Tampa City Charter History — Tampa, Florida

Tampa's first local government was a village. The Incorporation History compiled for the City of Tampa Archives records that on January 18, 1849, 14 men voted unanimously to establish Tampa Village with a trustee form of government, and that on January 25, 1849 the village elected five trustees, with M.G. Sikes elected president. The settlement had grown up beside Fort Brooke, the Army post placed on Tampa Bay in 1824.

The village did not last. On October 10, 1852, citizens voted to abolish the village government, and on September 10, 1853 they organized again as the Town of Tampa with a Board of Trustee form of government. Two years later, on September 15, 1855, Tampa citizens voted to abolish the town government and establish a City Charter. The Florida Legislature acted that winter: on December 15, 1855, Governor Broome signed a Special Act granting a charter for the City of Tampa.

That 1855 act created the legislative body that still meets as Tampa City Council. The City Clerk's list of previous Council members states that the Council was originally created in the City Charter granted by the 1855 Special Act and that the body has held other names over the years, including Board of Representatives and City Aldermen. The city's official flag, adopted in 1930, still carries a seal commemorating the official birth of the City of Tampa in 1855.

Twice in its first quarter century the charter stopped functioning. The archive page on Tampa's Civil War years explains that Confederate troops occupied Fort Brooke, that the mayor resigned and left in May 1861, and that martial law declared in January 1862 made the municipal government moot. The Incorporation History dates the formal end to February 22, 1862, when the City Government was suspended by Confederate Military Authorities. From February 1862 through April 1865, the Confederate military and Hillsborough County assumed municipal activities.

Tampa was reorganized by elections held under Florida State Legislature direction on October 25, 1866. It lapsed again three years later. On March 11, 1869, Tampa voters backed the No Corporation People's Ticket, which disenfranchised the city government. The list of previous Tampa City Clerks marks the resulting gap as City Charter Lapsed, from March 1, 1869 to August 11, 1873, and the earlier one as Government Suspended by Military, from February 22, 1862 to October 25, 1866.

Government returned in steps. On August 11, 1873, citizens held a town meeting and voted to re-incorporate as the Town of Tampa. According to the archive biography of James Edgar Lipscomb, chosen mayor at that meeting, the Town of Tampa existed until the Florida Legislature granted Tampa its second City Charter in 1887.

The 1887 charter merged two governments. The Incorporation History states that on July 15, 1887, the City of Tampa organized under a special act of the Florida Legislature that abolished the governments of the Town of Tampa and the Town of North Tampa and established the charter for the City of Tampa. North Tampa lay across the Hillsborough River, where a railroad hotel was being planned.

The archive biography of Herman Glogowski, Tampa's mayor at the time, describes how the merger came about. On February 3, 1887, Glogowski and the City Council met Colonel James E. Ingraham of the South Florida Railroad Company about a bridge across the Hillsborough River and a hotel on the opposite bank, a proposal approved by the North Tampa town council. Glogowski then led Council members and Tampa residents in lobbying the Florida Legislature for city incorporation, which the biography describes as essential to obtain funds for water and sewage systems, police and fire departments and other public works.

The Clerk's list of previous Tampa mayors shows the change on the calendar: Glogowski's town term ends on July 15, 1887, and George Bascom Sparkman's term under the new city charter runs from July 15, 1887 to March 8, 1888. For the next two decades Tampa mayors served one-year and then two-year terms beginning each March or June.

In 1920 supporters of a commission-manager system argued it would let Tampa run its affairs in a more business-like way. The archive biography of Charles H. Brown states that the City of Tampa's Charter was revised to adopt this form of government, which elected a mayor and four commissioners who in turn appointed a City Manager, and that the mayor essentially became a figurehead while the City Manager was the administrative head. The Horace Gordon biography adds that the mayor-commissioner system went into effect in January 1921, cutting Gordon's own term to seven months.

The experiment lasted less than a decade. According to the D.B. McKay biography, in 1927 Tampa voters approved a new City Charter that brought back the mayor-city council form, and McKay, who had disliked the commission arrangement, won a four-year term under it. The flag record shows the legislative body was then called the Board of Representatives, which adopted the city flag on July 1, 1930.

Mayoral power grew after World War II. The Curtis Hixon biography records that in 1949 the City of Tampa's charter was revised to expand the mayor's duties and administrative powers to include budget preparation and the negotiation of sewer, water, seawall and other city contracts. Today the City of Tampa describes the City Council as the legislative branch operating in accordance with the 1974 Revised Charter, enacting ordinances and resolutions that the mayor administers as chief executive officer.

The 1974 Revised Charter is reviewed on a fixed cycle. The City of Tampa's Charter Review Advisory Commission page describes the charter as Tampa's constitution, defining the powers and duties of the Mayor and City Council, how elections are conducted and how departments are structured, and states that the City Charter requires review every eight years. The commission is a board of appointed citizens who review the charter and recommend changes, and any recommended changes must be placed on the ballot by ordinance and approved by Tampa voters before they take effect.

The previous cycle produced a large package. Council member Lynn Hurtak's City of Tampa biography states that she was a member of the Charter Review Commission which resulted in 18 amendments to Tampa's city charter being approved by voters in the 2019 municipal election.

The 2026 Tampa commission met on Tuesday evenings from January 20 to September 1, 2026, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the Sister Cities Room of Old City Hall, with 15 minutes of in-person public comment at the start of each meeting and an online comment option. Each of the seven Council members appointed one member, and Mayor Jane Castor appointed Kathleen Shanahan and Ron Christaldi. The commission formally concluded on September 1, 2026, and its final report is posted on the city site alongside Resolution No. 2025-1044 and Ordinance No. 2025-98. Any amendments drawn from it still need a Council ordinance and a vote of Tampa electors. Last verified: October 8, 2026, on the City of Tampa website.