{"id":162312,"date":"2026-02-20T07:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T07:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/162312\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T07:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T07:57:14","slug":"ken-welch-delivers-state-of-the-city-kicks-off-re-election-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/162312\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Welch delivers State of the City, kicks off re-election campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t1<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch delivered his annual State of the City address, touting the city\u2019s progress over the past year early in the day, and then officially launched his re-election campaign the very same night.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/archives\/780887-ken-welch-pushes-600m-infrastructure-bond-vows-progress-on-gas-plant-district-during-state-of-the-city-address\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The address<\/a> centered on a proposed $600 million infrastructure bond and renewed momentum for redevelopment of the <a href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/archives\/777730-nine-proposals-submitted-for-historic-gas-plant-redevelopment-as-st-pete-weighs-future-of-tropicana-field-site\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Historic Gas Plant District<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The bond would allow the city to improve infrastructure and resiliency, Welch said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/archives\/781013-ken-welch-kicks-off-st-petersburg-mayoral-re-election-bid-with-jabs-at-charlie-crist\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">His kick-off took a different tone<\/a>, throwing barbs at his expected rival, former Gov. Charlie Crist, who Welch criticized for lacking vision and not understanding the city\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Jesse Mendoza,\u00a0<a style=\"font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-size: 13px; font-family: Nunito, sans-serif;\" href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Florida Politics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1 On Wednesday, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch delivered his annual State of the City address, touting the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-162312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162312","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=162312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}