HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Wednesday evening, holding signs outside Tampa City Hall, protesters focused their disappointment on Mayor Jane Castor.
“Castor, Castor, shame on you!” they chanted.
Members of the Tampa Bay Community Action Committee, ACLU, and other groups stood in solidarity to demand their right to vote on several key changes to the City of Tampa’s charter.
“We are here today to tell Mayor Castor that we demand to be allowed to vote on the matters that affect us,” said one of the protesters, Taylor Cook.
During a Jan. 5 meeting of the Tampa City Council, the council decided that five amendments, or changes, to the city’s charter should be placed on the ballot for voters’ consideration during the city's March 7 municipal election.
One change would be to set term limits for city council members. Another would let council members form “standing boards” without permission from the mayor’s office. Another change would allow a volunteer board to meet more regularly to craft future changes.
Council members also said voters should decide if council members themselves should have more oversight and control over who the mayor picks to lead city departments.
The proposed change was spurred by the council’s previous frustration concerning the process Mayor Castor used to appoint Tampa Police Chief Mary O’Connell, who resigned after a traffic stop in Pinellas County.
Finally, another change to the charter, if approved by voters, would allow the city’s Citizens Review Board — which was formed to “enhance trust between the Tampa Police Department and the community” — to hire an independent attorney from outside city government.
“We need police accountability,” said Cook.
Cook and the protesters believe the latter change would give the review board more teeth. It’s the reason she and others demonstrated outside city hall.
“Let the people vote,” they chanted.
In the Jan. 5 meeting, after a lengthy debate, council members decided to place the amendments to the charter in the hands of city voters.
Wednesday, the mayor vetoed the city council’s decision.
1 18 2023 Charter Memo by ABC Action News on Scribd
In a memo, she said the council’s decision to let people vote on the changes to city law was “rushed, “lacked transparency,” and “could lead to negative outcomes and unintended consequences.”
“While I don’t necessarily have concerns with the intent behind some of these proposals, there simply are no exigent circumstances that necessitate rushing these charter changes to the voters without a more thorough analysis and absent proper public input,” the mayor wrote to the council. “In addition, there are alternative ways to meet the Council’s objectives more simply and cost-effectively, and I am happy to work collaboratively with the members to achieve their goals to benefit the City of Tampa.”
Councilman Luis Viera disagrees with Castor’s assessment.
“These are very minor modifications that do things that I think the people of Tampa want,” he said.
Viera said there were roughly two dozen other changes that he did not support because they were not as reasonable as the five approved by the council.
Ultimately, when the council meets again on Thursday, he thinks members will vote to override the mayor’s vetoes.
“My understanding is — is that to override the mayor’s veto, we would need five out of the seven council members choosing to override it,” he said. “Where I stand today? I see myself supporting an overriding of the vetoes.”
If that happens, it would mean voters like Cook — and the other protesters who gathered outside the city on Wednesday evening — would get a say on changes they think would increase accountability at Tampa Police Department and inside City Hall.
“We need community control of the police,” Cook said.
