The Political Whore

Readers of Creative Loafing will recall the stories we’ve done about St. Petersburg City Councilman Karl Nurse, who is a progressive and advocate for all things green.

Now some in the green-environmental movement are upset with Nurse’s vote to allow an annexation of a handful of properties in Tierra Verde into the city (we wrote about it in “Colonial St. Pete”), a move that enables the landowners to build higher-density condos and one that is opposed by locals already living on the island:

“It’s a sad day for the Sierra Club when a member of the Suncaost Sierra Club, who was also a force behind the Living Green Expo would move to this blasphemous annexation vote WHICH WILL ALLOW INCREASED DENSITY on a barrier island for developers who are KNOWN to care less about environmental issues,” wrote activist Lorraine Morgenson in an e-mail blast sent to local leaders and other activists after Friday’s vote. “Mr. Nurse, as far as I am concerned you are no longer green except when it comes to money.”

Nurse fired back with his own e-mail that listed eight environmental issues he has worked on as a council member, including a project to eliminate methane gas from being a by-product of sewage treatment and lobbying Progress Energy to make their rebates for energy efficiency easier for lower income families.

The list wasn’t enough to appease some activists.

“All well and good, Karl,” responded Jan Allyn. “But WHY IN THE WORLD did you vote for the TV annexation? Just about no one, other than the developers who want to put some more condos out there, thought it was a good idea. And costly litigation is certain to result.”

The Times story didn’t give Nurse’s rationale for approving the voluntary annexation, so I thought I would give him a call to find out. (Disclosure: I ran Nurse’s 2001 mayoral bid in St. Pete back when I was a political consultant.)

“I understand why wealthy areas like that don’t want to be annexed,” he said. “But we are only annexing properties that wanted to be annexed. It’s the industrial and business property that generate the money.”

As an example, he told of writing checks for property taxes for his south St. Petersburg home and his business, Bay Tech Label. The business taxes were 45 times larger.

“Our long-term prospects for money with Amendment 1 [and its tax caps] were not great, and I’ve got 1,000 things that I want done in my community,” he added in rationalizing the need for the more lucrative commercial property inside city limits.

“In a perfect world, you wouldn’t build anything on the beaches,” he continued. “One of the ironies is in the county [where the Tierra Verde properties that were annexed lay until now] they could build a 15-story hotel, but in the city they could build a condo instead. Living next to a condo is less intrusive than a hotel. I thought a hotel was a worse option.”

As for how his supporters are reacting, Nurse said, “I’m catching some flak for it.”

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