David J. Fischer, who served as mayor of St. Petersburg longer than anyone in the city\u2019s history from 1991 to 2001, died Wednesday morning. He was 92.<\/p>\n
In his decade at City Hall, he saw the inaugural season of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, came under fire for his handling of civil unrests following a fatal police shooting of a Black motorist, helped end the Tampa Bay \u201cwater wars\u201d and planted more than 18,000 trees.<\/p>\n
Fischer looked out at some of those oak trees he planted from his window at Westminster Palms, where he was in hospice, said his daughter, Susan Fischer McGarry. She said he fell recently and between a heart condition and dementia, was in a weakened state when he died at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Fischer had left her a list of awards and leadership positions starting with being an Eagle Scout in 1948 and ending with serving as the president and CEO of Tampa Bay Community Foundation from 2003 to 2009.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just never stopped,\u201d McGarry said. \u201cHe loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker led all three of Fischer\u2019s campaigns for mayor before succeeding him in 2001.Throughout Fischer\u2019s decade in office, Baker said he served as his \u201cinformal adviser.\u201d Baker had stayed in touch with Fischer, and visited him about four months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he was a leader of our city that cared deeply about the city,\u201d Baker said. \u201cAnd I personally considered him a great mentor for me and a very dear friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fischer was born in Evanston, Illinois and was was raised there and in New York. He earned a business degree from Duke University in 1955 and also served as a U.S. Air Force pilot, flying F-100s, from 1956 to 1958.<\/p>\n
Fischer then returned to New York, working on Wall Street for two years, before moving to St. Petersburg in 1960. For three decades he was a financial consultant and municipal bond dealer.<\/p>\n
He served on the City Council from 1975 to 1979 before being elected mayor in 1991. At the time, St. Petersburg was transitioning from being a city run by a city manager with the mayor serving on the council in a ceremonial role to a city with a mayor as its chief executive.<\/p>\n
Baker said after Fischer was elected, he and the mayor went on field trips to Tampa and Orlando to see how their governments were structured. The first term Fischer won was for two years, still serving as a figure head of council. He then successfully ran twice more for two four-year terms before having to leave due to term limits.<\/p>\n
While Fischer was mayor, a young Darryl Rouson called him asking for a summer job before he went off to law school. Rouson said Fischer wouldn\u2019t give him a job over the phone but invited him to talk with him at City Hall.<\/p>\n
Within two weeks, Rouson was working with the city\u2019s urban redevelopment department rating roofs in the Midtown area to see if they were eligible for rehabilitation. Later on, Fischer supported Rouson\u2019s political career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always a part of his generosity,\u201d said Rouson, a Democratic state representative for St. Petersburg. \u201cHe was always looking to help people any way he could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fischer\u2019s late secondwife, Margo, was a former state legislator who died in 2005 at age 58. Fischer had a longtime companion, Jean Irwin, who visited him Tuesday.<\/p>\n
He is survived by David Fischer Jr., Jimmy Fischer and his wife Tina, McGarry and her husband Mark. Fischer has six grandkids: Patrick, Joshua, Ashley and triplets Max, Shane and Katelyn.<\/p>\n
Fischer was a member of St Thomas\u2019 Episcopal Church. McGarry said funeral arrangements have not been made.<\/p>\n
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David J. Fischer, who served as mayor of St. Petersburg longer than anyone in the city\u2019s history from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[5957,820,1978,14002,14000,3301,202,204,203,199,201,200,14001,1526],"class_list":["post-16463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-city-hall","tag-darryl-rouson","tag-david-fischer","tag-devil-rays","tag-j-fischer","tag-rick-baker","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-susan-fischer","tag-tampa-bay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16463","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=16463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}