Mayor Bill Foster's Disappointing Half Marathon

There has been a lot of coverage about the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon that was hosted in St Petersburg a couple weeks ago, and how the impact on the city that the Mayor and the race promoters promised never materialized. While that wouldn't normally surprise or upset us, this happened even after the city gave $30,000 in services to the private for-profit race promoters, on top of $100,000 from the Pinellas County(which is much more than any of the not-for-profit half marathons in the area receive). The actual number of racers was about half the original estimate of 15,000 that the race planners had mentioned to the city council and Mayor when they were being sold on the idea of financially supporting the private venture. It turns out that after they had their promise of city money that they "revised projections" to a much lower number, very convenient for them, but that didn't seem to bother the Mayor. As for the actual impact, on the morning of the race Mayor Bill Foster was quoted as saying "Every hotel, every restaurant will be packed.", even though that is not at all what happened, some businesses even said they lost business because of the half marathon. Last year when the city was being sold on financially supporting the private race, economic impact numbers of $12 million and 10,000 hotel guests were being touted, yet Philip Porter, a USF economics professor, said the real impact won't be anywhere near those numbers.

Oh, and don't think that we forgot about the City's poor handling of the $15 parking fees for the expo at the Trop attached to this event, that just added insult to injury.

And speaking of adding insult to injury, the race promoters chose to put the soon-to-be-demolished Pier prominently on all of the metals they gave out. Did anyone think to tell them it might not be around when they hold this race next year?

Hopefully when the next Lyle Lanley comes to St Petersburg looking for corporate hand-outs, our Mayor won't end up wasting our money again.

Victory! Mayor Bill Foster Gives in on Car Perks

After being pummeled on many sides for his refusal to get rid of top administrator fixed monthly car stipends, Mayor Bill Foster finally gave in last week and said his top administrators will have to fill out mileage reimbursement sheets like everybody else that uses their personal cars for city business. The change will likely save the city tens of thousands of dollars for next year's budget alone.

Mayor Bill Foster: Celebrity DJ?

You read that right, our very own Mayor Bill Foster will put aside his mayoral duties for one night(this Friday, February 18th) at the Gulfport Casino to be a celebrity DJ. The night's festivities will benefit Brookwood Florida, a residential facility for abused and at-risk teenage girls. I can't think of anything more entertaining than watching Mayor Foster up at the DJ stand, and hey, it's for a good cause. For more information take a look at the St Petersburg Tampa Bay Times article.

New City Director Quits After Only One Month Working for Mayor Bill Foster

The St Petersburg Tampa Bay Times just reported that former Safety Harbor City Manager Matthew Spoor who left that position to become the Director of Management and Budget for the City of St. Petersburg, has just quit that job and is requesting his old Safety Harbor job back. For a well respected and well reviewed rising-star of a city administrator like this to jump ship after a major step up to a higher paying position in a city that is 15 times the size of Safety Harbor after only one month speaks volumes as to what it is like to work directly under the incompetent Mayor Bill Foster. 

Mr. Spoor is really giving up a lot by doing this, especially since he wasn't guaranteed his old job back. So what is it that caused him to leave St Petersburg so quickly? We know that the city has to cut more than $10 million from the budget this year, which he was in charge of doing, but in Safety Harbor, Spoor had to cut their budget quite a bit as well while he was City Manager. He was reportedly very excited to take the Director position according to a now-redacted St Petersburg Tampa Bay Times article(original opening "Matt Spoor couldn't resist the personal and professional lure of going to work for the city where he was born").

So was it too much working for Mayor Foster(the poor communicator and inept manager that is scared of his employees and doesn't hold the staff members under him accountable for their wrong-doings)? One can only imagine how working in such an unsupportive and chaotic environment would be for someone coming from a smaller and better run city, but apparently it was too much for Mr. Spoor, and it looks very bad for Mayor Bill Foster that he can't even keep a director around for a full month before the guy jumps ship.


UPDATE: Tonight, the Safety Harbor City Commission unanimously voted to take Matt Spoor back as their City Manager "as if he had never left" to a joyous response from the audience.
 
UPDATE 2: Doc Webb over at the Patch shares his perspective on this

Hilarious Column about "Mayor Bill Foster: Man of Mystery"

Just saw this great Daniel Ruth column at the St Petersburg Tampa Bay Times about our tight-lipped Mayor's stumbles as he tries to live a second life as a secret agent. My favorite part is at the end:

'What happens when Mrs. Foster asks the most quiet man in the world to pass the salt and he responds with: "I'm sorry, my little bunchkin pie, but as mayor if I do that I could get sued because salt isn't good for you"?'

Mayor Bill Foster's Failure of His Campaign Safety Promises

There were a few great articles posted today at StPetersBlog , the Patch and at the St Petersburg Tampa Bay Times about Mayor Bill Foster's failure on his campaign promises about public safety, more specifically the first 10 points of his "Foster Forty" which all center around public safety policy changes. Both articles do a good job showing how ineffective of a manager Foster is, as well as how he is less than open about most of his failures, to the point that he refused to discuss them. I found the detailing of the exchange between Foster and Leslie Curran to be especially telling as to what kind of person Bill Foster is, and just how unsuited to be Mayor the man is.

I think that I have found a kindred spirit in Doc Webb who regularly posts on StPetersBlog and the Patch. We seem to share the same contempt for Bill Foster and how Foster has shown his contempt for the citizens of St Petersburg.

A Sad Day for St Petersburg: Mayor Bill Foster Says He's Running for Re-election

According to a posting on the Patch, Mayor Bill Foster says he will be running for reelection. Then he goes on about gardening, talking about planting seeds, taking root, harvesting and bearing fruit. Do you think if we buy him an apple tree that he will decide he doesn't have to subject us to his mayoral incompetence for another 4 years?

I can only hope that we see a competent challenger in the Mayor race for next year so we don't have to put up with our current stumbling Mayor Foster.