As the conversation about how to best re-festoon St. Petersburg's downtown waterfront wears on, some are, ostensibly, pissed off about how Mayor Rick Kriseman is handling the process and are accusing him of every malfeasance under the sun.
Why?
Because he seems to be lacking in the crystal ball department. Or his personal Rasputin is on holiday or something, at least when it comes to knowing whether the panel of (mostly volunteer) architects and planners he appointed to choose the best Pier design concept wouldn't agree with the majority of people who voted for their favorite designs via a non-binding public survey.
Thursday, Kriseman was hoping to convince everyone to chill the fuck out with a brief presentation to the St. Pete City Council.
But then he said a swear word, so all bets are off.
The mayor-appointed Pier Selection Committee's top design preference is a real departure from the design that overwhelmingly won in a public survey, sure. The public's choice was Destination St. Pete Pier, which looks like the love child between the current inverted pyramid that's languishing out there right now and the ill-fated Lens design voters struck down in 2013.
It's also the one that got the most public exposure ahead of the survey, possibly via promotion the design group behind it wasn't supposed to be doing.
The committee's choice, meanwhile, appears to be shaping up to be Alma, which replaces the inverted pyramid with a tower (and, God forbid, asks people to walk to the Pier head instead of drive).
Hanging out nonchalantly in the back of the room is Pier Park, which keeps part of the current structure but does away with the inverted pyramid component and includes extensive green space and event areas.
(We're not taking sides; all we want is a place to grab a brewski and have staring contests with pelicans, which we currently can't (legally) do out there now.)
Vehement critics of the Pier process, largely the same ones that successfully fought the Lens in 2013, came out in full force to urge the committee to choose the design the public seems to like most virtually without question. Although, none of the surveys we've seen include an 'any of the above; we're sick of hearing about this' option, let alone one that says, 'don't ask us; we're the general public and design by referendum is never a good thing.'
Kriseman tried to explain in plain English that the committee is well-versed in technical, permitting and other components that are part of any massive government project on an environmentally sensitive waterfront, and thus has gotten deep into the weeds regarding those aspects. While there are probably a few architects, civil engineers and land use planners among the 16,000 people who voted in the survey, it seems more likely that most people picked the one that looked the coolest.
"As you know, the opinions of our selection committee are based on numerous factors that are set forth in Florida law," Kriseman said. "[The public survey] is an element that was missing from the last Pier process. It was one of several factors for the committee to consider."
Critics say the committee is completely ignoring the public survey, which is bad and could really come back and bite them in the ass.
He noted that two of the three designs, Destination St. Pete Pier and Pier Park, were also chosen by the public were also chosen by the committee. If the committee makes Alma its top choice, he "fully expects" it to give the council its reasons for selecting Alma.
Then he dropped a bomb. And by "bomb," we mean he said the D-word, the potty mouth!
"When you receive those recommendations, it will then be your duty to cast an up or down vote," he said. "This will be your opportunity to move the city forward. And I think that we can all agree that most of our constituents just want us to build a Pier. That is somewhat evidenced by the fact that so few people took the survey. Perhaps there is some fatigue or indifference, or perhaps the public just wants their elected officials to do what they elected them to do: to build a damn Pier."
As Jesus silently wept in Heaven, we're assuming, he continued.
"Not everyone will like the final design, no matter which design it is, but we also knew that a long time ago," he said. "People have different tastes. But that's why this process emphasized function first. No matter which design is chosen, this Pier will do what the community asked for it to do."
If you'll recall last summer, the city held some 39 meetings to gather public input on what amenities the new Pier should have — restaurants, a marine discovery center, event space, horseback riding, a UFO landing strip, an actual glacier…
So no matter what design ends up getting built, it will have all of the functions requested by the public, because, after all, didn't people shoot down the Lens in part because it valued form over function?
Whatever gets decided, Kriseman said he "will be happy with any one of the three" and that it will be his job to get the thing built whenever people are done bickering over it.
Whether or not the haters will continue to…register their dislike (possibly in the form of a referendum that could require the city to have a public vote every time the city wants to sell or modify a waterfront park, which sounds like baby Amendment 4 to us) is the $46 million question.
This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2015.