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<\/a><\/p>\nIt\u2019s rhetorical because, of course, the answer is \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ken Welch is a decent man and a pretty good politician. But he\u2019s not as good a Mayor as the previous guys.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s exactly why the tree symbolizes both the naughty and the nice of Ken Welch\u2019s mayoral term.<\/p>\n
His supporters will point to the top of my column and question why I am complaining. It\u2019s a fair point. There were hundreds of people enjoying the display and activities. It was a beautiful display, with an arguably even more beautiful backdrop in Tampa Bay, the St. Pete Pier and the historic Vinoy Hotel and Resort.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s exactly my point. There will always be hundreds of people in downtown St. Pete in December, because we are blessed to have a picturesque downtown, bustling businesses, and temperate weather that fosters people to come and enjoy whatever display from whatever mayoral administration.<\/p>\n
There are so many things going right in this city, but they are happening, largely, in spite of \u2014 not because of \u2014 our current Mayor.<\/p>\n That\u2019s really why Charlie Crist, if he does choose to run<\/a>, wants to go to City Hall. He believes St. Petersburg could be something more than what it is.<\/p>\n It could, even more than it already is, be that bright and shiny Christmas tree of a city.<\/p>\n But the truth is, Ken Welch is not the executive or the deal maker we need in 2027 to move the city forward.<\/p>\n He\u2019s rushing to get a development deal done for the Tropicana Field site after the one he had previously brokered crashed and burned, and he\u2019s trying to give it to Cathie Wood, one of his biggest campaign donors.<\/p>\n Wood, along with developer Casey Ellison, submitted a proposal in October to redevelop the site in phases, including 3,701 new homes, 863 of them affordable units, 618 affordable units for seniors, and 444 workforce units. The remaining 1,776 would be market-rate units. The plan also calls for more than 1,500 hotel rooms, all while reserving nearly 45% of the site for public parks, culture and civic spaces.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a bad pitch. In fact, it\u2019s quite good. But it was unsolicited, and the Mayor\u2019s quick deference<\/a> to it prompted pushback, leading him to delay the timeline<\/a> by pushing back publication of a 30-day public notice until early January. His move came after pushback from both the City Council and the development community<\/a>.<\/p>\n Wood, founder and CEO of ARK Invest, is a business savant successful enough to become a billionaire. She should be smart enough to know that no matter how bright and shiny her proposal is, it will not move forward until after the 2026 mayoral election.<\/p>\n That means, if she\u2019s overly connected to Welch and he loses, her proposal will be as dead as a Christmas tree in late January.<\/p>\n And if she\u2019s not sure \u2026 or if she\u2019s somehow hedging bets. Look no further than the precedent that Welch himself set.<\/p>\n One of Welch\u2019s first major acts as Mayor was to cancel<\/a> the\u00a0previous Request for Proposals and selection issued<\/a>\u00a0by former Mayor\u00a0Rick Kriseman\u00a0in 2020 to redevelop the Trop site, instead replacing it with his own process.<\/p>\n There is no reason to believe that a new Mayor \u2014 Welch only seems to be drawing opposition out of frustration with his first term \u2014 wouldn\u2019t do the same thing. Even if Welch were to fast-track Wood\u2019s Trop proposal, a new Mayor could come in and cancel it to start anew.<\/p>\n Maybe Wood\u2019s proposal is the shiniest Christmas tree out there, and maybe it\u2019s worthy of the city\u2019s selection. But the city deserves to evaluate alternatives.<\/p>\n In 2026, voters\u2019ll get to do exactly that with the Mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n So stay tuned, and go check out the new tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For both new and longtime St. Petersburg residents \u2014 even those from neighboring cities across the Bay or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[8120,8121,3347,2346,3302,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-93833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-casey-ellison","9":"tag-cathie-wood","10":"tag-charlie-crist","11":"tag-ken-welch","12":"tag-rick-kriseman","13":"tag-st-pete","14":"tag-st-pete-headlines","15":"tag-st-pete-news","16":"tag-st-petersburg","17":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","18":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93833","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=93833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/PinpointAd_728x90.jpeg\")
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