggering rent increases.
“Have a cup of McCafe with the mayor while sharing YOUR ideas on how to continue improving the quality of life in our city,” the city wrote in a press release.
The March installment comes after “Coffee with Castor” kickoff at West Tampa’s Arco Isis in January, and February’s happening where folks piled into a South Tampa Mickey D’s to give the mayor an earful regarding affordable housing, flooding and the state preempting the city on a myriad of issues. Someone even complained about 5G towers.
Choosing this Tampa Heights McDonald’s is a bold move on Castor’s part as the fast-food restaurant is within spitting distance of Robles Park, where residents were subject to a citywide “Crime-Free Multi Housing,” launched by Castor during her time as police chief. The program alerted landlords to “documented violent offenders, gang members or career criminals” but also flagged folks arrested for misdemeanors—include some people who eventually saw their charges dropped.
Last fall, a Tampa Bay Times investigation found that roughly 90% of people flagged in “Crime-Free Multi Housing” were Black—despite Black residents only making up 54% of all arrests in Tampa over the past eight years.
In response to what critics have dubbed “Renting While Black,” civil rights leaders called for an outright stop to the program. A Yale professor and the author of “How Fascism Works” told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the language used in the “Crime-Free” presentations to landlords was “extraordinarily dehumanizing.”
“Calling human beings weeds is pre-genocidal,” Professor Jason Stanley said. Last fall, then Interim Police Chief Ruben “Butch” Delgado called for a transition away from “Crime-Free” to a new “S.A.F.E” model. Delgado has since been reassigned to assistant chief after Castor announced that her pick for chief is Mary O’Connor who in 1995 was arrested for battery on a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Officer.
In the weeks since Castor’s selection, the mayor’s staff and city council have sparred over the selection and approval process for O’Connor who’s been acting as chief since the announcement. Just last week, members of city council suggested that the mayor’s administration may be behind a pressure campaign from prominent business people who’ve recently flooded council with letters of support for O’Connor.
O’Connor was also a high ranking officer during then-Police Chief Castor’s crime-prevention program where the Times found that eight out of 10 bikers ticketed were Black. In 2016, the Department of Justice investigated Tampa Police Department and found that the program did indeed unfairly stop and ticket Black Tampeños.
Making tomorrow’s coffee even more complicated is that the event is also happening on the border of Tampa Heights and Seminole Heights—two neighborhoods where homeowners and renters alike are battling developers and rising rents that have gone up as high as 24% over the last year.
Today, in announcing $5 million in rental assistance that will go to landlords, Castor and members of city staff once again said that rent control is off the table, adding that implementing a cap on rents would “kill development.”
No telling who’ll show up tomorrow, but you’ve got to hand it to the mayor for getting face to face with the people at these events.
More information on “Coffee with Castor” on Thursday, Feb. 10 at 9 a.m. is available via @cityoftampafl on Facebook.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2022.
