TAMPA, Fla. — After years in the making, the Tampa City Council’s Racial Reconciliation Committee will be dissolved.
On Thursday Oct. 9, 2025, the city council unanimously voted to terminate the committee.
After less than a year of work, Tampa’s Racial Reconciliation Committee has been stopped.
“I am very angry, I’m very frustrated to the fact that is no longer continuing,” said Daryl Hych, former member of the Racial Reconciliation Committee.
Daryl Hych was one of the 13 members on the committee. They were working on recommendations to give to the city on issues surrounding housing, economic development, entrepreneurship and recidivism. Dr. Jeffery Johnson was also on the committee.
“To look at what is the problem when it comes to economic development? What’s the problem when it comes to affordable housing? Identify those needs, address those issues, and make the necessary changes through the city government and administration,” said Dr. Jeffery Johnson, former committee member.
In September, the city’s attorney, Andrea Zelmam, sent a memo to the city council recommending that the racial reconciliation committee be eliminated. In the memo, Zelman said one of President Trump’s executive orders requires federal funding recipients to not have programs that discriminate on race or gender.
“We understand we have to follow federal regulations. But now, in our mind, we’re saying, ‘Is the city of Tampa still going to address the hurt, the plight, the disenfranchisement that people of color have experienced for so many years?’,” said Johnson.
The committee was supposed to turn in its recommendations to the city in June, but ultimately asked the city for more time and support. The city had said it provided all resources that were requested.
“It wasn’t just about this 13-body board. It wasn’t just about this short period of time. It was about a lifetime of wrongs that we are committed to making sure that we bring a right to these wrongs,” Hych said.
Now, both members say the committee will continue its work of making recommendations to the city.
The committee was formed more than three years after the city council passed Resolution 568.
That resolution addressed the injustices experienced by African American residents.
Tyler O’Neill
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