St. Petersburg City Council Member Brandi Gabbard says Mayor Ken Welch should answer for the decision to give about $250,000 in city employee bonuses tied to St. Petersburg’s failed Tampa Bay Rays redevelopment deal, without publicly admonishing city workers who received the payments.
The comments come after Maria Scruggs renewed questions about the bonuses in a social media post. Scruggs called for a full accounting of the payments, the repayments and the legal authority used to approve the bonuses in the first place, and claimed Gabbard “has failed to address a public accountability issue over the last two years.”
Gabbard told Florida Politics that Scruggs is right to press Welch over the rescinded bonuses, but she criticized Scruggs for listing the names of city staff who received bonuses, the amounts they received and the amounts they eventually repaid.
“I absolutely understand if Miss Scruggs wants to hold the Mayor accountable for poor decision-making. I think that’s absolutely fair,” Gabbard said. “I think the Mayor, quite frankly, never really took accountability for the decisions that were made around those bonuses, and did not in my opinion do the due diligence that he should have done. Now we’re left with the results of bad decision-making.”
At issue are bonuses Welch awarded in July 2024 to 17 city employees for their work on the Historic Gas Plant redevelopment agreement. The bonuses ranged from $10,000 to $25,000 and were awarded after the St. Petersburg City Council and Pinellas County Commission approved the deal with the Rays and Hines.
The deal later collapsed after hurricane-related delays to funding votes helped derail the agreement before it was finalized. Welch rescinded the bonuses after public scrutiny, but the issue has resurfaced on the campaign trail and after public records showed employees repaid nearly $149,000, less than the $250,000 originally awarded.
Gabbard said the episode also had a real effect inside City Hall, particularly among employees who were drawn into a controversy they did not create.
“What I don’t think is fair is criticism of our employees,” Gabbard said with regard to Scruggs’ remarks on the matter. “Our employees did not know they were getting these bonuses. They did not ask for these bonuses, and they did not do the work on the Historic Gas Plant site with the Rays and Hines deal based upon any desire to get bonuses.”
Gabbard said that she is protective of employees and will advocate on their behalf when they are doing “what is right.”
“We can hold this Mayor accountable for poor decision-making,” Gabbard said. “Our city employees should not have to suffer because of the political fallout.”
