Experience Matters

Last week, the Friday Morning Group had Herb Polson on the hot seat. Herb is running for re election to the St. Petersburg City Council in District 1.

We actually started off with a discussion of the meaning of the term re election. That's because Herb was originally appointed to the Council last year to fill the vacancy created by Rick Kriseman's resignation upon his successful run for the State Legislature. Herb is now running for the seat in his own right. He also did his homework. Understanding the power of incumbency, Herb asked for and received a ruling from the state Division of Elections telling him that, as the incumbent, he was entitled to use the term "re elect" in his campaign material.

Well, Herb's opponent did not like that fact and complained to the St. Petersburg Times. The Times, which has had precious little coverage on any of these City Council races, decided that this complaint was newsworthy. However, as Herb was able to show us, the complaint was absolutely unfounded. So maybe the lesson is if you want to get into the newspaper, lodge a completely unfounded complaint.

OK, enough about that. Herb Polson has spent nearly his entire adult life in the service of the City of St. Petersburg and our country. Herb stared his career with the City as a civilian in the police force, and wound up for many years being the city's liaison to other governments - the city's lobbyist, if you will. Herb also is (was?) an officer in the Navy Reserve for many, many years.

When Rick Kriseman ran for the legislature, Herb retired from the City so that he could seek appointment to the vacated council seat. Herb was appointed last year and has been putting his knowledge of city operations to work as a council member since that time.

And what a year it has been! Of course the big issue for the City this year has been in dealing with the effects of the property tax "reform" effort in Tallahassee. This has caused the City to cut back their spending and initially led the Mayor to propose zero funding this year for arts and social services organizations.

In one of his roles as a City employee, Herb was actually responsible for arts and social services funding. He was also responsible for putting together the City's Cultural Plan that was the initiative of then and now Council Member (and Friday Morning Group member) Leslie Curran.

We had a discussion about the amount of tax relief we each actually received from the first round of property tax "reforms" in Tallahassee. Herb posed the question to us if for the amount of property tax relief we each received, did we think it was worth it in terms of the cuts the City was forced to make. Universally, we did not think it was worth it. However, Herb warned us that the next round of cuts that may come would even be much more painful for the City.

However, Herb also told us that there is a tremendous amount of money inside and outside the City available to fund some of the things we have indicated we wanted, if we just were creative in how we went about looking for it. To his credit, Herb has already found "outside the box" solutions to keep the libraries open on Saturday and with the help of the Devil Rays, to keep an exchange student program with our Japanese sister city alive. That's what experience can do for you.

We also talked about how the arts have had a tremendous impact on the City of St. Petersburg. That, in fact, the arts are a much more valuable economic engine than any of the professional sports franchises in the area. We also talked about how this all seemed to come about when St. Petersburg quit trying to be Tampa and just decided to concentrate on being St. Pete.

Herb also told us how he was a firm believer in asking people what they want and then delivering it to them. This would be as opposed to telling people what they should want and delivering that to them instead. Herb told us that the City used to regularly poll its residents to see just what it was the residents did want. In the early 90's, Herb was responsible for a questionnaire that went out to all 93,000 households in the City asking the residents what their needs and desires for the City were. Out of this came the city's extremely successful neighborhoods program and many other programs that make the City the success story that it is today. Herb believes that it is well past time to go back to the residents again asking them what they want the City to be.

Seems to me like experience does matter.

Tampa Bay Week That Was

It was another interesting week in St. Petersburg, my hometown. It started off with an interesting and effective procedural move at the Pinellas Democratic Executive Committee meeting. And it ended with the mother of all Florida Pride Festivals in St. Petersburg. Then there was all kinds of other interesting things going on in between.

Tuesday night, Acting Pinellas DEC Chair Arlin Briley knew how to solve a knotty problem. Between the summertime doldrums and people showing up for meetings but refusing to sign in and be counted, the Pinellas DEC had been having trouble getting a quorum. This was holding up the election of new and appointed DEC members. Mr. Briley was acting in the place of DEC Chair, yes she had the baby, Toni Molinaro. Arlin was not going to let this situation go unchallenged. When told that the meeting was four members short of a quorum Briley knew just what to do. he called a special meeting of the DEC Board of directors right there and confirmed the new appointed and elected members present. All legal within the By Laws of the DEC. And it was all done before those not officially present knew what was going on. Good for you, Arlin.

Also at the DEC meeting Tuesday night, most Pinellas Democrats got to hear Reverend Charles Mackenzie for the first time. The former FL-13 Congressional primary candidate showed that hew will clearly be the best speech giver in the expected to be crowded HD-55 primary for the term limited Reverend Representative Frank Peterman's seat.

Wednesday was marked by John Edwards House Parties. Uber One Corps leader Liz France graciously made her Pass a Grille home available for the South Pinellas party. As a reward for her efforts, Liz got to ask Senator Edwards a question during the Q&A portion of the conference call. She gave him a real hot potato, asking his stance on Israeli - Palestinian issues. Senator Edwards handled it as flawlessly as if he had been playing softball with little Jack. We got the extra added bonus of speaking with Elizabeth Edwards before Senator Edwards got on the call. Thanks to Liz and all her hard work to make the house party a smashing success.

Friday was all about John Edwards again. This time Edwards was holding a Small Change for Big Change low dollar fund raiser at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo. Remind me again why anybody would want to put their candidate in a zoo? Actually the Saunders Pavillion at the Zoo is a terrific venue for this kind of thing. And the staff of the Lowry park Zoo treated us great. A real pleasure to work with.

Despite the heat and humidity and the fact that weather delayed Senator Edwards take off from Washington for two hours, the event was a smashing success. The Edwards advance team was a well oiled machine and the Lowry Park staff could not have been more helpful. Round that out with a terrific volunteer contingent headed up by the aforementioned Liz France, and you have the full recipe for success.

After getting wheels up in DC, Senator Edwards closed the time gap down as much as humanly possible. He took the stage at about 8:45 and had the crowd rocking for the next 20 minutes. As reported in all the news accounts, Senator Edwards led off with praise for his wife standing up to that vile hate monger, Ann Coulter. The Edwards campaign has taken a page right out of the Bill Clinton playbook. When the other guys hit you, you hit back harder.

Senator and Mrs. Edwards are doing just that. Edwards talked about his signature issues of fighting poverty and providing universal health care coverage. He did not waste the chance to tell the crowd of 300 plus that on his first day as President he would close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and that he would be getting our troops out of Iraq. Edwards closed his speech with a heartfelt plea for support from everyone in attendance.

Saturday was the 5th Annual St. Petersburg Pride Festival. The Festival began with the Promenade led by Grand Marshall Susan Stanton. Democratic Presidential Candidate, Congressman Dennis Kucinich was seen touring the Promenade assembly area. He had the oh so successful (not) political wannabe Ed Helm sniffing up his elbow the entire time. BTW, Helm was seen craning his neck for a better view of John Edwards on Friday night.

State Representative Bill Heller and St. Petersburg City Council Vice Chair Jamie Bennett participated in the Promenade, dispensing beads along the way. State Representative Rick Kiseman (he of the leg broken in the legislative softball game) had a table a the event. Bennet and fellow Council member Jeff Danner read the Festival Proclamation for the St. Petersburg City Council. This occurred immediately after the St. Petersburg Police arrested four pretend religious people from Georgia who violated the Festival's permit's sign requirements and would not comply with police requests to lose the offending signs.

Most of the estimated 70,000 who attended the Festival did not appear to be bothered by the imported hate mongers. I must say when we had to march past the bullhorns that were permitted during the promenade, my ears hurt when there were bullhorns blaring on both sides of our entrance onto the parade route. Turns out the Pinellas Stonewall Democrats have tougher ears than I do. Maybe mine are just older than most of theirs? Following the Pinellas Stonewalls were the Suncoast Stonewalls from south of the Skyway. Their banner holders came all the way from Venice for the event.

Perhaps the largest crowd in the Dem group were the green shirted supporters of Hillsborough County Commission candidate Brian Beckner. Beckner will be running county wide against incumbent Brian Blair in November of 2008. Beckner's campaign manager, Mitch Kates is also handling the race this November of Gershom Faulkner who is running for the St. Petersburg City Council seat being vacated by the termed out Rene Flowers.

Next week will be dominated by the Fourth of July celebrations throughout the Tampa Bay area. Hard to see how we could get more fireworks on Wednesday than we had this past week.

Faulkner Campaign Flexes Its Muscles

In a show of strength for his fledgling campaign, Gershom Faulkner was treated to a star studded fund raiser tonight. Faulkner, 36, is a candidate for St. Pete City Council District 7 seat being vacated by the term limited Rene Flowers. Among the hosts for the event at Mid Town Sundries were State Senator Charlie Justice and State Representatives Bill Heller and Rick Kriseman. Sending their regrets at not being able to attend were County Commissioners Ken Welch and Calvin Harris. They were at a county budget hearing.

The fund raising event was organized so that the state legislators could participate before heading to Tallahassee for the special session on property taxes. Senator Justice said some very kind words of support for Gershom Faulkner. Faulkner's campaign manager, Mitch Kates, gave a rousing talk about the need to get out and work hard to make sure that Gershom is elected. Faulkner thanked the crowd of approximately 50 for showing their support. He promised to work hard to continue to earn their support and was looking forward to serving the community. Faulkners' experience in the process, having worked as a legislative aide to State Representative Frank Peterman for 6 years and his current work for Congresswoman Kathy Castor have prepared him to hit the ground running on Day 1 at the City Council.

Local Elections This Year

Before we get to the Presidential Primary here in Florida, we have local elections in St. Petersburg and Largo. The St. Petersburg primary is in September. Four seats are up, two are open due to term limits. These elections will be a test of organization capabilities.; Although officially non partisan, almost no one really believes that.

Follow me for a look at how these races are shaping up.

Running for Re-election

Two seats are held by incumbents running for re-election. Herb Polson was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Rick Kriseman. So far, no one has filed the necessary paperwork to run against Herb.

Jamie Bennett is running for re-election to his District 5 Council seat. Jamie has yet to draw oppostion. However, the Republicans have targeted him for defeat. Jamie is looking forward to the challenge.

Open Seats

Bill Foster and Renee Flowers can not run for their respective seats due to term limits. That leaves District Three and District Seven looking for new Council Members. Several people are looking at these two seats.

District Three covers Snell Isle and Shore Acres and other parts of northeast St. Petersburg on the mainland. Only one person has filed the paperwork to run. However, at least two other folks are looking at this seat. Bill Dudley, who was defeated by Bill foster 4 years ago, has filed to run again. The Democrats have some one lined up to run for the seat. This person could conceivably keep the number of females on Council at two. The Republicans, not wild about Dudley's chances for winning this seat, have asked someone else to get into the race. This person is experienced in running campaigns for this seat. He should also have a lot of support from the Albert Whitted Airport crowd. These folks are very vocal and very active.

District 7 has already drawn two young men who have filed to run. Wengay Newton and Gershom Faulkner are set to run in the September primary. Wengay's brother is head of the local firefighters union. Speaking of active, the firefighters are a group that every candidate attempts to woo. But Newton has effectively taken them out of play for Faulkner. However, Faulkner, a long time aide for state Rep. Frank Peterman, is no stranger to running campaigns in this district. He was Congresswoman Cathy Castors deputy campaign manager with primary responsibility for the Pinellas part of the district. He currently is the Outreach Coordinator for Castor.

Largo

I admit to not knowing as much as I should about the Largo races. but with the Steve / Susan Stanton escapades recent in most Largo voters minds, this should be pretty interesting. Mayor Pat Gerard, who supported Stanton, is running for re-election this go round. If no one has filed yet to run against her, I am sure someone will. I am going to have to do some more research before I can say anymore on the Largo races.

We are going to have some live fire training this year to test our abilities to get our message across and to get out the vote. I am looking forward to the challenge.