Predictably, St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman's effort to get us a new Pier (or an old-but-gussied-up one) by 2018 is stuck in the mud for the time being.
But Thursday, writes Tampa Bay Times reporter Waveney Ann Moore, Kriseman plans to go to the city council to remind them why it's important that the Pier process get back on track.
That process had been moving along nicely, with the Pier Selection Committee doing what it set out to do at each meeting (as was laid out on the agenda), sometimes painstakingly so. Some speculated the lengthy public meetings they held, in which they discussed each proposed Pier design in great detail, aimed to quell criticism over the process not being transparent enough.
The committee is slated to meet April 23, when it will discuss its shortlist of three designs — Alma, Pier Park and Destination St. Pete Pier — and probably rank them (The Times did a pretty good rundown of the plusses and minuses of each here). The committee was supposed to rank the three designs in March, but after hours of critical public comment (they seemed to be leaning toward Alma, not Destination St. Pete Pier, the popular favorite) they tabled their decision.
State law requires cities to consider qualifications, not public opinion, when it selects an architect for a major public project. But given how ornery (and petition-y) people in these parts can get if they're not given a chance to voice their opinion major city projects, Kriseman saw fit to let the public weigh in on the design proposals.
The city conducted an official but nonbonding poll in which an overwhelming majority of residents chose the Destination St. Pete Pier, which preserves the inverted pyramid structure.
Alas, it wasn't enough to quell the rage of people who don't understand why the committee seems poised to recommend a Pier design that's not only the people's choice, but among the least popular designs among the city's general public.
It's unclear how the council will receive the mayor's pitch on Thursday, but at least one member, Councilwoman Darden Rice, has said she'd like to see the process move forward.
"I think it's important to let the selection committee do its work," she told CL last week. "That's a committee of people who have a pretty heavy responsibility to look at a number of technical and legal and design requirements. It's important for them to have the space to do their job."
By the same token, she said, it seems a tad unfair for the selection committee to have allowed design proposals that included renovating the inverted pyramid when they weren't really open to doing so anyway.
"If city staff never wanted to entertain a design that preserved the inverted pyramid, it shouldn't have been in the [request for proposals]," she said. "It doesn't seem fair to try to pull that rug out now, when the other part of the process shows that the public has a clear preference … I think we recognize there was a misstep when we had [committee chair] Mike Connors chair the meeting and then seemed to champion a particular design. But let them come back and meet. It's not over yet. Let's not overreact. Let the process work."
This article appears in Apr 2-8, 2015.