{"id":16065,"date":"2025-10-22T19:06:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T19:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/16065\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T19:06:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T19:06:17","slug":"former-st-petersburg-mayor-dave-fischer-dies-at-92","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/16065\/","title":{"rendered":"Former St. Petersburg Mayor Dave Fischer dies at 92"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Fischer, who served as Mayor of St. Petersburg for 10 years from 1991 until 2001<\/a>, has passed away peacefully, his daughter announced Wednesday. He was 92.<\/p>\n

Fischer was the city of St. Pete\u2019s first strong Mayor, meaning his predecessors served as leaders of the City Council while a City Manager ran day-to-day city operations while he and all of his successors served as the city\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n

\u201cNice long life,\u201d his daughter, Susan Fischer McGarry wrote of her father. \u201cFirst strong Mayor of St Petersburg, overall extraordinary, 3 term Mayor and civic leader who will be greatly missed.<\/p>\n

McGarry pointed to the more than 10,000 (18,000, to be specific) trees he had planted in the city as its \u201ctree czar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe leaves an incredible legacy of philanthropy and development of the City, supporting many organizations relative to education, minorities, children, church, animals and the arts. Love you Dad,\u201d McGarry wrote.<\/p>\n

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Fischer is the city\u2019s longest-serving Mayor and led the city through a number of generational changes, including welcoming the then-Tampa Bay Devil Rays for its inaugural season. He is also credited with ending the city\u2019s \u201cwater wars,\u201d which pit municipalities in the Tampa Bay area against one another over access to regional water supplies. It led to the formation of Tampa Bay Water.<\/p>\n

Former Mayor Rick Baker, who succeeded Fischer in office and served as a volunteer advisor to Fischer through his entire tenure in office, called Fischer a \u201cdear friend and a great mentor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a tremendous leader and cared a lot about St. Pete,\u201d Baker told Florida Politics.<\/p>\n

Fischer was not a St. Pete native. He was born in Evanston, Illinois, and also spent time growing up in New York. He attended Duke University in the mid-1950s and served as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force in the late 50s, according to the Tampa Bay Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fischer also worked briefly on Wall Street before he moved to St. Pete in 1960, where he lived until his death Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Before being elected Mayor, Fischer served on City Council from 1975 until 1979.<\/p>\n

Fischer is preceded in death by his wife, Margo, who passed away in 2005. She was also involved in politics as a former state lawmaker.<\/p>\n

Tributes to the Fischer family rolled into McGarry on Facebook<\/a> as news spread of the former Mayor\u2019s death. Most offered condolences, and many praised Fischer for a life well-lived and his dedication to lifting and empowering others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Fischer, who served as Mayor of St. Petersburg for 10 years from 1991 until 2001, has passed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1978,3301,202,204,203,199,201,200,13739],"class_list":{"0":"post-16065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-david-fischer","9":"tag-rick-baker","10":"tag-st-pete","11":"tag-st-pete-headlines","12":"tag-st-pete-news","13":"tag-st-petersburg","14":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","15":"tag-st-petersburg-news","16":"tag-susan-fischer-mcgarry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}