Brandi Gabbard, rounding out her second term on the St. Petersburg City Council, has made her bid official for mayor of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
After telling the Tampa Bay Times in October that she would run for mayor<\/a>, Gabbard filed paperwork Tuesday for the August primary election. She joins an increasingly crowded field challenging Mayor Ken Welch, who is running for reelection.<\/p>\n In her announcement, Gabbard said her candidacy \u201chighlights a move away from the reactive decision-making that has led to missed opportunities.\u201c It\u2019s a swing at Welch, with whom she has lately sparred with publicly.<\/p>\n \u201cI am running for Mayor because St. Petersburg is at a critical crossroads,\u201d Gabbard said in a news release. \u201cFrom the way we redevelop city-owned land to how we protect our neighborhoods from rising tides, my commitment is to ensure that progress in our city is sustainable and built on a foundation of trust.\u201d<\/p>\n Her key issues, according to the announcement, are curbing flooding, demanding true community benefits from major redevelopment projects, championing a healthy workplace culture and strengthening regional partnerships.<\/p>\n Gabbard was in lockstep with Welch for much of his administration. She showed unwavering support for a Tampa Bay Rays stadium and surrounding redevelopment deal struck in 2024.<\/p>\n Gabbard broke with the mayor last year. She opposes an effort to redevelop the downtown waterfront into a cohesive \u201cCenter for the Arts<\/a>,” arguing that money could be better spent on other needs. She also pushed Welch to revive the Science Center<\/a>, saying, \u201cWe really need a win as a city.\u201d<\/p>\n Gabbard and Welch have publicly traded barbs. Welch made a rare appearance in the council chambers to call out her \u201ctheatrics\u201d after she accused the mayor of \u201crunning in his own direction\u201d on how the city should react to a state ban on street art.<\/a><\/p>\n Tensions between the two continue to flare. Gabbard rallied council members to oppose Welch\u2019s selection of a developer<\/a> for the Historic Gas Plant District, crippling his efforts to land the project before the upcoming elections.<\/p>\n She also recently assailed Welch for asking council members to sign on to a last-minute letter<\/a> without their input opposing a bill that would broadly preempt cities from supporting any \u201cdiversity, equity, and inclusion\u201d activities<\/a>.<\/p>\n On local radio<\/a> and at his State of the City address<\/a> last month, Welch described Gabbard\u2019s motives as political. At the latter event, he said the Gas Plant is a \u201ctest\u201d of whether the city is \u201cdistracted by election-year politics and political agendas.\u201d<\/p>\n One of Gabbard\u2019s opponents in the mayoral race is former St. Petersburg Fire Chief Jim Large. After anonymous comments from an employee survey accused Large of fostering a workplace hostile to women and minorities, Gabbard called for a change in leadership backed by her own experience with Large<\/a>. She said was met with \u201cdisrespect, bullying, and attempts at intimidation\u201d in her interactions with him.<\/p>\n Welch ultimately cleared Large of the allegations. Large returned to his post for a few months until he retired at Welch\u2019s request following Large\u2019s adult daughter publicly posting a photo of him holding a coffee mug that read: \u201cGo ahead, call HR.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Gabbard has represented the city\u2019s northernmost district since 2018. She was automatically reelected when she ran unopposed in 2021. She is a managing broker for Suncoast Realty Solutions.<\/p>\n In the race for mayor, Gabbard will also face former NAACP St. Petersburg branch president Maria Scruggs<\/a> and perennial candidate Paul Congemi.<\/p>\n Former Florida governor and congressman Charlie Crist<\/a>, who is on the campaign trail and whose camp has reportedly raised over $1 million through a political committee<\/a>, is expected to file to run for mayor. Past Shore Acres Civic Association president Kevin Batdorf also said he would run.<\/p>\n The primary election is Aug. 18. If no candidate wins a majority, the two candidates with the most votes will head to a runoff Nov. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brandi Gabbard, rounding out her second term on the St. Petersburg City Council, has made her bid official…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[70275,2346,202,204,203,199,201,200,3815],"class_list":["post-188009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-gabbard","tag-ken-welch","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa-bay-rays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188009","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=188009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}