With less than a month until the first absentee ballots get mailed out, the race for Mayor is starting to take shape.  Three candidates have emerged as the strongest leaders for the city: Jamie Bennett, Kathleen Ford and Scott Wagman.  

Bennett, Ford and Wagman, who are all Democrats, have shown that they have the experience, leadership ability and vision to lead St. Petersburg. 

Jamie Bennett was elected to the St. Petersburg City Council in 2001, and has served for eight years, including two years as chairman of the council. He has owned a small business in St. Petersburg for the past 25 years, and has been involved in community activities including: serving as the chairman of the City Beautiful Commission, volunteering with the Boy Scouts and participating as an active member of the Greater Pinellas Point Neighborhood Association. 

Kathleen Ford served on City Council from 1996 to 2001. It was during this time that Kathleen honed her legislative skills and developed her no nonsense, common sense approach to government. She stood up to the special interest groups and worked tirelessly for the benefit of the citizens of St. Petersburg. 

Kathleen helped the city transition from the council-manager to the strong-mayor form of government and as a council member she advocated for the replacement of the city's aging infrastructure, approved of the formation of Tampa Bay Water, approved of the amendments to the Stadium Use Agreement for Major League Baseball, advocated for the hiring of a cultural arts coordinator and was a leading proponent in the reduction of the city's tax rate.

Scott Wagman is a successful, socially responsible business executive who led his family's mom-and-pop business from a one-store operation to a $19 million, 140-employee multi-store success story. Thirteen years ago Scott created the first leftover paint-recycling program in Florida at Scott Paint. Today, the program is now recycling paint for eight counties in Florida and is run at a profit.

To get the city budget on track, reduce crime, and generate economic growth while preserving our quality of life, Scott believes that we need a mayor who has gotten results and who is not vested in politics as usual.

A couple of the other candidates have not seemed to connect as well with voters. 

While Republican lobbyist Deveron Gibbons is well financed, he lacks the understanding of city government and city budgets.  Deveron has avoided a number of public forums and is noted for his unwillingness to actually answer the questions being asked.  Earlier this year, Deveron was described in the St. Petersburg Times as a “Republican activist who helped Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney in the last presidential election but now invokes Barack Obama on the campaign trail.” 

Republican City Councilor Bill Foster also seems to avoid talking about the important issues that face St. Petersburg. It has been hard for the voters to understand what he would do for the city and what his vision for St. Petersburg is.  After a recent debate, Howard Troxler of the St. Petersburg Times commented that Bill Foster's “opening and closing statements and most answers were platitudes.”  The voters are simply tired of these platitudes and are looking for real leadership.

If you would like more information on the leading candidates, click on the candidates' names to go to their website.