{"id":394309,"date":"2026-09-09T02:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T02:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/394309\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T02:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T02:12:12","slug":"entirely-legal-jacksonville-council-president-defends-private-jet-trip-to-rays-game-on-billionaires-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/394309\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Entirely legal\u2019: Jacksonville council president defends private-jet trip to Rays game on billionaire\u2019s plane"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville City Council President Nick Howland is defending a private-jet trip to a Tampa Bay Rays game<\/a> on a plane owned by billionaire developer Patrick Zalupski, saying the trip was tied to fundraising for his political committee and that everything will be fully disclosed.<\/p>\n

The Florida Trib first reported that Howland flew to the game on a plane owned by Zalupski, who is CEO of Dream Finders Homes and a part owner of the Rays. Dream Finders has lobbyists registered at City Hall.<\/p>\n

What Howland says happened<\/p>\n

Howland told News4JAX on Tuesday that he attended the Rays game to raise funds for Florida Freedom PAC, his political committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was at the Rays game last week to raise funds for my political committee,\u201d Howland said. \u201cEverything will be fully disclosed in the political committee reports.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked whether he would have done anything differently given the public backlash, Howland pushed back.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it was entirely legal,\u201d he said. \u201cI checked with my compliance team prior to the event and I double-checked with the ethics team after the event. It\u2019s also all been fully disclosed and transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why the flight is drawing scrutiny<\/p>\n

Florida ethics law generally limits gifts over $100 for certain public officials. However, campaign finance rules can allow private-aircraft travel to be reported as an in-kind political contribution \u2014 a distinction that could apply here.<\/p>\n

The story drew sharp reaction from News4JAX readers after it was first published.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething is smelly at City Hall and it\u2019s not the fish in the St. Johns,\u201d one reader wrote. Another commented: \u201cThis is how the purchase of a politician starts.\u201d<\/p>\n

What comes next<\/p>\n

Campaign finance filings should show whether the flight or suite access was reported as an in-kind contribution and how it was valued. News4JAX will track those filings as they become available.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville City Council President Nick Howland is defending a private-jet trip to a Tampa Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1039,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-394309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-duval-county","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}