After nine months of meetings, Tampa’s Charter Review Advisory Commission (CRC) has finished its work. On Oct. 15, Tampa City Council decides which recommendations Tampa voters should see on their municipal election ballots in March 2026.
As previously reported, the charter is essentially Tampa’s constitution, and receives an update at least once every decade.
While council ultimately decides which charter recommendations reach voters, the process also offers residents an opportunity to help shape those recommendations in the first place.
Brittney Llewellyn, a Tampa native and former City employee, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay she “knew zero about the Charter Review before May.”
She became interested because of her own experiences and concerns about city oversight. She discovered that the meetings were public and happened at 6 p.m. She remembers showing up expecting a crowd and being surprised by how few members of the public were there.
Not intending to lead the charge, she realized: “Well, then I guess I have something to contribute.”
She made multiple public comments pushing for specific structural features of an inspector general—drawing on her own research into how other Florida cities, including Jacksonville, Miami Beach and Tallahassee, structured similar offices.
The CRC’s official report documents her asking the commission to address four key pillars of a strong IG: ensure independence, proactive oversight, full-time staffing, and stable funding.
The CRC’s final proposal explicitly said the IG need not be a full-time city employee and could be contracted through a firm, even though Brittney specifically urged it to require a full-time IG with adequate staffing.
“My concerns weren’t completely reflected in the CRC proposal but City Council has gone even further than the CRC proposal in addressing what I wanted,” Llewellyn told CL.
The choice to recommend an independent Inspector General is a striking contrast with the zoning proposal: one CRC recommendation stopped at City Council, while another was strengthened there—partly in ways Llewellyn had advocated.
For Llewellyn, the experience shows that a resident can walk into an obscure, sparsely attended meeting and still find a way into the process.
She ultimately got involved because she believes that everything starts at home: “We see all the turmoil and upset and chaos at a national level, but these policies and standards affect our police officers and our trash collectors.”
Llewellyn added: “they define our environment and our livelihood. These policies matter.”
“I’m thrilled—but cautious to see it through to the end in March,” Llewellyn added.
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This article appears in Oct. 08 – 14, 2026.
