Bob Buckhorn and Rick Kriseman, Tampa Bay’s two anchor mayors are more than friends. They also have overlapping agendas. There is, for example, an amiable, bottom-line understanding on the Rays, an honest interest in making the numbers work for a bay area ferry service and sincere commitment to celebrate our diversity.
They part ways on the recruiting of a Cuban consulate. Kriseman is pro-actively pitching St. Petersburg as a host. Buckhorn is sitting it out.
His rationale is a familiar one: loyalty. Buckhorn has friends who lost their country to Castro. He stands by them. “I cannot be disrespectful of that experience,” he recently explained.
We get it. It’s what friends do.
But it’s not what mayors should do when confronted with emotional allegiance within a larger constituency. He is allowing that relationship, however understandable and admirable, to be a counterproductive influence on what’s best for Tampa.
There’s still time to do the right thing for this city, Mayor Bob.