It was the summer of 1983 and I had just moved to St. Petersburg from Columbus, Ohio.
St. Petersburg? Yuck, they said. “God’s waiting room.” “Home of the newlywed and nearly dead.”
But, I fell in love with St. Pete. It was such a tropical paradise for a snow-weary Yankee like me that I was willing to overlook its decaying downtown and the throngs of older residents. But over the past 34 years things took a dramatic unexpected turn. St. Pete is now one of the hottest tickets in the nation. Our downtown exploded with new development. Events on the waterfront became non-stop expressions of a lively, young and decidedly progressive community. Gay people weren’t confined to a single neighborhood or ghetto. We were everywhere, an integral part of a colorful tropical tapestry.
Flash forward to 2003: the year I met current mayor and (then city council) candidate for re-election Rick Kriseman for the first time.
St. Petersburg was attracting a burgeoning gay population. A gay resort was flourishing and south Florida had sent us Georgie’s Alibi. I had joined together with a group of community leaders to plan and produce St. Pete’s first gay Pride celebration. In the backdrop St. Pete was rapidly losing its old image and embracing a new, progressive, forward looking and thinking one. Queer as Folk called us the “San Francisco of the East.”
Things were going great in our planning for the first ever Pride event. The only issue was with then-mayor Rick Baker. This is the same Rick Baker who is trying to unseat Rick Kriseman.
Rick Baker doesn’t like us. He thinks homosexuality is a choice and a sin. He also resents the way St. Petersburg has become such a glowing blue beacon in purple Florida. If he is elected, watch us move backward in the direction of the nearly dead instead of forward into a truly inclusive community. That’s where Rick Kriseman has been taking us and why it is imperative we as a community do everything in our power to get him re-elected.
That first year of Pride we had asked the city if they would issue a proclamation naming June “Gay Pride Month” in St. Petersburg. Of course Mr. Homophobe Rick Baker said “no way.” But, any city council member can issue a proclamation and then-council member, Rick Kriseman, did just that in open defiance of the mayor and at great political risk to himself.
St. Petersburg city council handles proclamations all on one day, one right after the other. The proclamation is read and the mayor steps down from the dias. A photo is taken of the receiving group with him (or her). There were about two dozen other proclamations and the mayor stepped forward to have his photo taken for each and every one…except ours. He stayed firmly seated while we received our proclamation from Kriseman. Quite honestly, it was humiliating. It was insulting and it made me feel like a second class citizen. Rick Baker insulted and belittled me. Rick Kriseman lifted me up and validated me as an important part of the St. Pete community. Is there really a choice here?
As part of St. Pete’s amazing transformation from a sleepy retirement community to a blossoming gay mecca, we’ve elected three openly gay city council members. How is Baker going to work with those three members of our community? Will he treat them with respect or will he insult and belittle them like he did with the LGBTQ community while he was in office?
More recently I was honored to be the only man on the steering committee of St. Petersburg’s Women’s March, the largest in the state. Yet another sign that our growing reputation as Florida’s Most Progressive City is valid. In front of a crowd of 30,000, Rick Kriseman read another proclamation denoting that day as “Women’s Rights Day,” adding that as long as he was mayor every day was women’s rights day in St. Petersburg. One has to wonder how those rights will fare under a Trump-supporting, climate change-denying, right-wing Republican like Rick Baker.
Rick Kriseman has raised rainbow flags, African American flags, marched in both the Pride parade and our nation’s largest MLK Parade. He’s held Iftar dinners in recognition of Muslims. He’s raised our equality index from a feeble 66 to a perfect score…and kept it there. Crime is down dramatically. Relations between the police and the community have never been better. He actually has a plan to help our city deal with climate change. Baker had more storm water “dumps” into the bay than Kriseman has had. Kriseman is actually working on fixing the problem. Baker did nothing.
But our best friend, our ally and quite frankly the future of the Sunshine City is in trouble. Dark right-wing money has poured in to help Baker and has put him in an almost ten-point lead over our candidate. However, gay people are notoriously organized politically and we know how to get things done. We didn’t get marriage equality because we stood on the sidelines. We can do this! Now is the time we need to say “we’ve got your back Rick” and begin an all-out push for his re-election. His campaign needs volunteers to go door to door, to call voters, to give people rides to the polls and to talk to and influence our neighbors and friends. Visit his website at KrisemanForMayor.com to get involved. Do it now!
Most importantly Rick needs every vote he can get. Be sure you are at the polls on August 29. It’s time we flexed our political muscle LGBTQ St. Petersburg!
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