Bill Foster wasted no time in getting the Times recommendation on his website

The drumbeat that the St. Petersburg Times was considering an endorsement (errr, recommendation, as the Times will always let a candidate know its preferred term) of Bill Foster. On its surface, it seems ludicrous. After all, Foster is the same guy who wrote to the school board a few years back making a strong pitch against teaching Darwinian evolution alone in public schools, hoping it would mix in a bit of “intelligent design.”

But the lack of an emerging alternative to Foster left the Times in the inexplicable position of endorsing an anti-gay rights, anti-evolution mayor of St. Petersburg. More to the point, however, the editorial board chooses a candidate based on who will play ball with it. Which candidate will kiss the ring over on 1st Avenue S? That’s what gets you the recommendation. Disagree with the Times on a core concern at the paper — say, firing Police Chief Chuck Harmon, as Scott Wagman as vowed to do — and you are at a disadvantage, to say the least.

It is OK to disagree with the Times on social conservative issues, as long as you play your cards right, promise not to let those views play out in public policy at City Hall and generally keep your wingy-ness in the closet. After all, the Times’ former editorial chief, Phil Gailey, was totally tight with Rick Baker, who was also a social conservative who refused to recognize gay pride parades or appear in them.

From its recommendation today:

As mayor, Foster would offer comforting continuity. He recognizes Baker’s considerable efforts to improve public education and pledges to continue them. He would maintain the conservative approach to building city budgets, offering neither wild new spending plans nor drastic cutbacks but a methodical effort to make government more efficient. He has been measured and responsible on the campaign trail, avoiding the rashness of other candidates who have called for the quick removal of the police chief, the hiring of dozens of new police officers and the spending of city reserves on recurring expenses that would risk St. Petersburg’s fiscal stability.

Yet Foster would chart his own course as mayor. He recognizes there is the public perception, at least, that police do not go after drugs and nonviolent crimes in Midtown as aggressively as they would in more affluent neighborhoods. He calls for the police to pay more attention to drugs, prostitution and burglary. He would shift police resources to where they are most needed, seek a gradual return to community policing, stress crime prevention and give Chief Chuck Harmon an opportunity to embrace his priorities.

As for Foster’s right-wing bent? The Times explains it away:

At times, Foster has spoken in haste and escalated the rhetoric rather than cooling passions. We also have disagreed with his conservative social views, including those in his intemperate letter to the School Board last year promoting creationism. Those views have little to do with being mayor. Foster makes a convincing argument that he recognizes the weight his words and tone would carry if he is elected, and his campaign reflects that maturity. He has articulated a reassuring commitment to civil liberties and constitutional rights, and that would be the yard stick to measure his performance.

Next, Scott Wagman’s from last week:

Finally, Deveron Gibbons in “He Knows This City:”

Join me and other CL writers tonight starting just before 7 pm here as we live blog the Bay News 9/St. Petersburg Times mayoral forum from the Palladium Theater in downtown. i love the title: “Conversation with the Candidates.” I seriously doubt it will be anything that approximates a real conversation.

Watch along on Bay News 9 and throw in your comments, as well. It runs from 7-8:30 pm.

We’ll be providing live fact-checks, analysis and satirical snide comments in the comment section below.

This week’s column from the print edition of Creative Loafing:

About 500-600 people are voting for a new mayor of St. Petersburg every day now, part of what has become a vote-by-mail system of absentee voting in Florida. Nearly 60,000 city residents have requested an absentee ballot, almost 40 percent of the registered voters.

That’s a big number. So why do I hear so many complaints about the 2009 race to succeed Mayor Rick Baker being a real snoozer? Polling earlier in the month showed that 61 percent of the voters didn’t have a preference among the 10 candidates running. And although nearly 7,000 people had voted by the end of last week, there is very little visible to any of the campaigns, beyond the ubiquitous yard signs. It’s impossible to time the peak of your political campaign when Election Day lasts 45 days, and no candidate has enough money to run a full-bore mass media campaign for that long.

Take the latest mayoral forum, held by St. Pete Preservation last week in front of about 100 good folks at Studio@620. I popped in to shoot a few photos and perhaps hear their stump speeches, but after almost an hour the crowd had heard only from preservationists, who got five minutes apiece to school nine candidates on why historic preservation is important. Even the hometown St. Petersburg Times didn’t staff the preservation forum. When the candidates did begin to talk, there wasn’t much separation.

How can something be anticlimactic before it’s even over?

Here are the reasons why this year’s city election is having a hard time connecting with voters:

There’s no Barack Obama running: To be sure, the field of mayoral candidates is way short on charisma and visionary dreaming. Voters (and news reporters) are a little spoiled after 2008’s rock-star-fest of an election with Obama and his adoring crowds and big ideas and cool-as-shit posters. You get no such electricity from this bunch. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t at least five or six of these candidates who could actually administer the day-to-day operations of the city, who have the political and/or administrative chops regardless of what you think of their ideologies or priorities (Kathleen Ford, Scott Wagman, Larry Williams, Bill Foster, Jamie Bennett and, perhaps, Deveron Gibbons). Ford’s trying hard not to seem bitchy; Wagman’s digital persistence and sense of humor misconnects and earned him the name “douche” in the Splog blog; Gibbons hides out from mainstream media interviews, waiting for his expected TV campaign to kick in;  Foster and Williams are low-key City Hall insiders who speak the language of bureaucracy; and Bennett, given no chance to win after his Peter Schorsch-fueled meltdown (see below)

The field is too big for its own good: As a former political consultant, I can tell you that a field this big (10 total candidates, seven of which are serious contenders) creates a dynamic where nobody wants to criticize or take on their opponents and their ideas or records because they may need that opponent in the runoff election. On Sept. 1, the two top finishers go on to a Nov. 3 final contest. I always advised my clients in such a situation that they wanted to be the No. 2 choice of every one of their opponents, so suck up and be nice to them. And that is exactly what we are seeing, the politics of chummy and nice, for the most part. That all changes on Sept. 2, but for now, snoozerama.

It is a tough campaign for journlists and bloggers to cover: Ahh, the good old days of St. Petersburg politics, when the two major political powers (The Shore Acres-Snell Isle-downtown business-north of Central crowd joined with Midtown voters to take on the populist West St. Petersburg faction). Each side would anoint a champion and the battle was engaged. Black hat vs. white hat. Monied interests vs. anti-tax neighborhoods. That all changed in 2001, with the election of Mayor Rick Baker, who blew away the usual Central Avenue dividing line of St. Petersburg politics. Today’s modern St. Pete politics are very complex, with new players on the scene, empowered neighborhood associations and more players of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Party affiliation plays a bigger role, too, even though it is a nonpartisan race. It’s not just five or six white guys in dark suits who control the city, as a recent Times column pined for. It’s no excuse for shallow reporting, though.

News coverage has been picayune: The Times has written stories about the following missteps/flubs/nonevents: Bill Foster flipped hamburgers with city cops who may or may not have been on duty, possibily violating laws against campaigning at work; Scott Wagman may or may not have violated campaign disclosure laws by not putting the usual “paid political adv” verbiage on small Google Ads; fringe candidate Paul Congemi bitched out a Kentucky Fried Chicken employee so much that the cops were called;  candidate yard signs are in the right of way; and another candidate has a whole bunch of speeding tickets. It’s not that the paper hasn’t written about substantive issues. It’s just that the level of niggling and useless detail on other stories and coverage numbs readers minds.

One politico told me on background, “The coverage is just dreadful. Obvious mistakes are what gets the coverage. (And) several of the candidates are just so poorly informed that they are hard-pressed to say something.”

Peter Schorsch is a one-man election wrecking crew: Former PoHo contributing blogger Schorsch should have been nowhere near the city of St. Petersburg election. After all, his arrest a few years back on charges of ripping off some of his political consulting clients should have put the last nail in the coffin of his political work. But after a few years in the wilderness, he returned as Jamie Bennett’s campaign manager, contributing to the eventual fall of Bennett’s chances when a wide array of inappropriate city luxury box baseball ticket-giving and other unsavory ratfucking political tricks came to light when Bennett and Schorsch had a falling out. Now, Schorsch, who normally reps Democrats, has thrown his support and online poison pen to right-wing Republican Bill Foster. He pops up to question candidates at Tiger Bay Club; he files election law complaints; he snarks on his blog.

(Full Dislcosure: CL Editor David Warner’s partner, Larry Biddle, is a paid consultant to the Scott Wagman campaign. To avoid that conflict influencing our coverage, he plays no role in assigning or editing stories about the mayoral election.)

There are three other candidates whose campaigns do not appear to be on the same competitive plane as the other seven, but I wanted to give you some information about two of them so if you are a St. Petersburg voter you can be fully informed. The third minor candidate, Paul Congemi, does not appear to have a website or a serious platform to speak of.

Ed Helm is making his second attempt at the mayor’s office. He describes himself as a progressive candidate, and his website is at edhelm.com.

Richard Eldridge is a political newcomer. The 47-year-old says his military experience prepares him for service as St. Pete’s next mayor: “Having served honorably in the United States Marine Corps, I know how to lead, take risks, and make tough decisions. Some of the duties that I have had were Reconnaissance Marine, Marksmanship Instructor, Mortar Section Leader, and Physical Training Instructor.” His campaign website is at eldridge2009.com.

By Bill Stone
PoHo correspondent

As towns, cities and municipalities scramble to cut budgets, St. Petersburg continues to spend unnecessarily. For example, former Police Chief Goliath Davis makes more than $152,000 per year (just a few years ago the post paid $118,000) in his position as “Deputy Mayor of Midtown Economic Development” and continues to drive a car provided for by the city just as he did when he served as police chief.

This arrangement is troubling for several reasons. Why is Davis the only deputy mayor (there are four … and since we’re on the subject, WHY does the city require four deputy mayors?) provided a vehicle paid for by the city, and why are his auto expenses (gas, across the state and out of state expenses and more) funneled and invoiced through the police department and paid for by funds earmarked for undercover police work? Especially since First Deputy Mayor Tish Elston is on record saying Davis’ use of the vehicle has nothing to do with police functions.

Davis is the city’s top liaison to the African-American community, but his tenure has been marked by a very quiet dissent from some civic leaders who question his role and effectiveness. One mayoral candidate, Scott Wagman, has even said he likely wouldn’t keep Davis in his job, calling it a luxury the city likely can’t afford.

I inquired as to the timing of Davis’ employment since it appears he held two city positions for at least several months in 2001, a violation of city rules. According to St. Petersburg’s Personnel Management Rules and Regulations, “No City employee may engage in or have employment involving more than one full-time position of St. Petersburg.” The rules also provide that all possessions including books, records, uniforms, keys and other items should be returned to the city before departing from a position. So why did Davis not return the vehicle after his stint as chief ended?

City Clerk Cathy Davis forwarded my inquiry to Director of Human Resources Gary Cornwell. Cornwell responded with the following statement: “Davis retired as Chief of Police in October of 2001, was separated from employment, and then was re-employed as the Deputy Mayor. As such he never held more than one position at any time.”

In contrast, an inter-office memorandum from Mayor Rick Baker to City Council dated April 19, 2001, provides that Davis would begin work as deputy mayor for Midtown Economic Development on April 23, 2001 while the mayor searched for a police chief slated to assume the position later that year. Davis appears to have fulfilled dual roles, that of deputy mayor and that of chief of police, until Chuck Harmon was appointed in December of that year.

Baker and Cornwell can’t both be right. Who’s blowing smoke here?

In response to the inquiry regarding Davis’ alleged dual employment with the city, the city forwarded an e-mail citing a 1993 ruling from then Attorney General Bob Butterworth. Butterworth’s ruling addresses dual office-holding by city employees and specifically focuses on the city of Apopka regarding the merged duties of the fire chief with those of the community development director and those of the assistant city administrator with the city finance director. Nevertheless, in his sum of the ruling, Butterworth wrote, “The positions of fire chief of the city of Apopka and community development director are not legally incompatible and may be merged into one position by appropriate legislative action by the city.”

Fine. Where is St. Petersburg’s legislative action addressing such?

It’s time for a regime change, and when we meet the new boss, he/she should not be the same as the old boss.

Angela Rouson stepped into the Creative Loafing recording studio this week to discuss her campaign for St. Petersburg City Council in District 5, against fellow newcomers Steve Kornell and retired police officer Joe Smith. Yes, she’s the wife of powerhouse (and controversial) African American politician Darryl Rouson; but she came off as her own person — bright, articulate, well-informed and passionate — in her recent Suncoast Tiger Bay Club event, and she likewise was engaging in this interview.

I asked her if she felt that St. Pete cops were being “reined in” and not fighting crime to the fullest of their ability, and she said:

I’ve talked with the sheriff, Sheriff Coats, I’ve talked with Chief Harmon (and done ride-alongs with both agencies), and the general consensus is there is some of that. And there is also a lack of resources to be able to address issues, because if you are going to take down, for example, a drug house, you need more than one officer on the beat. I think they are being held back to some extent, but I think resources play into that as well.

Is there a racial political component to the police being held back?

I can’t really answer that question. But what I can say is there is no rational reason for not addressing the crime. …As a member of City Council I’m going to work to make sure that the mayor works with the chief of police to be more aggressive in addressing the issues.

I also asked her — given her husband’s controversial anti-gay statement that being gay was “morally wrong” (he later apologized for saying it) — if she would participate in St. Pete Pride and about her stance on domestic partner benefits. Hear her answers after the jump in the full podcast:

Download the interview here.

The St. Petersburg Times tried to do its job; it asked each and every St. Petersburg mayoral candidate if they would supply their campaign finance information (their contributions and expenditures) so the newspaper could create a searchable database for voters to use, just like candidates for national, county or state office do. But not the city, which puts up only .pdf’s of the reports, which cannot be searched for names that contribute to different campaigns or to do other important analyses of who is funding whom.

If you’ll recall, that is one of my six ideas to fix Tampa Bay politics on a recent cover of Creative Loafing.

With one exception, however, the Times‘ request fell on deaf or uncaring or incapable ears. From A-Sharock today:

We’ve been told by computer experts that providing this data would take as little as 15 minutes of work.

The response from candidates: Silence.

Only Scott Wagman’s campaign attempted to comply with our request. Candidate Bill Foster said he didn’t think it was technically possible and candidate Larry Williams declined. The other candidates didn’t even respond to our request.