St. Pete City Council candidate Leonard Schmiege has found an ingenious way of getting some free publicity for his campaign to oust incumbent Jeff Dannner.
Schmiege, an activist who first became known in the city for his work on voting issues earlier this decade, was at yesterday's City Council meeting when emotions burst out after the Council reversed themselves and voted to allow for the vacating of the public sidewalk in front of the BayWalk shopping center.
Overnight, Schmiege posted on YouTube and sent out to local media organizations a 5-minute video recording of the fracus between 76-year-old Frederick Dudley, the brother of Councilman Rick Dudley, and 61-year-old Ronald Deaton.
Just seconds into the video a green balloon pops up at the top of the screen entitled, "Filmed by Elect Schmiege, click here to see my campaign ad."
The candidate told CL today that he was able to embed the balloon with a new YouTube feature called Annotations. He said he spent several hours working on the video Thursday night, but expresses regret that the tool does not allow the user to link to another website.
When asked his thoughts about the Council's reversal (or specifically, Herb Polson's), he said he was disappointed, but expressed more anger at his campaign opponent, Jeff Danner, for his conduct during the workshop that was held for hours before the Council's vote on Thursday.
"They just put on a dog and pony show," he said, referring to the fact that representatives from the city's police, fire and transportation departments, as well as representatives from BayWalk and Muvico Theatres, were given time to speak, but nobody from the activist community was given time before the committee.
The Reverend Bruce Wright also weighed in with his thoughts today. Wright — last seen exiting Council Chambers yesterday in disgust, saying, "You're so full of shit it's ridiculous" — was hardly in a better mood today.
"I’m of the opinion BayWalk is already on the road to its own demise," he said.
Wright blasted Councilman Polson, who reversed his vote, saying "he was trying to cover his ass."
Wright will be joining up with others at tonight's protest at BayWalk. He said this morning that he had already received calls from people telling him he shouldn't go out on the sidewalk — not tonight, anyhow.
CL has contacted Councilman Polson to try to learn more on why he switched his vote.
Some of the activists are in a vengeful mood. St. Pete for Peace member Chris Ernesto told WTSP television that some members may now want to protest in front of Council members' homes.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2009.