The members of St. Petersburg Mayor-Elect Rick Kriseman's transition team met for the first time on Wednesday night at the St. Petersburg College downtown campus. They learned of their immediate duties, which will be to research and come up with recommendations on nine key items facing the city with a final due date of January 2, the day Kriseman officially replaces Bill Foster as mayor.
After the transition members introduced themselves (an event that took nearly half an hour), Mayor-elect Kriseman addressed the group, saying that though there were (give or take) 44 members of the transition team in the room, they were representing the 250,000 citizens of St. Petersburg. He began by acknowledging that the election was over, and while it was possible that some of the people in the room had not voted for him earlier this month, none of that mattered now.
"You were chosen because you are all are leaders and you all bring different things to the table," he said.
Kriseman left shortly afterwards. He apologized for his early exit, but said that he wanted to fulfill an engagement with the Lakewood Neighborhood Association that was planned before the transition team event was scheduled.
The most interesting part of the evening was hearing who would head the nine different areas that the transition team has chosen to focus on.
They are:
• Magazine publisher and editor Gypsy Gallardo: Economic Development
• Ed Montanari: The Pier
• Businessman Craig Sher: Tampa Bay Rays
• Attorney Joel Giles: Transportation
• CPA James Newman: Transparency and fiscal matters
• Askia Muhammed Aquill: Neighborhoods
• Dan Ray, former president & CEO of the American Craft Council: Arts and Culture
• City Council Chairman Karl Nurse: Innovation, Collaboration and Sustainability
• Former Assistant Chief of the Police Department Cedric Gordon: Public Safety.
Deputy Mayor Kanika Tomalin also briefly addressed the group. She called her selection to serve under Kriseman "an opportunity of a lifetime" and quoted Maya Angelou in saying that "I came here as one, but I stand with thousands." She also laid out a bold predicate for the new mayor and his staff, saying "our administration will be distinguished by inclusion, partnership and collaboration. And I want to underscore to you tonight that that is not rhetoric — that is an absolute promise."
There has been some buzz about the large size of the transition team, but Dr. Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich offered examples of even larger groups who have helped incoming mayors. And she would know. Scruggs-Leftwich has lived an extensive career in public service working on urban policy issues, going back to serving in the Jimmy Carter administration in the department of Housing and Urban Development.
"I've been in the trenches, and there's no better support for transition than being able to anticipate the horrors while also envisioning the promise," she told the transition team, saying that they should look toward the rest of the country for things that have been done successfully that St. Pete could replicate.
City Attorney John Wolfe said that the "fact-finding" portion of the task force meetings are not subject to Sunshine laws, but do need to be publicly noticed when the recommendation phase begins.
The expedited timetable calls for the various task forces to begin researching and finding facts up until December 15. From December 15-22 recommendations will be discussed, with a draft document of those recommendations to be drawn up on the 22nd. A final report will be given to Mayor-elect Kriseman on the day he assumes office on January 2.
This article appears in Nov 21-27, 2013.