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<\/a><\/p>\nI understand \u201cclear and present danger\u201d is an extreme phrase, as if Welch were an existential threat to the city and its residents. Fortunately, that\u2019s not St. Petersburg. As I noted before so many times, St. Petersburg succeeds despite its elected officials.<\/p>\n
But as we barrel toward Election Day, Welch continues to make the kind of decisions that damage the city, while doing nothing to stop the bleeding.<\/p>\n
It may seem silly to point to this as the reason I am writing today, but the Tampa Bay Business Journal\u2019s Emma Behrmann and Erik Spanberg reported Wednesday that St. Petersburg will lose the Women\u2019s Tennis Association headquarters<\/a> after 35 years.<\/p>\n The WTA, founded by Billie Jean King in 1973, has been based in St. Pete since 1991. More than 50 of its employees work in Tampa Bay. Charlotte landed the WTA Finals for 2027 through 2029, and the headquarters move came with the deal. Charlotte\u2019s city and county governments each put up $2.5 million, North Carolina kicked in an undisclosed sum from a major events fund financed by sports betting taxes, and WTA Chair Valerie Camillo praised the city for a \u201cclarity of purpose and shared ambition\u201d she said no other site matched.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the St. Pete Economic Development Corp. was not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n Think about that. The WTA has been in St. Pete for three and a half decades, and all of a sudden it is leaving town. I\u2019m sure there are reasons beyond Ken Welch\u2019s incompetence. But it is another example of Welch and his allies at the St. Pete Chamber of Commerce being asleep at the wheel.<\/p>\n We lost the Rays<\/a>. Jabil put a $500 million plant and nearly 1,200 jobs in North Carolina<\/a> instead of here. These are city-defining losses.<\/p>\n Those are private businesses making decisions, and obviously Welch can\u2019t control them. But just look at what his administration, under City Administrator Rob Gerdes, is doing with the Mahaffey Theater.<\/p>\n Four entertainment firms, including Live Nation, a national giant, want to manage the city-owned theater<\/a>, Behrmann reported this week. Vinik Sports Group prepared a 23-page proposal and was told not to submit it<\/a>, Ruth Eckerd Hall wrote the Mayor a letter<\/a>, and Live Nation sent a term sheet that included a $2.5 million capital investment. The city rejected the lone bid from its first go-round and promised in April<\/a> to reissue a request for proposals \u201cas quickly as possible.\u201d It never did.<\/p>\n And yet the administration is determined to give that deal to The Florida Orchestra<\/a>, under a draft term sheet that has taxpayers paying $438,000 a year and covering all of the building\u2019s insurance and overhead.\u00a0<\/p>\n No one outside Welch\u2019s bubble understands that decision or the logic behind it.<\/p>\n Just like no one could understand Welch\u2019s recent snubbing of Cathie Wood<\/a> on the Deuces Rising project, where the administration chose what sources called the weakest of seven proposals for the 22nd Street South site: 126 housing units on a 99-year lease at $55,000 a year, over a competing plan with 320 units and a $5 million purchase price.<\/p>\n The sum of all of these terrible decisions leads to a few conclusions.<\/p>\n First, Ken Welch has never been an executive leader. He is a bureaucrat. He is, to borrow from Col. Kurtz, an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n Welch would rather tinker with his motorcycle<\/a> in his garage than lead this city.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, he\u2019s the Mayor for another three and a half months.<\/p>\n I wrote in my column about the Rays leaving<\/a> that I have taken to quoting Obi-Wan Kenobi\u2019s message to the surviving Jedi after Order 66.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Do not return to the Temple \u2026 Trust in the Force \u2026 And in time, a new hope will emerge.\u2019<\/p>\n That new hope has already emerged. It is St. Petersburg\u2019s favorite son, Charlie Crist.\u00a0<\/p>\n The last St. Pete Polls survey of the Mayor\u2019s race showed him up 25 points<\/a>. Welch\u2019s political committee has less than $9,000 in the bank<\/a>, and his campaign account had less than $16,000 as of its last report. That\u2019s less than $25,000 combined.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if Welch had a record to defend and a message to communicate it, he does not have the resources to deliver it.<\/p>\n Welch is going to lose. But Welch will still be in charge of the city until January.<\/p>\n So I am publicly begging the members of the City Council who are not aligned with Ken Welch (you don\u2019t even have to have endorsed Charlie Crist) to delay as much as you can. Bury his initiatives in committee. Don\u2019t move forward with any more of his projects, and don\u2019t fund any of his new requests. They will be undone, if not by the next City Council, then by the next Mayor.<\/p>\n And to the city employees who read this \u2014 I am going to pay to boost this post so that it is geofenced to the blocks around City Hall and the Municipal Services Center so that they do \u2014 slow it all down.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yes, keep showing up for work. But you know how to take a project that could be done in a week and drag it out for a month. You know how to paper over a decision, how to layer, how to use the bureaucracy to run out the clock on a Mayor who, one could be forgiven for suspecting, is a Manchurian candidate sent here from Tampa or Orlando to undo the progress of the last three decades.<\/p>\n Welch\u2019s remaining supporters, Rene Flowers and Deborah Figgs-Sanders among them, will undoubtedly take umbrage at the call of this column and at its admittedly mean-spirited tone. I will not apologize for it. I am pissed.<\/p>\n Every day, we wake up to a new headline about something breaking in the city of St. Petersburg. The only response is Ken Welch\u2019s gobbledygook of acronyms, or another Pillars for Progress<\/a> statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Does anyone know what the f*ck Welch is even talking about?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789663812_810_728x90.jpg\")
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