The room is full of straights and gays as St. Pete City Council hopeful Steve Kornell works the crowd at a fundraiser thrown for him at a gay restaurant in Ybor City, hosted by Tampa Bay's top gay politician, Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner.
It might seem very LGBT, but the common factor for those milling around the event is the growing progressive movement on both sides of the Bay. It just happens that Kornell is a gay man. For him, as it was for several Tampa Bay LGBT candidates before him, being gay is not the issue.
"You know, honestly, in five months, I've had two people ask the question," Kornell told me just before last week's event at Streetcar Charlie's. That has become a standard answer for (successful, at least) gay politicians around these parts: the voters want government services, not a discussion about being gay.
Kornell is LGBT Politics 3.0, after the groundbreaking campaign of an out-gay candidate, Darden Rice, fell just short of winning a St. Petersburg City Council in 2005 and Beckner's victory last year in dethroning anti-gay rights Republican Brian Blair. He is a native of his city and has long worked in recreation and education in both black and white neighboorhoods. Kornell's sexual orientation has not been an issue, and he has not found his named prefaced in news accounts with the phrase "the openly gay" Steve Kornell. In fact, the St. Petersburg Times' only acknowledgment of his sexual orientation was an emedded copy in a Times blog of his YouTube video in in which he acknowledged being gay.
So when Kornell and I had a chance to chat last week, we talked about crime and parks and education and the socioeconomic divide — and a little bit about being gay.
Political Whore: What's wrong with the St. Petersburg Police department?
Well I'm not sure there is anything wrong with it. However, I wouldn't necessarily say there is something wrong with it, but I will tell you that I believe I have the strongest plan for reducing juvenile crime, in particular. Because as I've walked door to door and we've been our there since January, knocking door to door, talking to voters, I've heard a lot about, the voters are concerned about what is happening in their neighborhood. And I as I listen a little closer, a lot of it is juvenile crime. And I have the strongest plan for preventing and reducing juvenile crime.
So how do you do that?
I think you start early. You have some short-term fixes and some long-term fixes. Short-term, having economic opportunities for the kids, the teenagers and high school kids, is very important. Giving them a chance to buy into the system and be a part of the system and feel positive about themselves, and contribute. I think that's very important.
And there's some areas of our town, I worked at Shore Acres recreation center for five years and Childs Park for eight years, Now at Shore Acres, every time I would go to, say, ChickFil A or one of the stores there, I would see the teenagers from Shore Acres working there. At Childs Park, if you drive down that 34th Street corridor, or the 49th Street corridor where Gibbs High School is … you don't have that same amount of economic activity. So I think there's a role we can play in filling that gap until the business community comes in and fills that gap as they have done in the Shore Acres area.
That is important short-term. Long-term, working to educate our kids and do some of the things early. I love what Mayor Baker did with the education initiatives, and I want to keep that, but I want to add an early literacy component and go even further with it. Because I think it's that important.
What can you do to bring those different neighborhoods' opportunities closer together, and what do you do to give more opportunity in some of those neighborhoods, job-wise and help with housing?
One of the things for the Childs Park neighborhood and Midtown that I would like to see is more home ownership. I would like to work with the HUD programs. I would like to create a program where people can actually own their homes at the end. One of the problems I saw in Childs Park was there are a lot of out-of-town landlords, and they often didn't give the attention that a homeowner in that neighborhood would have given to their houses. So if we can find a way for the folks who actually live in the neighborhood to have a higher rate of home ownership, that's a big goal of mine, that's a primary goal for me.
One of the things I was asked recently was what do you want to be known for as a city councilman. I said I'll be very happy to be known for two things. One, reading, and promoting reading, the early literacy. And two, diversifying our economy, creating an economy that has a higher level of jobs for our citizens so they can make a living wage.
Given that some of St. Petersburg's renaissance is due to creatives and entrepreneurs in the LGBT community, what do you think it would mean to them to have you on the City Council?
What it would is the same thing it would mean to everyone else in the city of St. Petersburg. It would mean they would get a hard-working councilman. If you want to know how hard I would work, just take a look at this campaign. We were the frist ones on January to file to run. We were the only city council candidate to walk in the Martin Luther King parade. What it would mean to them is they will get a reduction in juvenile crime. They will have a councilman who has a clear vision of what it will take to lead our economy into the 21st Century. They will have a councilman who will very rigorously evaluate every program and look at everything that comes before him to make sure it is effective and efficient for our citizens.
I think that's what not only the LGBT community cares about, that's what the entire community cares about.
Given the kind of smearing that occurred with Darden Rice's campaign for city council a few years ago, when a Midtown political operative questioned her sexual orientation at a forum, do you expect being gay will become a campaign issue?
You know, honestly, in five months, I've had two people ask the question: one lady at a debate, and that's the YouTube video that's up with my answer, and that's "Yes I am." That's the only person who's asked me that question, and now, of course, you. And I'm sure other media will ask me that question. But you know what I'm hearing from the people as I'm knocking door-to-door and I have talked to hundreds of voters … and I'm hearing them asking me what are you going to do to make my neighborhood more safe, what are you going to do to help me find a job, what are you going to do to help me prevent foreclosure on my house. Those are the issues that people are very concerned about. Those are the issues I am focusing on.
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2009.