So it was good that Bay News 9 reporter/anchor Holly Gregory and Tampa Bay Times political editor Adam Smith, the moderators at Tuesday's one-on-one debate between former Mayor Rick Baker and current Mayor Rick Kriseman, did things a tad differently over the course of the hourlong event at the Palladium.
Many if not most voters likely have their minds made up (and mail ballots are out now), so Tuesday was more about reinforcing the Baker/Kriseman camps' confidence in their respective candidate and deploying some good zingers to catch the few remaining undecided stragglers.
This debate, of course, excluded lesser-funded candidates and limited attendance (which peeved Jesse Nevel and his supporters, who were protesting racist comments by racist mayoral candidate Paul Congemi a few blocks away), so unlike other debates, the crowd was small and subdued.
The night's more entertaining moments came when the candidates (and the moderators) nudged each other off script.
Here are some of those:
Just Go.
Former police chief and senior administrator Goliath "Go" Davis is kind of a controversial guy — namely because in 2011 he declined to attend funerals of fallen police officers, but did attend the funeral of their killer, whose family he knows. Former mayor Bill Foster, who served one term between Baker and Kriseman, fired Davis amid the controversy. Davis, who endorsed Kriseman during his first mayoral run in 2013 but supports Baker this year, has long been an important Baker ally.
So when asked if Foster was right to fire Davis, Kriseman said while he hates to second-guess decisions made during other administrations, he found it "insulting" that a former chief of police chose to instead attend funeral service for the person who killed the officers. Baker said he spoke with Davis at the officers' wake, though, and that counts — and that if he were mayor when it all went down, he would have kept Davis on board. (Davis' explanation for not attending the funerals: they're an emotionally overwhelming reminder of the funeral of a close friend killed in the line of duty in 1980.)
Shortly thereafter followed a discussion of whether Baker, if elected, would bring back Davis or Mike Connors, the former public works administrator Kriseman supporters blame for the sewage crisis, the botched Pier selection process and the unnecessarily controversial curbside recycling rollout. Asked if he would retain Police Chief Anthony Holloway, Baker was noncommittal, but said he'd consider it.
"I just don't like his boss," he said.
Sewer blame game.
Some of the evening's most telling moments came when the candidates were given a chance to ask one another a question.
And if you're Rick Baker in this scenario, you're damn skippy you're going to ask about sewage, the 'but her emails' of this race.
So he asked Kriseman point-blank whether he would commit to reopening the Albert Whitted sewage treatment plant, which was closed in 2015 (under the Kriseman administration in accordance with a City Council vote that took place in 2011, before he was mayor). A state report places much of the blame for millions of gallons of sewage getting sent out into Clam Bayou and Tampa Bay on the Kriseman administration's shuttering of the nearly-a-century-old plant.
Kriseman wouldn't give a definite answer — because he didn't know whether it'd be advisable.
“We are embarking on a master plan for our entire sewage system, which has never been done before in the City of St. Petersburg,” Kriseman said, which is expected to take 18-24 months. "If that tells us that we need to open Albert Whitted, then we will commit to reopening Albert Whitted.
He added that by some estimates, reopening Albert Whitted could take four years and cost $40 million, and that the facility doesn't have the storage capacity on site to be in compliance with EPA rules, which means some sewage would have to be taken off-site for remote storage.
Early in the evening, Baker would not admit any responsibility for the city's sewer infrastructure problems. He said while the $160 million the city invested in repairs during his administration (in compliance with a state consent order) went a long way in preventing spills, “I never said that was all that needed to be done.”
You betcha!
When it was Kriseman's turn, he asked Baker why he thought Sarah "Drill Baby Drill" Palin "would make a great vice-president," which he said during a 2008 rally when Palin was then-presidential candidate John McCain's running mate.
Baker noted that he never used the phrase "drill baby drill," and was probably the only Republican to oppose oil drilling off Florida's gulf coast at the time — even then-Republican governor Charlie Crist (now a Democratic Congressman who supports Kriseman) had yet to express opposition.
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear why you were supporting Sarah Palin," Kriseman said.
Gregory echoed the question. The audience laughed.
“Rick Kriseman has tried everything in his power to make this a partisan race," Baker said, "because he doesn't have a record to run on."
Meanwhile, Baker said, there's evidence to suggest that cities run better when they aren't tied into national politics (good luck with that).
"That's what the mayor has done, with his tweeting and everything else. He's paying attention so much to what's going on in Washington, so much to what's going on in Tallahassee, he is not focused on in St. Pete."
Kriseman said it was ironic Baker would say that, given the tsunami of Republican Party money that's flooding Baker's campaign coffers and his PAC, which Baker denied. Reality check: the Republican Party has not dumped money into either per se, but tons of monied Republicans (like Bill Edwards, Mel Sembler, Jeff Brandes [via Tibbetts Family Holding] and their kin) have, not to mention numerous mysterious committees — some of them with names like "Florida Leadership Committee" and "The Conservative" that all seem to reside at just one or two addresses. Hmmm. Also, has anyone else noticed that three Jacksonville racetracks, all with the same P.O. box, donated to his campaign on June 30? That's weird.
And so on.
Later in the debate, Kriseman explained why he thought party affiliation mattered even in a nonpartisan race: it's a reflection of one's values, he said, such as belief that humans have a role in climate change and embracing diversity.
"Those are my values. And we haven't heard what Mr. Baker's values are; he hasn't shared them with you […]," Kriseman said. “You know where I stand. You will always know where I stand.”
Santa Parade!
A month after St. Pete Pride — which Baker, a conservative Christian, attended but did not march in — the question of his comfort with the visibility of the LGBTQ community still comes up. He said he wouldn't fly the Pride flag above City Hall as Kriseman has since his first Pride Week as mayor. He defended his position by saying he "will not pick and choose" which groups to celebrate (though Kriseman retorted that his administration flies the Carter G. Woodson Museum during Black History Month) and that being a mayor to all citizens being just as inclined to march in Pride as one is to march in the Santa Parade.
Baker noted that he hired people to work in his administration and throughout city government regardless of sexual orientation.
“I believe that you judge people based on their character and what they have to contribute to the future of making St. Petersburg the best city in America,” he said.
This article appears in Jul 20-27, 2017.