“I get three compliments, or at least people think they’re giving me a compliment and I guess they are,” says St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster. “People will say, ‘You’re better-looking in person than on TV. You’re not as fat as you appear. And you’re a lot more fun than I expected.’”
The fact that some of Fosters’ constituents still have such cloudy notions of him is not exactly surprising. His wit is so dry that it’s not always clear when he’s making a joke. His communication style, particularly when it comes to explaining his plans to City Council, has been criticized as unnecessarily secretive. And the current tough economic climate doesn’t exactly lend itself toward light-heartedness.
“We deal on a day-to-day basis with such a heavy subject matter,” he says, “that I think a lot of people don’t get to see that side of me.”
CL sat down with the mayor in his scrupulously neat office on a recent Friday to learn more about the policies and personality of the man running Florida’s fourth largest city. [Read a complete transcript of our interview here.] A whiteboard sits on an easel to the left of his desk; it’s covered in bullet points, lists, and topics — his plan for the upcoming year. Projects already in progress are in green, new additions in red.
It’s a “light” day today, he says — typically, his days start around 6 a.m. and last at least 12 hours — but he’s already done two early-morning radio interviews (including a spot on WFLZ for host MJ’s last show on-air), he has meetings the rest of the day, and he’s going to an opening for the new St. Pete branch of Wood Fired Pizza. After some family time with wife Wendy and their two kids, he’ll spend the evening spinning tunes from the ’50s as a celebrity DJ for a fundraiser at the Gulfport Casino. First things first: He does not live in Tampa Bay.
“No, the fish live in Tampa Bay,” says Foster. “We live in St. Petersburg.”
That distinction is important to him; he even made it the subject of a skit he wrote for Tampa Bay Plays’ 60-second plays event in January at The Studio@620.
“It’s just retaining your identity at a time where the world doesn’t necessarily know you exist,” he explains.
A fourth-generation St. Petersburg native and a 1981 Northeast High grad, he comes by his civic-mindedness naturally. His great-grandparents opened a general store on Central Avenue at the turn of the last century, and his grandfather was one of the founding members of the Suncoasters, a local civic organization that began in 1956. He went away to college — Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama — but he can tell when someone knows him from his early days in St. Pete.
“When they call me Billy,” Foster says, “I know that it’s pre-college.”
The mayor takes his coffee black. He developed the habit in college.
“I was poor, and I decided I could live without sugar and cream,” he explains. “So it was an acquired taste.”
Given St. Petersburg’s $10 million deficit, he’s having to cut a lot of sugar and cream out of the city’s diet, too.
But in recent years, he’s seemed more conscious of the amenities that give the city its special character — what St. Pete-based urban theorist Peter Kageyama calls “love letters,” the things that make you fall in love with a city.
Olga Bof, founder of the Keep St. Petersburg Local business coalition, has seen a shift in Foster over the last two years. At the start of his administration, she approached him about her idea for a children’s bookstore; he loved it, but offered no resources.
“He said, ‘I’m a Florida guy and I’m not an arts guy,’” remembers Bof. “Then there was a national shift towards localism. He read Peter Kageyama’s book [For the Love of Cities] and he gets it now.”
Since then, says Bof, he has been supportive of her efforts to nurture local businesses, including a bonus to city employees that can only be spent at local businesses.
Foster recognizes that Bill Foster two years ago would’ve probably preferred a baseball game to orchestra tickets. “Maybe I’m like a fine wine that’s matured, I don’t know.” In addition to Kageyama’s book, he cites Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class as an influence.
“I bought into [the arts] as an economic driver, as a sense of pride for the city, as a job creator,” Foster says. “But Peter takes it a step further.”
Kageyama says mayors are emblematic of the bond between citizens and their city, and that they must nurture the je ne sais quoi that makes a place unique.
So what are Foster’s “love letters?”
“When the Sunshine City Band is playing the day after Thanksgiving, and when thousands of people are just waiting for the lights to come on,” he muses. “It’s the green grass of Vinoy Park, it’s someone like Olga, Free Hug Day, a street closure for the 600 Block arts [festival].”
Foster took part in KSPL’s Free Hug Day in January, holding a cardboard sign and handing out hugs downtown.
“That was genius,” Foster recalls. “And what it cost, for the price of a sharpie, you’re doing something that someone will remember.”
American Style magazine has ranked St. Petersburg number one among smaller cities that support the arts two years in a row. Foster hopes to get that ranking again in 2012.
“I still quote Ricky Bobby [from Will Ferrell’s Talladega Nights]: ‘If you’re not first, you’re last,’” he says. “That’s how I feel about the arts.”
To deal with the ever-present challenge of getting visitors to travel from Hillsborough to Pinellas, particularly to attend Rays games, Foster has come up with a catchphrase: “getting people over the hump.”
That would be the hump in the Howard Frankland Bridge, but the phrase also refers to obstacles of perception. (“Yes,” he likes to point out, “the bridge does go all the way through.”) He’s had to deal with obstacles both geographical and political in dealing with the redesign of the St. Pete Pier. As of May next year, demolition begins on the iconic inverted pyramid, to be replaced by “The Lens,” by architect Michael Maltzan.
The decision to demolish and rebuild seemed to be a done deal. But only a few weeks ago, Tom Lambdon of voteonthepier.com held a meeting to garner community support for a petition on the Pier’s future. According to Lambdon’s presentation, Foster made a campaign promise to give the public a vote on the Pier.
“It never happened,” Foster says. “I never said that. The only commitment to a referendum that I’ve made as mayor is that I would recommend [one] before we built a new stadium.”
Foster cautions that Lambdon, who lives in Safety Harbor, once asked the city to fund a roller coaster on the Pier.
“If you ever wonder why somebody living in Safety Harbor is so interested in keeping the inverted pyramid,” Foster observes, “it’s because he wants somebody to pay for him to start his roller coaster.”
Among the many projects Foster is guiding while in office, the city’s police department needs new facilities, at a cost of $60 million. Penny for Pinellas will fund $32 million, and Foster said he would secure bonds with the Penny dollars to make up the difference.
“We don’t have any other money,” says the mayor. “So it’s got to be a Penny project.”
The city cut 140 employees from city staff in 2011 and 2010. Cutting $10 million from the budget is more complicated this year as a result. Caps placed at the state level limit the amount of money local government can receive, and property values are down.
In early February, Foster took heat from City Council for a security camera-monitoring program that was supposed to be in place already, using funds forfeited from criminals.
Foster said there are at least 10 cameras around the city, but he doesn’t have the budget right now to hire staff to monitor them. And after three officers were killed in the line of duty last year, Foster used funding allotted for security cameras to get body armor, ballistics shields and armored vehicles.
“So 2011 caused me to reassess need versus want,” says Foster. Foster is hoping to get some more cameras after the Republican National Convention comes through.
“I’m hoping that after the convention the city of Tampa will let me borrow a couple of theirs,” Foster says.
He’s looking at other possible benefits from the big GOP bash in August. He says St. Petersburg isn’t officially involved in any RNC events yet, but confirms that will be changing soon.
“The ink’s not dry on the contract yet,” says the mayor.
Foster’s relationship with the Midtown neighborhood, particularly its African-American population, has been a complicated one.
Last year, the mayor fired Goliath Davis, the city’s liaison to the African-American community, when he didn’t show up for the funerals of the police officers killed in the line of duty.
After Davis was fired, Foster said that he’d be assuming Davis’ responsibilities.
Gwen Reese, 63, can be described as a connector for the Midtown community.
“With Go Davis, we had progress and economic development,” Reese says. “Not everyone agreed with everything, but there was activity. Things were happening.”
Reese grew up in the Sugar Hill neighborhood along Fifth Avenue South. Now, she champions programs to improve Midtown and the area as a whole. Currently, she is working with Foster to create an African-American heritage walking tour.
“The tour was the mayor’s idea,” Reese says. “But this is not a city project, it’s a community project.”
On the whiteboard in Foster’s office, upcoming Midtown projects are listed in green. Foster says he wants to develop businesses south of Central and further down on 34th Street.
But he’s also concerned about public safety.
“I’m looking at trends in Midtown and Childs Park because it has got to be safe,” Foster says. “I can’t [do] this business and economic development without public safety.”
Part of his plan for Midtown is developing urban farming initiatives, which Reese is also involved in. Foster calls his “dirt is gold” campaign, 10,000 Good Greens, another one of his love letters to the city.
“We are giving people seedlings of collards and turnips, soil and fertilizer to grow and eat the greens.”
The project is taking root in Midtown first.
But Reese says getting Foster to commit strong financial assistance to Midtown has been frustrating.
“Do I think they are trying? Yes,” says Reese. “Do I think they are doing absolutely everything they should be doing? No.”
When the proposed $58 million in cuts to USF came out, Foster sent a letter to Senator Haridopolos and state senators. He called the proposed cuts “devastating” and “short-sighted.” “I am a registered Republican and yet it’s my party affiliation that seems to be doing the most damage to the local governments and education,” Foster says. “I think that with the exception of the Pinellas delegation, legislators must hate local government.”
Foster is 21 months away from running for his second term as mayor. He reminisces about what he’s learned in the last two years.
“You’re going to sow a lot of seed, and not all of it’s going to produce fruit,” Foster admits.
Only now, coming into year three as mayor, will Foster see the fruits of his labor. Which is why he wants to have a second term.
“There was early criticism that jeez, Foster has no vision,” he says. “Well, in this economy, survival isn’t a vision. But it’s certainly what we have to face in these economic times.”
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2012.