Well it's almost October and still no word from Dick Greco on whether or not he'll run for mayor of Tampa next year.

Some political analysts speculated that August would be the magic time when the now 77-year-old (which he turned two weeks ago) would declare he was in or out of the race to succeed a term limited Pam Iorio next March.

One member of the Tampa City Council during Greco's second stretch run as Mayor (1995-2003) was Linda Saul-Sena, now involved in an intense three way battle for a Hillsborough County Commission seat against Republican Ken Hagan and independent Jim Hosler (and which CL will feature in our issue out October 7).

Saul-Sena has warm words for Greco as mayor, telling CL, "I don't think Dick Greco has gotten enough credit for his initiatives, particularly creating a public access to the river downtown.  He did something extremely innovating when he went to Tallahassee during his term and was able to get state funding for purchasing land next to the river for the public, and that's why we have these wonderful parks. "

Saul-Sena says that Greco's successor, Pam Iorio, has had the opportunity to open those facilities, but that Greco was instrumental in securing that land, which she said is a huge legacy for the Ybor City native who first led Tampa back in 1967.

And she reiterated what she said when she served on the council – that she's been disappointed that more resources haven't been allocated for preserving historical landmarks over the past seven years.

"As you know I'm a big historical preservationist….well, I would never have predicted that Dick Greco was responsible for saving more buildings than any other mayor, but in fact he save the old Carnegie Library and made it into administrative offices, he saved the German-American club, which was in terrible shape, and I've been disappointed that this administration hasn't devoted more resources towards preservation and insuring that vulnerable building like the Gary School, like some of the downtown buildings that were lost to arson because they weren't properly secured – like this recent initiative not to protect the Woolworth building, I'm disappointed that those haven't moved forward."

Last month after protests from preservation groups and other local officials, Mayor Iorio took an item off the city council's agenda that would have dissolved a 2006 agreement that landmarked the S.H. Kress building and the facades of the adjacent Woolworth and Newberry buildings.

Developer Doran Jason Group says the deal no longer works for them, and is hurting their efforts to redevelop in downtown.  Mayor Iorio agrees.

This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2010.