Retired Tampa newscaster Jeff Patterson is running for city council

Jeff Patterson Credit: Campaign handout

Voters in the 2027 Tampa municipal election could see a very familiar face on the ballot next spring.

For 38 years at WFLA, Jeff Patterson asked questions on behalf of viewers. Now it’s his turn to go under the microscope as he makes a run for the District 4 City Council Seat.

Currently, two other candidates, real estate agent James Paul “Jaimie” Adair and Stetson College of Law grad John Grandoff, are running to fill the seat being vacated by Councilman Bill Carlson, who is running for mayor.

So far, only Patterson has reported any money raised in the race ($300), according to the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections.

Patterson retired from broadcast reporting last April after covering the Bay area for nearly four decades. He filed paperwork to run for city council just a few months later.

Tampa’s upcoming municipal election ends on Tuesday, March 2, 2027; early voting days are still to be determined. The deadline to register to vote is Feb. 1, 2027.

Patterson told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that his top priority for Tampa is improving infrastructure. He said that in conversations with current city council members, they always mention that constituents’ top complaint is damaged roads and sidewalks.

Patterson pointed to meager repaving budgets of the past in his argument, alluding to 2023 when councilmembers were initially presented with just $4.4 million for repaving before adding $7 million from parking revenue to the total.

“And my street, anybody’s street in the city of Tampa, was on a schedule to be repaved once every 75 years. 75 years,” he added. “The industry standard is like 25, maybe 30 years that they should be repaved.”

Last year, the City of Tampa proudly said it broke records by repaving 76 lane miles of road. Patterson felt differently.

“There’s 2,800 miles of lanes in the city of Tampa, and so even at 76 miles, you’re talking about once every 37 years,” Patterson said. “The longer you wait to repave streets, the more costly it becomes to repave them. So I think we need to focus on the basics. Let’s get our streets paved.”

This year, the city of Tampa increased the road repaving budget from $14 million to $41 million.

Like anyone else running for office these days, Patterson is also concerned about affordability.

Patterson said he believes in incentivizing developers towards areas that are generally underdeveloped while honoring the preservation of historic neighborhoods in the Bay area.

”So that’s why I say we need to incentivize developers to go to other areas of the city, and you can do that in a way with more affordable housing,” Patterson said. “Because not everybody can live on the waterfront in a $1.2 million condo, and I think a lot of that is being overbuilt.”

And he has thoughts about the baseball team that wants to build a stadium with help from taxpayers.

The Rays had hoped to have secured a $180 million commitment from Tampa City Council by now, but November’s looming property tax amendment and pushback over sending tax dollars to billionaire sports team owners has created a hurdle for the team as it looks for money to build a stadium in Hillsborough County.

At a July Tampa Community Redevelopment Agency meeting, councilman and CRA member Bill Carlson led a 5-2 vote to remove discussions for the majority request item of $100 million from the CRA that would contribute to the building of Rays stadium on Hillsborough College’s campus.

This week, Carlson and Rays CEO Ken Babby have started to trot out an alternative funding plan.

The new plan scraps the combined $180 million from the CRA and CIT and proposes using a TIF mechanism (Tax Increment Financing) connected to multiuse development around the stadium. The new plan is not without its skeptics.

Patterson couldn’t say how he would vote on a Rays stadium deal, being not privy to all the finances associated with the project. He said the vote comes down to what is the best use of the public’s money.

“You have to be a good steward of the public tax dollars, and regardless of your feelings of baseball, if you love it or hate it, it comes down to what is the best use of the public’s money,” Patterson said. “It brings in hotels, restaurants, office space, even some housing over there in a very undeveloped area, Drew Park, and so this could be an exciting time for that area of the city.”

Patterson thinks the city council’s vote to scrap the stadium agenda item pertains to Amendment 3 on the upcoming November’s ballot, which, if passed, would lead Hillsborough County to lose nearly $348 million in revenue by the 2027-2028 fiscal year.

Amendment 3—currently undergoing a court-ordered rewrite—would raise the homestead exemption for non-school taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. Experts estimate massive revenue losses of $12 billion by 2031 for Florida’s economy.

Although spearheaded by Florida GOP legislators, Patterson says Florida conservatives should be greatly concerned if the initiative passes.

“Jeff [Brandes, former Republican State Senator] wrote a very thoughtful piece on this, in that this isn’t about reducing your taxes,” Patterson said. “This is about a power grab, and he said that conservative Republicans should be very afraid of this because this isn’t about reducing government and taxes. This is about consolidating power.”

Tampa’s municipal elections are non-partisan, but voting records show Patterson is a registered Democrat.

Patterson said the amendment, if passed, would be devastating for local governments.

“Are we just going to have to delay where we’re spending our money? You know we can’t,” Patterson said. “You know if you’re talking about laying off people, you might have to lay off police and firefighters, and then people are going to suffer, and people are going to die because of that. And, I mean, that sounds like hyperbole, but I’m serious. I’m very afraid of that, and I think that local government decisions should be made by local government officials.”

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This article appears in August 13 – 19, 2026.

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