We all know how assertive and pro-active Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn is.
He’s the city’s CEO, chief recruiter and head cheerleader. By charter and persona, he’s the strong mayor of the largest city in the Tampa Bay metro market. He knows his way around a bully pulpit. He’s been to Washington to lobby for Riverwalk grants, to talk trade issues with President Obama and to meet the Pope. The last Republican National Convention and the initial visit of the Bollywood Oscars were on his watch. Gubernatorial speculation is still a given.
However, check out his counterpart in St. Petersburg, Rick Kriseman. He has to contend with a minor league city council, doesn’t always talk in sound bites, and doesn’t preside over this region’s business hub. Nobody thinks the governor’s mansion will beckon. But, then, most observers didn’t think this Jewish Democrat would knock off the incumbent Republican Bill Foster less than two years ago.
But above the fold and behind the scenes, Kriseman is showing that he is a player. It’s more than appointing a new police chief and moving through the arduous Pier process.
Kriseman, 53, has been the voice of pragmatic reason in negotiating with the Rays over new stadium scenarios. He thinks regionally as well as locally and knows the area can’t afford to lose Major League Baseball. He doesn’t see Tampa as a threat. He knows the real adversaries are short-sightedness, provincialism and an out-of-market suitor.
He’s also been part of a contingent to visit Cuba, and he’s very much behind the pitch to bring a Cuban consulate to St. Petersburg–even though it arguably belongs in Tampa. It matters if the mayor is the point man, and he–as well as vested Tampa interests–know it.
He’s also made it a point to confront wastewater issues and get out in front of climate-change implications with money from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil-spill settlement. And he’s proposed $1 million for an arts endowment and $350,000 toward a pilot program that would run a ferry service–for tourists, snowbirds and residents–between downtown St. Petersburg and downtown Tampa through the winter months. Kriseman will be formally pitching the ferry idea to Buckhorn, among others, this week–after he returns from Toronto, where he (and Buckhorn) were part of the Tampa Bay Export Alliance meetings.
So far, Kriseman is proving to be exactly what this area has always needed. Major-city mayors who can take care of the home front while working as a regional partner with other key players. And who cares if there’s no hint of swagger.