Meet the Mayoral Candidates?

We had a very interesting discussion (how many different ways can you say that?) last week at the Friday Morning Group. As you might surmise from the title of this post, city issues were prominent in that discussion. But more on that later.

I want to make sure I pass along to all of you the information on the benefit for the IMAGO artists next Wednesday in Dunedin. Here is the flier(I hope):



And yes, we did discuss art as well. We talked about the Salt Creek opening that was scheduled for last Friday night. And we also discussed Bob Devin Jones' play "C" which was to open last Friday at the Studio @ 620 as well.

Now back to the City happenings. Herb Snitzer related that he has heard nothing about his proposal to document the mural on the wall at the old Piano Exchange (or Garden Cafeteria) if you will. This was followed up by a rather lively discussion about developers and preservation.

And we also talked about the upcoming mayors' race - which is only two years away (November 2009, but who's counting?) This discussion came up because the St. Petersburg Times had run a story the day before about some polling they had done, and specifically related to some potential Mayoral candidates that they polled on.

As Council Member Elect Bill Dudley had joined us, the idea of bring in potential Mayoral candidates to get their view of the arts and perhaps to impart some of our views. Accordingly, we are going to start bringing in the potential candidates to meet with us. The idea is that, perhaps, by starting early we can shape the debate about the value of artists and the arts to our community.

So starting next month, we will try and get these mayoral hopefuls (maybe one per month) in for a chat. Stay tuned.