st. pete elections
Tom at the New Southside wants to know: “Do you want the Saint Petersburg City Council to give your tax money to the Uhuru movement?”
He says the Baker administration has offered too much support to the violent group, and the St. Pete City Council has kept that support to a minimum. With the upcoming city council elections, keeping that check on the administration is a good idea.
This waste of scarce public money adds insult to the injury of their incitement of violence. I don’t agree with them but I respect their right to promote their views in a free market of ideas.
Where they loose me is with their close connection to throwing rocks, bottles and molotov coctails at police and law abiding residents and businesses. Were they to renounce violence they could use their influence to help bring criminals into law abiding society and lift the curse of violent crime that holds the southside down.
What will next Tuesday’s elections bring? What will you do about this? You can ask the candidates where they stand on this issue, and tell them where you stand. You can support southside residents who want to be free of Uhuru violence.
We think that many folks in St. Pete don’t even know there is an election. Or care.
Use the comments to let us know who you endorse for St. Pete.
Tags: city, election '07, pinellas, st pete
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November 3rd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Three races have of a slate of candidates endorsed by the Times and by the Mayor. Their election could change the climate on council and give the Mayor more of a free hand to run the city. In my opinion south St. Pete could go from bad to worse if that happens.
Fortunately the other three have been more independent and I feel more responsive to southside residents. They also agree on making public safety a priority and cutting waste in government. For that reason I am voting for Wengay Newton, Bob Kersteen and Bill Dudley. These three have been actively involved in our neighborhood for some time.
We invited all current and some former council members to celebrate the transition of the adult bookstore on 4th and Bob Kersteen was the only one who took the time to join us. Bob was our supporter on council years ago when the city worked on an adult business ordinance to keep these uses out of neighborhoods. This block party was an important event in our campaign to transform Newton Avenue into a model block. The block is dotted with beautiful new, renovated and older well kept homes. Removing blight from the two entrance ways was the culmination of a ten year effort to give our neighborhood a model of success.
Wengay Newton grew up a few blocks from here and knows our needs very well. He is currently President of his Westminster Height’s neighborhood association and has to get a lot of the credit for his area being among the most desirable and safest in south St. Pete.
Bill Dudley has been a mentor to many neighborhood youth who attended Northeast high School where he taught and coached for many years. He and his opponent are both big supporters of the nearby airport but Bill is not a single issue candidate. His opponent has run on his role in the success of the airport in obtaining big government grants and lots of cooperation from city council. I am not so sure that the airport plan is really something to brag about. South side residents who live in the main flight path have a right to ask why we were left out of the planning for the airport. One of the several plane crashes destroyed a home on 15th Avenue South. Noise pollution from planes and helicopters continues to be a nuisance. Why are they allowed to fly late at night? We need a council member who will listen to our concerns and not just cater to owners of private planes who may not even live in the city.
Among these six good candidates three stand out and have demonstrated strong support for southside residents over many years.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Tom, I love ya buddy, but the guys you voted for are not going to be good for St. Pete, and you should know it.
These guys would be so disruptive and be so busy throwing bombs, that very little, if anything would ever get done at the Council. South St. Pete would not be the only part of town going from bad to worse if they were to get elected.
The good news is that Kersteen and Dudley do not have a snowball’s chance of actually getting elected.
Wengay is such a bad candidate for Council that the Times overlooked Gershom Faulkners stance on gay issues and noted his past run ins with the law and endorsed him anyway over Wengay.
What does that say about Wengay? Not a whole hell of a lot, IMHO.
Tom, I believe that you will find Gershom Faulkner someone you can work with and feel you will be pleasantly surprised once he gets on the Council.
All you are going to have to do is reach out to him.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Gatordem,
I was offering my endorsements, not predicting winners. The Republican political machine and the developers who fund it have been winning local elections for 50 years and I would not be surprised if your guys win another one.
Hey, you don’t have to listen to gunfire at night and since most homicides are down here your part of St. Pete is relatively safe. I don’t expect you to want to change anything.
Do you have reasons to support the Mayor’s slate of candidates? I like all of the seven and I like the mayor but I hope that at least a couple of council members can be independent of the mayor. One party rule doesn’t work very well in North Korea. Why not have more than one voice here in sunny St. Pete. Thats a lot to ask for down here.
The Times is a great paper but they have been shameless in their biased coverage of city hall. Just over a year ago they ran several pages on the tenth anniversary of the riot(disturbance). Buried in there was one sentence telling us that the Baker Plan has included an exodus of 5,000 people from the re branded Midtown area. Low wage workers are being squeezed out by the thousands and you guys talk about “Building on Success”
The Times endorsements were incredibly weak. They take cheap shots like running an unflattering photo of the guys they don’t endorse. It makes me wonder if this still goes back to their undisclosed business relationship with the mayor. See: Tampa Bay’s Most Censored, http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A358
and
http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A793
I think this really is one of the most censored local stories. Years ago the Trib would jump at the chance to show up the Times. Now only the blogs seem capable of digging up conflicts and holding the mainstream media accountable. If the Times refuses to acknowledge a several million dollar business deal with Rick Baker how can anyone take their city hall reporting seriously?
November 5th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
[...] Tuesday is also the city council election. Please vote to show your support for a fair share of city services for our neighborhood. If you want to see my endorsements and a rebuttal go here. [...]
November 5th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Tom,
I support who I do because I believe, in each and every case, they are the better candidate for the job. I have no control over who the Mayor supports.
Neither do I believe that the Times is anywhere close to being the newspaper that it once was. However, they do take the time to get to know the candidates and do a tremendous amount of research in the process. I reiterate, the fact of their knowing all that they do about Faulkner, and still endorsing him, probably does say a lot about who Gershom Faulkner is today.
I have known him for over 5 years and have always found him to be a truly inspiring individual. I have not known Wengay Newton for nearly that long, but he has yet to inspire me in any measure, except to wish to see him defeated.
Inependence on the Council is one thing, and I think the people I support will enhace the level of independence from the current council. Insurrection is something entirely different. The folks you support are basically campaigning saying that the current people that they are hoping to join on the Council are a bunch of spineless wimps who can not do anything rght. That’s not exactly how to win friends and influence peope if you later need to build a consensus.
And, oh BTW, the latest murder in St. Pete was right down the street from me.:)
November 6th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Now you’ve opened yourself up to demands for equal time, giving space to political endorsements and comments from the candidates.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Fair enough. We welcome comments and would like a dialog with all candidates and elected officials.You are invited to send in your endorsements to New Southside.
This discussion started when Sticks invited everyone to submit endorsements. I learn a lot from people that I may not agree with. We could all learn from each other if we can keep an open mind.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Tom! I did my part. Hope it helps