In March 2024 I lost my seat on the Clearwater City Council by a razor-thin margin. A few hundred votes. I congratulated my opponent, I packed up my office, and I went home.
I thought the worst-case scenario was that some of the work I cared about would slow down. I did not imagine that within a year of my leaving, the council would sit in a public meeting and vote the way Scientology wanted them to vote. But that is what happened. The Underground Bunker has it on the record. You can read the whole thing there.
I am not running because I am angry about losing. I am running because I have watched what happens when no one on the dais is willing to say the quiet part out loud. It turns out the quiet part was the only thing keeping this city from slipping entirely into David Miscavige's pocket.
What the loss actually cost
When I was on the council, Scientology could not get an easy vote on anything that mattered. Not because I was a majority of one — I was always only one vote. But because I was willing to ask the uncomfortable question, out loud, in public, with a microphone on. The record of every vote would include the question. Reporters would cover the question. Members of the church would have to answer for the question.
A single voice, in public, with a microphone, can turn a routine land-use vote into a news story. That is what I did for four years. That is what the voters of Clearwater hired me to do. And the day I left the council, the news stories stopped.
Mark Bunker remains the only politician in the City of Clearwater or Pinellas County not in fear of scientology. — Mike Rinder, September 30, 2023
Mike Rinder wrote that before I lost. It did not stop being true after. It just stopped being a thing the other officials in this county had to think about.
What we did build
Scientology was never my only focus on the council. I rewrote city code to allow Accessory Dwelling Units — tiny homes, garage apartments, granny flats — because the cost of housing in Clearwater is real and it is not going away. I was the first member of this council to call for body cameras on Clearwater police. I pushed for the North Greenwood Community Redevelopment Area. I kept affordable housing projects on track through COVID. I voted to shut down two water treatment plants that would have been underwater in a Category 5 storm, and I voted to move that treatment to higher ground.
These were not Scientology votes. They were Clearwater votes. They are the reason I got elected in 2020 in the first place — because the job was always bigger than one organization, and the people of this city deserved someone who would do all of it.
Why Seat 5, why now
Election day is August 18, 2026. Seat 5 is the seat on this ballot. The thirty-year conflict between the Church of Scientology and the people of Clearwater is still playing out, every week, in ways most of the rest of the country does not see. It is playing out in land-use decisions. It is playing out in parks. It is playing out in downtown storefronts that used to belong to this city and do not anymore.
I am the only candidate in this race who has spent thirty years reporting on this organization. I am the only candidate who has held the seat before and done the work. I am the only candidate Mike Rinder and Leah Remini and Tony Ortega have been willing to stand behind publicly. That is not a resume line. That is a warning, from the people who know this story better than anyone, that nobody else in this race is ready to do this job.
Clearwater is still a beautiful city. Downtown is coming back. The Sound amphitheater at Coachman Park is full every weekend. Four hundred new apartments are going up. We have momentum. I am asking for four more years to finish the work, protect what we have built, and refuse to hand David Miscavige another honeymoon with City Hall.
If any of that rings true, the campaign needs you. Contribute, volunteer, talk to your neighbors. We have until August 18.