St. Pete City Council Denies $50K Grant To Tampa Bay Abortion Fund

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — St. Petersburg City Council rejected a $50,000 grant to the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund in a 6-2 vote at Thursday’s meeting.

The council’s Health, Energy, Resilience and Sustainability Committee advanced the grant for “practical services,” such as travel expenses for those seeking abortions out of state at a February meeting. The committee’s approval moved it before the full council for a vote.

Councilmembers Deborah Figgs-Saunders and Richie Floyd, who introduced the resolution, were the two councilors to vote in favor of the grant, Fox 13 reported.

The council’s denial of the grant followed a Florida Senate vote last week to pass a bill that would ban abortions after six weeks. Currently, the state prohibits abortions after 15 weeks.

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Last year, the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund spent about $280,000 to assist those seeking an abortion in the Tampa Bay area last year, the organization told the committee in February.

Of these funds, $220,000 was used for appointment costs — the abortion care, itself, and other care, like birth control — while about $60,000 was spent on travel-related expenses.

About 90 percent of funding requests for out-of-state care came after July when Florida’s new 15-week abortion ban went into effect.

“We do expect that to get worse with the legal landscape that is coming,” Kris Lawler, the organization’s president, said.

In a letter to Mayor Ken Welch last month, two Republican state representatives from the Tampa Bay area, Mike Beltran (District 70) and Berny Jacques (District 59), already threatened to vote against any budget item that included funding for St. Petersburg.

Jacques, who spoke during a protest held by Florida Preborn Rescue before Thursday’s council meeting, reportedly said, “"The protection of the unborn will always be my business no matter where it’s happening. Secondly, a violation of state law will always be my problem."

During the meeting, several city councilmembers expressed concerns about further repercussions from the state if the grant were approved, from legal issues to the potential removal of councilmembers from office, according to WUSF.

City Council Chair Brandi Gabbard said the letter from Beltran and Jacques “feels a little bit like blackmail.”

Still, she voted against the TBAF grant, saying, “The conversations were very clear to me that there will be punitive issues that will come down if we approve $50,000. It is going to happen. Disney's living through punitive leadership. Andrew Warren's living through punitive leadership. We saw Nikki Fried and Lauren Book get arrested early this week. And personally, I've got a lot of work to do for this city.”

Floyd stood firm in his support of granting the funds to TBAF, despite the scare tactics from state leaders, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

“I will not compromise on my values,” he said. “I will not cede an inch of ground to authoritarians seeking to silence dissent and erode our rights.”

After the meeting, he tweeted, “My colleagues on council openly talk about being removed from office for doing something that (Gov. Ron DeSantis) doesn't like. Authoritarianism? End of democracy? This is where we're at.”