But at the time, then-St. Pete Mayor Rick Baker, in the midst of what would be a breeze of a reelection bid, had done a lot of talking about it being another great day in St. Petersburg and how great things were in the pipeline for all neighborhoods in St. Pete. I believed him and sunk what little savings I had into an it-will-be-adorable-as-soon-as-I-fix-it-up two-bedroom bungalow. In Kenwood, I would have paid $200,000, easily, for this 1925 home. In Bartlett Park? $70,000.
It did not work out, and my time there challenged everything I thought I knew about myself, my fellow humans and how easy it is for politicians to overlook the least of us and not think twice.
Two years after I moved to Bartlett Park, I wrote a series of articles about the entire process — and the apparent neglect of the south side by Rick Baker (which he chirpily renamed “Midtown,” leaving out entire neighborhoods like Childs Park in the process). I interviewed then-police-chief Chuck Harmon and I questioned Baker about crime in the area. See, he kept saying crime was down 10 percent in St. Pete — but when I looked at the UCR for the city's poorest areas, crime had actually escalated 18 percent. When I mentioned that — at the grand opening of the soon-to-be-shuttered Sweetbay store at 22nd St. and 18th Ave. S. — he turned beet red and accused me of spinning the story.
Long story short: My time in Bartlett Park made me see my own faults and also that institutional racism is alive and well in St. Pete. St. Pete police who would respond to my calls about drug deals and burglaries finally told me they couldn't keep me safe, that they were understaffed because the department was using officers on FMLA to make it appear they had a full force when they were over 50 officers short. One day a man was waiting for me when I came home, and charged at me because he knew I had called the police after he went behind my neighbor's house to buy drugs, I walked away. I left the house — the bank later foreclosed — because it may have been another great day in St. Petersburg, but on my street, it was still the middle of a long, scary night.
I don't blame Baker for my own bad judgment, or that I couldn't tough it out, but I do blame him for lying and ignoring an entire population of people who desperately need the help of government more than his well-to-do benefactors do. See, despite what I went through — perhaps because of it — I feel more strongly than ever that the South Side needs more services, more help, more assistance, not less. Not denial that there's a problem.
And so, when voters elected Rick Kriseman in 2013, I penned an opinion column and challenged him: Fix life on the South Side. I implored him to do better than the two prior mayors had.
"I sense you may not realize how disheartening life in the south side can be, so I extend a very public invitation: let’s go for a bike ride. Not a car ride, not a tour, a bike ride, just you and me. No entourage, no mayoral procession. Let’s just take a ride.
"Let’s go see your city, Mayor."
A week later he called me to set up a bike ride, and shortly after that I wrote another column, apologizing, because this man knew the problems and knew they weren't easy fixes. I asked him how he could fix things — code issues, poverty, lack of services, and confessed that he didn't know how much he could fix in one — or even two — terms.
Earlier this month, a colleague and I rode with Kriseman, again through the south side (Editor's note: CL reached out to both Baker and Kriseman with the same request; while Kriseman had a ride scheduled within an hour, Baker's campaign never responded to us). This time, we started at a bike share station on 22nd St. S. (it wasn't there when he first took office) and rode the south-side spur of the Pinellas Trail as well as a stretch of 49th Street South and good part of Childs Park. I saw change: A park where there was a drainage ditch, strip malls without quite so much debris, homes in much better shape, physically, than they were the first time we rode together. The man still pedals like the wind — for a short guy he sure can work those legs — but he stopped every time someone flagged him down.
And flag him down they did; in cars, walking and biking, they all wanted to talk. A mother and her son after the first day of school saw him and rushed over to the trail to see him and thank him. A man on a bike waved and called, "I voted for you, Mayor!" as he pedaled past. Two guys in a car in front of a strip mall stopped to ask how things were going on getting voting rights restored for felons who had served their time (something activists are hoping to achieve at the state level in 2018 via a proposed amendment).
While some of these people could have been plants, asked to wait there until we pedaled past, that simply isn't possible for everyone who stopped us — we didn't have a route selected, beyond our meeting place — and I led the way once we left the trail.
The biggest thing that impressed me, more than people waving and chatting with him — and seriously, everyone seems to know him and like him — were the homes in Childs Park. They look better. Seems the current administration has been foreclosing on absentee landlords with outstanding liens and giving the properties to Habitat for Humanity — not only in Childs Park but throughout the city. Ben Kirby, Kriseman's spokesman, said the number of blighted homes went from 830 to 265 since 2014.
That's another great day for nearly 600 families who may not have otherwise had a shot at the American Dream.
Mayor Baker was right all those years ago — it is another great day in St. Petersburg.
It just isn't because of him.
The St. Petersburg mayor's race is Tuesday, Aug. 29. Should no candidate receive more than 50 percent of the vote, there will be a November runoff.
To read more of what Cathy Salustri wrote about this issue, click here.
Contact Salustri here.
This article appears in Aug 24-31, 2017.