It’s Your Money, Not Theirs
When the city hands out tax breaks, free services, and sweetheart deals to big, well-connected organizations, somebody still has to pay the bill. That somebody is you.
I want to end all of it.
Why All of It
Every time the city cuts a special deal for one company, it’s using your money to fund special interests. The small businesses that have been here for years don’t get those deals. They pay full price and then help cover the discount for someone else. That isn’t free enterprise. It’s the political insiders playing favorites, picking who wins and who loses.
And it’s not just one kind of handout. It’s tax breaks, cash grants, giveaways of public land, utility fees that never get collected, and money for projects that should pay for themselves. If I only went after one kind, the rest would keep growing.
How the Mayor and City Council Do It
Jacksonville has a whole menu of ways to hand your money to special interests.
- Property tax rebates (“REV grants”). The City gives developers back a share of the new property taxes their project owes, as much as 75% for up to 20 years. Shad Khan’s Four Seasons project at the Shipyards gets about $64.7 million back this way, after the City added $6 million more in late 2025.
- Cash “completion grants.” Straight checks from the City’s general fund, the same fund that pays for police, fire, parks, and libraries. The Four Seasons hotel got $25.8 million. Downtown projects in the pipeline could ask for between $145 million and $225 million more.
- Cash to recruit, keep, or grow businesses. Retention grants, job grants, a “closing fund,” and the City’s local match for state incentives. Recent deals include about $12 million to keep Winn-Dixie jobs and about $12 million for Johnson & Johnson Vision. In May 2026, City Council also endorsed $35 million in cash grants to bring the Culinary Institute of America to the Downtown riverfront, with $8 million of it coming out of the community benefits money from the Jaguars stadium deal. That deal isn’t final yet.
- Forgivable loans. Loans the City may never collect. Two Downtown historic building projects are in line for $3.5 million.
- Free public land. The City gave away 4.77 acres of the Shipyards, valued at $12.45 million, for the Four Seasons project.
- Taxpayer-funded infrastructure for private projects. In that same deal, taxpayers cover about $24 million to move a fire station and the Fire Museum and build marina facilities, plus $6.2 million to relocate Kids Kampus. All told, the Four Seasons package comes to about $134 million in public money.
- Stadium subsidies. $775 million in City money for the Jaguars stadium renovation.
- Rent and retail subsidies. Downtown retail grants, property tax rebates tied to leases, and sale-leaseback deals where the City takes on the lease.
- Diverted property taxes. In the City’s redevelopment districts (CRAs), growth in property tax money is held back from the general fund and used for things like developer rebates and retail grants.
- Film rebates. Cash back on what production companies spend here.
- JEA fees that big customers never paid. When large commercial customers grow and use more water, they’re supposed to pay JEA capacity fees for it. For years, JEA didn’t collect them. The City Council Auditor estimates about $55 million went uncollected, and Mayo Clinic alone may owe as much as $18.9 million. Meanwhile, families pay every fee on their bills.
Where That Money Will Go Instead
First, it will cover the property tax. I support getting rid of the City’s property tax, and I’m not going to do it by gutting public services. The money we stop handing to the politically connected is how we’ll make up the difference.
Second, it will go toward what actually brings business and jobs here. Companies want to be in a city that’s clean, safe, and has roads and drainage that work. People want to live there too. That’s how you grow a city. You don’t buy a company’s loyalty with a check. You build a place worth coming to.
I’ve Done This Before
Before I ran for mayor, I worked alongside folks here in Jacksonville to end corporate welfare across Florida, and we won. Twice.
First, the film subsidies. For years, Florida handed out tax credits to movie and TV productions. We pushed lawmakers not to renew them, and in 2016 the program expired.
Then, Enterprise Florida. It was the state’s taxpayer-backed agency for luring companies with incentives. In 2023, Florida shut it down and repealed a batch of incentive programs along with it.
People warned that businesses would leave. They didn’t. CNBC has ranked Florida’s economy the strongest in the nation three years running. Florida is doing great after kicking corporate welfare to the curb. Jacksonville will too.
What I’ll Do as Mayor
- End all corporate welfare in Jacksonville, of every kind.
- Make JEA collect what big customers owe, and close the gaps that let them skip fees regular families pay.
- Use the savings to replace lost property tax revenue, so getting rid of the City’s property tax doesn’t cost us our public services.
- Put the rest into a clean, safe city with good infrastructure, the things that actually bring in business and jobs.
City government should stay in its lane and work for every Jaxon, not the special interests and the well-connected.
Sources: City of Jacksonville Public Investment Policy; Jax Today, Four Seasons incentives (Nov. 2025); Jax Daily Record, added $6 million; Jax Daily Record, completion grants; Jax Today, incentives outlook; First Coast News, Winn-Dixie; Jax Today, Culinary Institute; News4JAX, Culinary Institute vote; News4JAX, stadium agreement; Jax Today, CRAs; Jax Today, JEA uncollected fees; News4JAX, Inspector General on JEA; WLRN, Florida film incentives; Office of the Governor, Enterprise Florida; The Capitolist, CNBC state economy ranking.
