Tampa sales tax touchdown - funding of the new Tampa Stadium

How a Sales Tax Package Was Passed-Despite Organized Opposition to Inclusion of Funds for a New Stadium

When Democratic Cong. Sam Gibbons of Tampa unexpectedly announced in early '96 that he wouldn't seek another term, four prominent party members filed to vie for the seat held by the incumbent since '64. Few in predominately Democratic Tampa thought then that any other race would eclipse it in terms of voter interest during the September 2nd primary; indeed, the District 11 contest was eventually rated one of the 50 most competitive House races in the nation by Congressional Quarterly.

But on September 3rd, the from pages of the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times gave second billing to then-state Rep. Jim Davis, the eventual general election winner, and former Mayor Sandy Freedman earning the right to face each other in an October 1st runoff. Instead, the banner headlines were about a stunning "yes" vote for a half-cent sales tax increase that drove a record number of voters to the polls.

In Florida's Hillsborough County, Community Investment Tax will raise $2.7 billion over 30 years for a host of public works projects, not the least of which being a new Tampa Stadium. Had the referendum failed, it would have likely meant sudden death for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' future in that community.

Smoke-Filled Rooms

The heirs of the late Hugh Culverhouse sold the team in '94 to a Palm Beach millionaire for an estimated $190 million, and with murky assurances from city fathers to team owner Malcolm Glazer that a new Tampa Stadium would be forthcoming. Glazer maintained that the economics of the purchase hinged upon a facility with greater capacity, more luxury boxes and club seating.

However, raising the $170 million needed proved to be difficult. Lobbying efforts in '95 by the city, county and business community easily secured approval by the state Legislature of a 30-year, $2 million-a-year sales tax rebate that could be applied to constructing a new stadium. However, a charter seat deposit campaign led by the Tampa Chamber of Commerce to raise the balance netted only about $20 million.

The lackluster response to the drive was in part attributable to public apathy. Although the team made the playoffs in the late '70s, shortly after the expansion franchise was granted to Culverhouse, it has since then had one of the worst overall win-loss records in the league. When the fundraising drive stalled and renovating the existing stadium was deemed not cost-effective, press accounts had the Bucs moving to Baltimore, Cleveland, Los Angeles or even Tampa's arch civic rival, Orlando.

Central to arguments for keeping the team were its annual economic impact, estimated at $83-$116 million, as well as the effect on corporate relocations to Tampa if it lost its status as a "major league city" and host to Super Bowls. However, these arguments failed to persuade the legislature to grant the county approval for a local referendum on a hotel bed tax or a rental car levy to finance the stadium.

Also in '95, area voters strongly rejected half-cent sales tax increases for education and city police. Exit polling showed voters opposed the taxes because they believed they would ultimately be used to pay administrative salaries and would replace, rather than supplement, existing funding for capital projects and equipment purchases. That mindset could be traced to simmering public resentment about the Florida Lottery, which was approved in a statewide referendum to supplement the state's education budget. Over the years, the legislature gradually reduced general fund appropriations for education, making up the difference with lottery revenues. The Hillsborough County school district announced shortly after the '95 referendum failed that two local high schools would be forced into double sessions due to overcrowding, with more to follow.

Despite the defeat - and buoyed by a new poll that suggested such a measure could pass if properly packaged - local officials put another sales tax referendum on the September '96 ballot to fund construction of a new stadium, schools and a variety of infrastructure improvements.

Broad-based Coalition

Leading members of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce organized a campaign under the auspices of the Fund for Community Investment, a political action committee that raised and spent $463,000 to pass the measure. Also mobilized were more than 200 volunteers, many of them loyalists of Tampa Mayor Dick Greco or veterans of the charter seat campaign.

That broad-based coalition was but one of the ways in which the campaign was unlike the efforts mounted on behalf of the '95 sales tax. Another was the '96 campaign's retention of political pros for polling, paid media and strategy, among them Public Strategies, Inc. of Austin, Texas.

Initial polling gave the measure a 40 to 29 percent lead. "What it showed us was that people who were against it didn't have enough information," said former White House media director Jeff Eller, now senior vice president of Public Strategies. "In the end, what we were fighting for was basically 17 percent of the voters who were going to hold their nose and vote for it [despite the stadium]."

Focus groups with undecided voters yielded similar findings. "There was very high suspicion that the money wouldn't go where it was supposed to go. They brought up the lottery a lot," Eller said. Focus group participants also cited education and public safety as key selling points for the measure.

In response, local governments began publicizing detailed lists of construction projects and equipment purchases that would be financed by the tax revenues, subject to annual reports and public hearings. The projected revenues were divided up so that 63.3 percent were earmarked for public works and safety, 25 percent for education and 11.7 percent for a new "community stadium."

The description of the new stadium was a calculated one. Polling and focus groups had also made it clear that for the referendum to pass, the campaign had to distance itself from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and emphasize that the county would own and control the new stadium.

Free media was abundant. The campaign was formally launched July 31st with a press conference at one of the two high schools scheduled to go on double sessions that fall. A second press conference was held in early August at the overcrowded Hillsborough County Jail. The measure was endorsed the same day by the conservative, pro-business Tampa Tribune, which ran a lengthy editorial headlined "Sales tax hike would address schools, public safety and other urgent needs."

The campaign was not without its critics, especially newspaper columnists and talk radio hosts. The early focus of their attacks was on the relatively late start of the campaign. City firefighters also caught flak for hanging a pro-tax sign on a fire truck driven to their union hall for a rally, allegedly on city time. Similar criticisms were leveled when a county commissioner held a roadside press conference to announce posting of informational signs featuring public works projects to be financed by the tax. Although the PAC paid for the signs, county workers were used to erect them.

The school district did much of its work behind the scenes after hours. Roundly criticized for not better mobilizing its 22,000 employees on behalf of the '95 referendum, the district this time created a liaison system in which downtown administrators were made responsible for relaying information to personnel at the schools. In addition, district employees held a boisterous rally at a city park the day Bob-Dole was making a campaign swing through Tampa.

"They went their way, and we went ours," noted Greco ally George Levy.

But in the meantime, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were offending the locals by renaming the old Tampa Stadium Houlihans Stadium in honor of Glazer's restaurant chain, and haggling over terms of the new stadium lease. In addition, a former mayor filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of using the tax to finance a stadium.

The lease was finalized and the lawsuit dismissed before the election. But those miscues only served to fuel a firestorm of press criticism centering on the new stadium.

An editorial in The Weekly Planet was representative. "The half-cent sales tax is not, as its public relations hucksters claim, a 'community investment tax.' It is a tax that will build a monument to the reckless and out-of-control avarice of today's professional sports - a stadium where fewer than 4 percent of the region's residents, most of them wealthy, will bask in luxury," wrote editor John Sugg.

Man in Black

Robert Foster, the leader of a local anti-tax group known as Enough Is Enough, held his own with Mayor Greco during televised debate. Also vocal against the measure was Tampa City Councilman Charles Miranda, who dressed completely in black throughout the course of the campaign to protest inclusion of the stadium in the initiative package.

Loosely organized, Enough Is Enough only managed to draw two dozen referendum opponents to a noontime rally outside the county building on the same day that 500 supporters attended a free spaghetti dinner at their headquarters. Nonetheless, Foster and Miranda served up enough stinging sound bites to blunt the "yes" campaign's messages.

A mid-August poll showed that the tax now led 40 to 33 percent, dangerously close for a ballot proposition.

A paid media blitz was launched by proponents 10 days before the election. Over 75,000 direct mailers were dropped to traditional Democratic primary voters; specifically, those who had voted in the '95 referendum, as well as the '94 and '92 primaries; African Americans, Hispanics and young families.

The four-color, four-page direct mailer, developed at a cost of $64,000, stuck to the themes of government accountability in spending the sales tax revenues; securing financing for education, public safety and public works and community ownership of the new stadium.

A second direct mail piece had been planned, but was scrapped in favor of a $160,000 flight of TV ads that broke the week before the election. Screened by the focus groups in early August, the 30-second spot aired on all Tampa Bay area network affiliates and one independent station.

The spot, titled "Facts," resembled a public service announcement and featured a soothing voice-over reciting tax revenue statistics and other information scrolled on the screen against a dark background. The ad buy was planned so that the average TV viewer would see it 10 times.

"People told us it was straightforward, didn't talk down to them, wasn't slick and told them what they wanted to know," Eller said. Todd Pressman, a local political consultant, chuckled when asked about the spot's lack of Hollywood glitz. "It wasn't Cecil B. De Mille," he said to the Tampa Tribune.

In addition, 30-second radio spots were aired on African-American stations and full and half-page newspaper ads were run in the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times. Local firefighters also ran a phone bank on the refenerdum's behalf.

A final tracking poll put the referendum at a virtual dead heat. In addition, there was one final hurdle to jump: the filing of a financial disclosure form revealing that the Buccaneers had contributed $165,000 to the campaign in the last weeks of the campaigns. Proponent spokespersons put the best spin on the story that they could. Luckily for them, it broke on Labor Day weekend and got limited play.

In the end, the referendum passed with 53 percent. Nearly 210,000 votes were cast, 48.5 percent of those registered.

"Without question, the last-minute ads were really very effective... People were very concerned about their safety and the state of police and fire protection," said University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus, who studied exit polls of both the '96 and '95 referendums.

In addition, MacManus found that the proponent campaign's ability to turn out baby boomers who hadn't voted in the '95 referendum was central to the win.

Thanks to a smart campaign, the Bucs will be playing in Tampa for at least another three decades.

Mark A. Hart served as campaign spokesman for the Fund for Community Investment.

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