Tampa City Council member Bill Carlson’s announced intent to nominate local Young Republican leader Jake Hoffman to a city advisory board has roused objections from local gay rights activists, centering on an anti-“grooming” video Hoffman used in a political campaign.
That move, plus Carlson’s repeated stances on the Council against what he calls wasteful spending by the Jane Castor administration, have also roused speculation that he’s looking to build conservative support for a 2027 run for Mayor.
Carlson told the Council on Sept. 12 he intended to nominate Hoffman as his appointee to the citizen advisory board on budget and finance.
Hoffman, who runs a digital advertising company, is the former President and now Executive Director of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans. He ran for the House in 2022, losing in a Primary to Rep. Karen Gonzalez Pittman.
During his campaign, he produced a video titled “Stop Grooming Our Kids” as a campaign ad and social media post. In the video, a man wearing a rainbow-themed Mickey Mouse T-shirt confronts a mother and young daughter on the street and says the girl needs to learn about “the joys of the rainbow” in case she is “trans” and that “the mouse has some great children’s programming.”
Hoffman steps in and says, “We don’t do that in Florida anymore. … We leave it up to the parents.”
Luis Salazar, Chair of the local Democratic Party’s LGBTQ+ caucus, said the video in effect “called our LGBTQ community groomers,” and said it’s “disheartening” that “someone who spews hate would be given a position of responsibility in our city government.”
He said he has urged Carlson to choose another nominee and has written to Council members on the subject, which he called “nonnegotiable.”
In an interview, Hoffman said the video “has nothing to do with me being anti-LGBTQ,” and was intended to buttress the controversial 2022 Parental Rights in Education bill pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and called the “Don’t Say Gay” law by opponents.
“They’re looking for something to attack me on,” Hoffman said. “It’s pure politics.”
He noted that the interloper in the ad was played by a gay man, David Leatherwood, a conservative pro-Trump social media influencer who opposes what he calls excesses of the gay rights movement. Hoffman said the YR’s group has participated in gay pride parades while he has been its leader and was one of the first Republican groups to support equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.
“The idea that I’m anti-LGBTQ, anybody that knows me would think that’s ridiculous,” he said.
In an interview this week, Carlson denied that he has chosen Hoffman, and said he had merely asked Hoffman to help him find a fiscal conservative for the position.
“When I nominate someone their name will be on the agenda. If I had a name I would have put it on the agenda already,” he said.
However, he told the Council at the close of their Sept. 12 meeting that he wanted “to let you all know I’ve asked Jake Hoffman, who many of you may know,” to replace a committee retiree and would put the appointment on the agenda.
He said Hoffman had already filled out the application and, “We just need to cross the T’s and dot the I’s.”
Carlson also noted that the founders of the public relations firm he heads, Tucker/Hall Inc., “are both part of the LGBTQ community.” And he emphasized his credentials as a fiscal conservative, citing his opposition to a number of big-ticket administration projects.
Carlson and Salazar both suggested the controversy was cooked up by their political opponents in city hall’s current climate of conflict between the council and Mayor Castor’s administration, and amid widespread speculation about the 2027 Mayor’s race.
Carlson, a Democrat, is considered a likely 2027 candidate, and one of his leading opponents could be former Mayor Bob Buckhorn — also a Democrat but known as conservative with strong business community ties.
In last year’s Council race, Buckhorn and Castor, also a Democrat, backed Carlson’s opponent, Republican Blake Casper, for the nonpartisan seat, leading to censures from the local Democratic Party.
Legal entanglements ding Nowicki
Pinellas County Republicans’ hopes to unseat county Commissioner Charlie Justice, considered vulnerable because of his very narrow 2020 re-election win, have taken a hit because of past legal entanglements of their candidate, Vince Nowicki.
Among those problems: Nowicki was fined $3,500 plus $461 in investigative costs after a 2018 state complaint of unlicensed activity as a general contractor, presenting someone else’s license as his own, according to Department of Business and Professional Regulation records. Under the terms of the settlement of the complaint, he did not admit or deny the charges.
Nowicki’s real estate license is currently listed as on probationary status; he told the Tampa Bay Times that’s because of a failure to update his business address in state records.
The packet also mentions theft and forgery charges against Nowicki 11 years ago in Baltimore. But prosecutors declined to pursue those cases, and Nowicki has said the charges were the result of false accusations against him by a former employee he had fired.
He told the Times the employee accused him of withholding his final paycheck.
Nowicki was also the target of a lawsuit filed in 2020 by Brett Vickers and his wife, Lisa Speer Vickers. The couple are real estate agents and philanthropists, and she is the daughter of the late Roy Speer, a wealthy entrepreneur who founded Home Shopping Network.
The Vickers alleged that Nowicki failed to account properly for $50,000 they had invested in a business deal he proposed. He denied the accusation; the lawsuit was settled with a nondisclosure agreement on the terms.
Documents about some of these issues are part of a packet of “opposition research” that has been circulated about Nowicki, partly by his former opponent in the Republican Primary for the seat, Leatherwood.
Justice, a former Senator, has held the county seat since 2012, but won re-election in 2020 by less than a percentage point against a lesser-known, lesser-funded Republican, Tammy Sue Vasquez.
After failing to respond to phone calls, emails and text messages Wednesday and Thursday, Nowicki on Friday asked for a list of questions on the subject to be emailed to him. This story will be updated with his responses.
Bottom-of-the-ballot battle
If Hillsborough County voters look waaay down at the bottom of their ballots in the November election, they’ll see something unusual — a contested race for a seat on the county soil and water board.
And there are actually issues in the race, or at least one: the experience in agriculture legally required to serve on the board. The candidates, Tyler Barrett and David Maynard, each questioned whether his opponent has that experience.
Barrett said he does because he works as a cultivation technician for a marijuana producer, grew up on his grandparents’ farm and worked as a farmhand when young.
Maynard cited working as a produce shipper and his experience holding a board seat from 2010-2018 as a qualification.
The Board — actually named the Hillsborough County Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Supervisors — is part of a nationwide system created after the 1930s Dust Bowl disaster, which was caused in part by negligent farming practices.
“When the dust blew all the way to Washington and Congress could see it out their windows, they did something about it,” said longtime Board member Mark Proctor.
The Board helps farmers apply for federal and state grant programs for conservation projects and disaster relief. It’s also an information and education resource, including helping urban and suburban dwellers in “food deserts” establish home gardens.
There have, however, been moves in the Legislature to abolish the boards as unnecessary.
Board seats are nonpartisan and members are unpaid, but occasionally, Proctor said, candidates will seek board seats as stepping stones to other offices.
Barrett and Maynard aren’t exactly ideological opponents.
Maynard, formerly a Socialist Party member, is now registered with no party affiliation, he said. He said he’s “an advocate for education about the ag industry and assistance to small farmers — corporate farming can take care of itself.”
Barrett is a progressive political activist and campaign operative. He filed but dropped out of a City Council race in 2015 as University of Tampa junior, and ran unsuccessfully in 2023, campaigning on issues including expanding public transit and housing affordability, environmental protection and attacking crime through “root causes.”
Unlike most board candidates, Barrett has actually raised some campaign money, $1,270, and spent $755, mostly on signs and phone banking.
Barrett acknowledged the board seat could be a stepping stone for another office, but added, “I don’t want to go into it with any vision other than doing the immediate job,” of which climate change and environmental protection are important parts.
Proctor, a committed Republican, said ideological differences never matter on the board — he said he can’t recall ever voting differently from Maynard on any issue when the two served together.
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