Tampa Mayor Jane Castor is a shoo-in for re-election, so write someone else in

In April 2021, a developer disputed the mayor’s decision to award the multi-million “Rome Yard” contract to Miami-based Related Group, which donated $10,000 to Mayor Jane Castor’s election PAC and employed her nephew, according to records.

Later that year, after promising a nationwide search for Tampa’s next police chief, even members of Castor’s own staff could not produce public records related to the search. Her own comms director didn’t know if the mayor had even called anyone about the job. In February 2022, despite outcry from the community over the candidate’s history of battery on a law enforcement officer, Castor picked her friend Mary O’Connor to be top cop. The confirmation vote split city council. Nine months later, Castor was forced to ask for O’Connor’s resignation when Creative Loafing Tampa Bay unearthed video showing the chief using her badge to get out of a traffic stop.

In March 2022, her now-former City Attorney Gina Grimes was caught ​​using her personal cell phone to communicate with an attorney, who just months ago sued former councilman John Dingfelder, in part, for using a personal email. Some of Grimes’ communications even went “missing” in CL’s public records requests.

The mayor has also claimed that rent control would disrupt development—an industry that, at the time, funded over half of her PAC.

And don’t get started about secrecy surrounding the Depart of Justice’s two investigations into racist policing policies by Tampa police, a City Center at Hanna project that ballooned from $6.2 million to over $100 million without a public request for proposal, and the administration’s thirst for its PURE wastwater plan.

Mayor Castor only faces one challenger—write-in candidate Belinda Noah—who CL will not endorse, in part, because of Noah’s past failed campaigns for circuit court and U.S. Senate.

Castor is a shoo-in. While she recently told the Tampa Bay Times that her communication could have been better, Tampeños deserved a challenger that would have forced the mayor to publicly address her shortcomings.

The mayor may believe in second chances for people (worked out well for the police chief), but Tampa deserves a council that will continue to put pressure on the administration (see a link to our recommendations for council below).

With Castor guaranteed a second term, CL recommends you symbolically write-in anyone else.

See all of CL’s endorsements and charter amendment recommendations here. UPDATED 03/03/23 6:07 a.m. Updated because as a reader pointed out, it’s “shoo-in” not “shoe-in”—I bet the mayor knew that.

This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2023.