Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 18, 2009, at 6:24 am
As part of our upcoming Summer Guide issue (on newsstands throughout Tampa Bay on Wednesday), we asked a lot of people in Tampa Bay about their vacation plans and memories. I’m going to run the political vacation videos here on PoHo, starting with St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker, who said:
I go to a place that’s kind of like a summer camp for families (in North Carolina). Every night they have either square dancing or some sort of music or karaoke in the big pavilion. For me, the cell phones don’t work, and I like that.
See the full video of Baker talking about how he rolls on vacation after the jump.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 13, 2009, at 2:17 pm
From the recent Florida Humanities Council “A Tale of Two Cities” forum featuring Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker, here are the two mayors answering the question: Who is your favorite mayor from your city’s past?
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 7, 2009, at 12:04 pm
They are an unlikely pair: She’s a lifelong Democrat, and he’s a conservative Republican. Their cities are known for decades of feuding and rivalries, a history that seems remote in these days of regionalism. But Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker both share a passion for history; Iorio was a history major at USF and earned her master’s in the subject, while Baker has written his own history of St. Petersburg.
In “A Tale of Two Cities,” a forum held last night at the historic Centro Asturiano building between downtown Tampa and Ybor City, Baker and Iorio showed off their historian chops in front of a crowd of a few hundred people. USF historians Gary Mormino and Ray Arsenault moderated.
I was asked to join La Gaceta publisher Patrick Manteiga and St. Petersburg Times columnist Ernest Hooper in questioning the two mayors on historical matters, and I asked both: What one historical building that no longer exists in your city would you like to have back, and why?
Their answers, and pictures of those two buildings, after the jump:
The last two months have been rather gloomy times for term-limited St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker. First, it was the news that Alex Sink would not run for the U.S Senate, thereby keeping the CFO position to herself. Then it was Bill McCollum passing on a senate bid to stay on as Attorney General. All the while, every city council member since Connie Kone served popped-in to City Hall to measure the drapes in your office.
For Hizzoner, it’s like what any bartender will tell you at closing time, ‘You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.’ Fortunately for Baker, Charlie Crist may be ready to throw him an after-party. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Feb. 6, 2009, at 12:03 pm
The story just breaking today is hung on a pretty thin thread: the fact that St. Pete Mayor Rick Baker told reporter Cristina Silva that “I’m not taking anything off the table.”
What politician doesn’t say that?
The Times‘ blog post starts out:
Mayor Rick Baker said he hasn’t ruled out a potential Senate run.
“I’m not taking anything off the table,” he said when asked whether he would go after the seat being vacated by Republican Mel Martinez.
Baker said that while other Republican politicians are waiting to see whether Gov. Charlie Crist gets in the race, he has other considerations to weigh. “I’m primarily focused on doing my job,” he said. “I don’t want to get distracted.”
UPDATE: By afternoon, the Times was retracting its take on Baker’s plans and Baker was emphatic that he is not considering a run:
The bottom line is he doesn’t have any plans at this point and, unlike Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, is not actively mulling a statewide campaign. He’s not calling money raisers, political pros or anything else.
“I’m not seriously considering it. I’m not ruling it out, but I’m not reviewing it or any of that. From what I’ve read in the paper, mine is a different category from Pam. It sounds like she’s actively reviewing it,” said Baker, who also once again dismissed the possibility of running for Congress if C.W. Bill Young retires because it would require too much time away from his kids, ages 12 and 13. (Presumably a senate seat would too.)
Asked about a gubernatorial run should Charlie Crist jump to the senate, Baker implied that would be more appealing to him, noting that he tends to prefer administrative jobs.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Feb. 3, 2009, at 7:25 am
Pinellas County commissioner let supporters know via e-mail late last night that he has decided against a campaign to succeed Mayor Rick Baker in St. Pete. He let his Facebook friends know, as well, changing his status late yesterday to “Ken Welch is remaining on the County Commission, and looking forward to the challenges ahead…8 hours ago.”
The field now seems set, and the major players are real-estate broker and philanthropist Scott Wagman, City Councilman Jamie Bennett, Amscot Veep and St. Pete College trustees Chairman Deveron Gibbons and former City Council members Bill Foster and Kathleen Ford.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jan. 16, 2009, at 2:00 pm
Baker w/out the stache
Peter Schorsch is a political consultant and writes St. Petersblog 2.0. He joins PoHo as a regular contributor with this post:
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Rick Baker and what he will do after his term in office runs out in 2009. I have to admit he’s done an admirable job as the first real strong mayor, presiding over a prosperous, progressive period in St. Petersburg’s history. I don’t know if that translates into a statewide position but there is one way he could instantly improve his chances if he decides to run for Chief Financial Officer: SHAVE THE ‘STACHE!
Far be it for me to criticize someone else’s looks, but I strongly believe people hesitate voting for politicians with mustaches. I remember working with a client running for judge who had all the advantages in the world, save one: he had a porn mustache straight out of 1977. I begged him to shave that beaver off his face but he just wouldn’t part with it. I even went so far as to Photoshop a picture of him, demonstrating how youthful he looked without his beloved ’stache. It was no use. He went on to lose that race (and a few more after that).
That’s why if hizzoner is serious about running statewide, he’s gonna have pull out the Mach 3. In fact, by just doing some cursory research, I’m hard-pressed to find a politician with a mustache who has won statewide.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jan. 14, 2009, at 2:21 pm
He’s certainly out and running hard, as I detail in my story for the print edition of CL this week. It starts:
The 60 or so people who gathered at the Piccadilly Cafeteria on a recent Wednesday night represent one progressive wing of the Democratic Party in St. Petersburg. This is a solidly working-class gang. The conversations are intense. The personalities are unique. The 10-oz. Angus chopped steak dinner is $8.49.
That is to say that the St. Petersburg Democratic Club and its meeting location on 34th Street N. are perfectly representative of vast swaths of the city, of the fed-up residents who are not part of the downtown condo boom or the funky bohemian art scene or the Chamber of Commerce: antiestablishment retirees, outspoken activists and others devoted to their take-no-prisoners vision of how the city could be better. Not exactly a gathering of the Mayor Rick Baker fan club.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 12, 2008, at 1:07 pm
Courtesy of the funny-as-hell snarksters at St. Petersblog, this is one scary-as-shit mash-up:
Do me a solid and click on the picture and go to their website and give them a page view, since I normally dislike linking to others’ images without them getting some benefit.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Apr. 25, 2008, at 10:18 am
Watch out Mayor Baker! Longtime neighborhood activist and Baker foil Karl Nurse was named to a vacant seat on the St. Petersburg City Council last night, likely further frustrating Rick Baker’s former hold on that body. He replaces Earnest Williams, who owed his last re-election to the Baker machine’s work behind the scenes.
CL’s Alex Pickett spoke with Nurse back in September 2007, in which he was (rightly) critical of the inattention to the crisis within the police department:
I’ve worked a lot on crime issues over the last 10 years, and I really cannot make any progress in the police department. And that’s heading for a train wreck.
About 60 percent of the officers are less than five years from retiring and then we have a huge bubble of almost 30 percent that have less than two years [experience]. We’re bringing on officers, but we keep losing them. The leadership is really in denial, and they don’t want to face it. It’s the single most frustrating issue that I’ve worked on.
I am dead certain that we are on a terrible path with what we’re doing with our police department and no matter how far they stick their head in the sand, it’s not going to change it. The earlier we deal with it, the better off we’ll be. And their strategy today is simply: ‘We are not going to deal with it. The police chief will be retired; the mayor will be gone, and when the police department collapses, it will be under someone else’s watch.’
This appointment has lots of civic activists ecstatic, including those fighting against a Tampa Bay Rays plan to get the taxpayers to finance a new $450 million waterfront ballpark.
Full disclaimer: as a political consultant, I worked for Karl Nurse’s mayor campaign against Baker in 2001.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Dec. 5, 2007, at 11:01 am
Aaron Sharockman of the Times is doing a good job on digging out new angles on the Rays waterfront stadium plan, and today he nails down Mayor Rick Baker’s stance on the matter: one of public fence-sitting. Sharockman writes:
Baker’s silence on the Rays stands in stark contrast to his penchant for supporting city economic development projects during his six years in office.
On Tuesday, in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, Baker said not to anticipate his decision on the project anytime soon.
“Ultimately the Rays really need to convince the community,” Baker said. “They can convince me and the City Council, and maybe we’ll all love it. But if they don’t convince the community, it’s not going anywhere.”
As I wrote previously, there is now way a plan this large gets this far down the road without early and frequent nods of approval from the mayor, who has a large reserve of political capital to spend if he so chooses. He doesn’t often choose to spend it on tough items (like addressing and fixing the St Pete Police Dept and the city’s crime problems).
But Baker is a smart politician; he knows that if he comes out right away pimping for the Rays, he risks polarizing the situation further. This way, he appears neutral and needing to be convinced, an advocate for his citizenry. I’m sure, to some degree, he does still need to be convinced. But does anybody really believe that Mayor Rick doesn’t really want a brand, new shiny sailboat waterfront ballpark and the chance to dish off, errrr, bid out some prime real estate underneath the Trop to powerful patrons such as, say, the Semblers?
Watch out Mayor Baker! Longtime neighborhood activist and 
