Jacksonville City Council President Nick Howland hopped on a billionaire real-estate developer’s private jet this past weekend to attend a Tampa Bay Rays game at Tropicana Field, a trip that Howland, when asked by the Florida Trib about the excursion, said was connected to his political committee.

Howland joined Patrick Zalupski, the founder and chief executive officer of Jacksonville-based Dream Finders Homes, on his plane for the game, along with others. A person spotted Howland at the private terminal where Zalupski’s Gulfstream G280 took off.

Zalupski, also appointed to the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees by Governor Ron DeSantis, bought the professional baseball team based in St. Petersburg last year and recently secured an agreement to build a new stadium in Tampa. 

Zalupski and his company employ several lobbyists registered with Jacksonville City Hall. He was also an advocate for City Hall’s financial investment in a planned UF graduate campus in downtown, to which city officials committed millions of dollars worth of public land and $100 million in direct support. 

According to publicly available flight data, Zalupski’s corporate jet took off from Jacksonville International Airport Sunday morning, spent 40 minutes in the air, and landed at St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport. The jet, registered to a company connected to Dream Finders Homes, returned to Jacksonville later that evening.

Howland told the Trib that he attended the game “to help raise funds for my political committee, Florida Freedom PAC.” He declined to share more specifics about the fundraiser but repeated that “it will all be disclosed in the committee’s finance reports as required by Florida law.”

It’s unclear why Howland decided to hold a fundraiser hours south of Jacksonville.

Howland, and other elected officials in Florida, are prohibited from accepting gifts valued at more than $100 from lobbyists or their employers. 

Florida’s lax campaign finance laws allow elected officials to use their political committees – which can receive donations in unlimited amounts – to pay for junkets as long as they are connected to some kind of campaign activity, like a fundraiser. In such a case, elected officials can price the seat on a private plane as an economy-class seat on a commercial airline, effectively discounting such trips by thousands of dollars.

Zalupski himself has two lobbyists registered with the City of Jacksonville, while Dream Finders Homes has employed six lobbyists with different firms registered with the city, including former Mayor Lenny Curry, who was also in St. Pete for the game, according to his social media posts, and Curry’s former chief of staff, Jordan Elsbury. 

Controversy around travel has been a recurring theme for years in Jacksonville politics.

When mayor, Curry often financed his travel with his standing political action committee, partially funded by the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Gifts given directly to the elected official have to be disclosed, but no gift disclosure is required if given to a committee associated with the official. Any reimbursements for travel would show up in the committee’s expense reports.

Zalupski did not return multiple requests for comment.

Matt Schellenberg, a former Jacksonville City Council member, said he wouldn’t have taken a private plane during his elected official days but would have instead traveled the nearly four-hour trip by car.

“He’s supposed to be a leader,” he said of Howland. “We’re in a political environment where everything is suspicious, and this, in my opinion, looks very suspicious that he didn’t do it in the open.”

Using his political committee to pay for the excursion with Zalupski “actually sounds worse” than just paying out of pocket, the former council member told the Trib.

“What you’re going to have to do is get better council people. Period. I don’t think the law will change what people do behind the scenes,” Schellenberg said. “You have to depend on elected officials to be as transparent as they can be. No law is going to change that.”

Molly Farrar is a Report for America corps member and The Florida Trib’s Jacksonville municipal watchdog reporter. She can be reached at molly.farrar@floridatrib.org.