Paul Congemi was a seventh candidate for the mayoral race, but dropped out on April 21, citing “serious health issues.” In his resignation, he wrote that Welch has his vote.
Photos courtesy of City of St. Petersburg, brandi4stpete on Instagram and campaign sites of Maria Scruggs and Jim Large.
By Alisha Durosier and Julia Birdsall
The race for the next St. Petersburg mayor is a packed one, with six candidates in the running, including the sitting mayor, Kenneth T. Welch and former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who was the latest to file as of April 27.
Other candidates include long-serving public administrator Maria Scruggs, District 2 Councilwoman Brandi Gabbard, retired St. Petersburg Fire Chief Jim Large and former Shore Acres Neighborhood Association President Kevin Batdorf.
The Crow’s Nest spoke to four of the seven candidates, who expanded on their campaign ideals and spoke of what they want the future of the city to look like.
Many of the new candidates are running on ideals fueled by the issues they’ve seen arise in the past few years — in turn, they want to fill those gaps.
“I believe that we are in a position where we need leadership that has real action associated with the decisions that they make that impact everyday people’s lives,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard emphasized the city’s need for a proactive local government in place of a “reactive” one, mostly in reference to the infrastructure issues brought on by the back-to-back hurricanes in 2024.
Large, who doesn’t consider himself a politician, made better hurricane preparedness a focal point in his campaign as well.
“The damage that [Hurricane] Helene did was mainly [to] people’s livelihoods, their possessions… sitting on the curb for months afterwards. I saw how that was handled very poorly,” Large told The Crow’s Nest. “The prioritization was not correct, and the utilization of resources was absent. The city has a tremendous amount of resources that weren’t utilized.”
Large highlighted a moment during his tenure as fire chief when he requested that the city purchase high-water rescue vehicles. Large said they were repeatedly deemed “not a priority” until the devastation caused by Helene and Milton inspired the city to make the costly purchase.
Gabbard believes that the city is “falling short” when it comes to storm resiliency efforts.
“The storms of 2024 exposed those vulnerabilities in a much greater way. And had we been more proactive, I believe we would have been more prepared,” Gabbard said. “I want us to become the kind of city that is planning for the future and looking at ways that we can protect our residents before the worst-case scenario comes.”
Welch acknowledged the weather-related damage that the city faced in 2024, and, in response, intends to implement St. Pete Agile Resilience or SPAR.
With SPAR, Welch aims to implement a series of city-funded programs that would expedite long-term projects to better fortify St. Petersburg against climate change-related disasters.
According to Welch, St. Petersburg’s infrastructure was not built for the level of impact residents are experiencing.
“We want to get those done now because we’re seeing the impacts of sea level rise and extreme weather… much quicker than we thought,” Welch said. “In 2024, we saw, again, the highest level of impact we’ve ever seen… So now we’re going to have to adapt more quickly than we had anticipated doing. That means spending those dollars up front, rather than waiting.”
Welch is also invested in economic and community resiliency, with one of the biggest projects — an ideal he ran on in his 2021 campaign — the development of Tropicana Field and the Historic Gas Plant district.
Since the Tampa Bay Rays and Hines, a real estate developer, pulled out of the development deal with the city in 2024, the city has considered four out of eight proposals, which will be subject to community feedback starting on April 30.
For Scruggs, her plans for the Historic Gas Plant District are “very definite,” she told The Crow’s Nest.
“I would scrap all of this nonsense about these four proposals, because we have not done the requisite planning to address the current conditions in St. Petersburg,” Scruggs said. “We have changed, the economy has changed, the environment has changed, the people have changed. And to move forward with these developers for political expediency is political suicide.”
Scruggs suggests a more thorough approach to the Gas Plant District development, noting that previous plans, under two separate mayors, have been unsuccessful.
“It is pure insanity to me that this city, this administration would not say, ‘Wait a minute, we need to step back and we need to assess what our current conditions are, and then develop a vision for what we want the Historic Gas Plant to be,’” Scruggs said.
According to many of the candidates, the 86 acres Tropicana Field sits atop of is one of the most valuable pieces of land the city owns, and Scruggs wants to ensure that the city’s plans prioritize longevity.
“They’re going to come and do the song and dance for people,” Scruggs said, referencing the April 30 Historic Gas Plant Open House. “That is wonderful to get that input. And I believe wholeheartedly in engaging… the public in decisions like this. But it has to go deeper than that. It has to get to a vision that not only looks at what the people want, but what is in the best interest of the public 30, 40 years down the road. And we just have not done that type of planning.”
Now that the property’s development rights are back in the city’s hands, Welch said plans will have an even greater impact and the city will have more flexibility in its decisions.
“That’s a big [factor] in terms of our leverage with anybody that we negotiate with,” Welch said.
Welch, a former resident of the Historic Gas Plant District, notes that the development process has dragged on for far too long.
“If you speak to descendants, people who were on the property back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, who had to give up their homes and their churches, their businesses, in the name of progress, they would say that it’s taken way too long,” he said.
Large does not believe that any of the proposed plans for the Historic Gas Plant District will move forward in the near future.
He believes that the Rays’ projection of transferring to a Tampa-based stadium by 2029 is “beyond optimistic; it’s just unrealistic,” and instead they will have to extend their contract with the city of St. Petersburg.
Based on feedback Gabbard has received from residents, she wants to put the city’s needs at the forefront of any development plans.
“We have not talked about there being an option by which the city is the one that benefits from the future value of this land. And so, I think that those are conversations we need to have,” Gabbard said. “I am committed to a serious exercise in which we explore, along with our community, what the greatest community benefit for that land could be.”
Gabbard also seeks to put the city’s needs first by tackling the affordability issue residents face.
“I also look at food insecurity as essential infrastructure,” Gabbard said. “It’s very important that we, for once and for all, solve food insecurity in our community and make sure that every person, regardless of where they live in the city, has access to healthy and affordable food.”
Gabbard has already worked towards solving this issue in her time at city hall and wants to take her efforts a step further as mayor. For example, she would like to develop a cooperative grocery — a store owned and operated by community members — in South St. Petersburg. Gabbard believes that a community-led grocery store will be both successful and sustainable based on country-wide examples.
Scruggs recognizes that St. Petersburg is facing an affordability crisis, noting that homes and apartment buildings are specifically catering to higher-income renters and owners.
She intends to tackle this issue by working with local businesses to build what she calls “economic clusters,” a collaborative group of local businesses in the same industry.
“You develop strategies that help raise their income and help reduce their costs with things like collective buying, collective marketing, referrals, and collective purchasing,” Scruggs told The Crow’s Nest. “Those strategies are aimed at increasing revenue slash profit and decreasing expenses.”
Through this plan, Scruggs intends to create a “liveable wage taskforce,” where she convenes local industry leaders.
Scruggs said that as mayor, convening will be her superpower.
“I’m very comfortable in saying that I know what I know and I also know what I don’t know,” she said, referencing issues with weather-related impacts and infrastructure issues. “That’s not something that a mayor can just [say], ‘Oh, I got elected mayor, so I know what the answer is.’ Again, using the power of convening the right stakeholders to say, ‘lLook, this is what we have as an issue in St. Petersburg. What can we do?’”
For Welch, his superpower is the challenges he faced. He noted that he’s not nervous for the upcoming election.
“I just know that we’ve been tested like no other administration. And we kept focused. I think we have a record to show folks, ‘Here’s what we’ve done through some of the most difficult times we’ve ever seen,’” Welch said. “That’s the leadership you’ll get with me. Folks know what they’ll get, and they can make a decision on that. So, I’m looking forward to it.”
