Bill Foster elected mayor of St. Petersburg

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

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St. Petersburg voters have elected Bill Foster to be their next mayor.

PINELLAS COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- Bill Foster will be the next mayor of St. Petersburg.

Foster took a commanding lead over Kathleen Ford and won with 53 percent of the vote.

Turnout was good with just under 34 percent of registered voters casting their vote.

Ford and Foster were the two surviving candidates from the August mayoral primary. They beat out eight other candidates.

St. Petersburg residents also decided five city council races.

In the District 2 race, voters chose Jim Kennedy over Steve Corsetti.

Leslie Curran beat P. Settlegoode by a large margin in the District 4 race.

In District 5, Steve Kornell beat out Angela Rouson.

More Information

Complete election results
Watch Foster's celebration
Watch part of Ford's speech
Incumbents prevail in Manatee, Polk counties
Runoffs await Lakeland mayor, council races
Go to Bay News 9 On Demand Ch. 342 to hear more from Foster and Ford (available after 12 a.m.)

Voters chose Karl Nurse over Vel Thompson in District 6.

And in District 8, Jeff Danner easily beat Leonard Schmiege.

St. Petersburg voters also passed both charter amendments.

In Largo, voters chose Curtis Holmes for Seat 3 on the city commission. They also voted to amend the city's charter.

St. Pete Beach voters passed all four charter amendments on the ballot.

Follow our live coverage all night long with reporters in each county, and check with baynews9.com throughout the night for the latest election returns.

Click on the candidates' names for their web sites.

Kathleen Ford

Ford, a graduate of the University of Virginia, also holds a law degree from South Texas College of Law. She has practiced law in Florida since 1992.

Ford works with her husband, Harvey, in St. Petersburg. The couple have two children.

Community service

Ford served on City Council from 1996 to 2001. She has also served in numerous organizations, including:

North Shore Neighborhood Association, now known as the Historic Old Northeast Neighborhood Association (President and Board member)
City's Housing Roundtable, St. Petersburg Housing Initiative Program (SHIP) Advisor Board
Two City Codes Compliance Task Forces
The Waterfront Park/Al Lang Field Citizens visioning group in 2008.

Ford has also volunteered in the Pinellas County School System.

Proposals

Ford said she would focus her budget on three issues:

Cutting residential and commercial property taxes: She wants a residential and commercial property tax rate reduction of .5 mills, which would be a reduction of 8.5 percent.
Adding $500,000 to the police budget and an additional $500,000 to the fire department budget. The money would be used for additional personnel or equipment.
Funding non-management city positions. She said she would add $300,000 to the budget to restore some personnel cuts.

"The residents of St. Petersburg have made it clear that next to lowering property taxes, public safety should be City Hall's priority," Ford said in a press release. "For years I have been saying the Police Department needs more officers on the street, recently we have learned that the Fire Department also need more personnel for fire trucks."

Ford said she would propose a two-step plan to shore up the city's long-term financial health.

Reducing what Ford called "the current top heavy bureaucracy." She said she would reduce the salary of top management officials who make more than $90,000 annually, including the mayor. Ford said city staff making more than $100,000 would receive a 10-percent salary reduction and staff making $90,000-$100,000 would receive a 5-percent reduction.
Releasing excess surplus funds. Ford said there are several city funds with surplus balances, adding up to $58-million.

"For a number of years, according to the city budget, the city has been saving for an economic rainy day," Ford said. "In terms of bad economic news, it's pouring in St. Petersburg."

Bill Foster

Foster holds a bachelor of science in public administration and a law degree from Samford University and Cumberland School of Law of Samford University. He has practiced law since 1988 and works for Foster and Foster in St. Petersburg.

Foster and his wife, Wendy Holt Foster, have two teenage children.

Community service

Foster was appointed to St. Petersburg city council in August 1998 to fill an unexpired term, and elected to the council in 1999. He was re-elected in 2003 and served as chairman in 2004 and 2006.
He has also served in numerous organizations, including:

The Pinellas County Tourist Development Council
The Pinellas Planning Council
The Pinellas County Annexation Task Force
The Public Art Commission

Proposals

Foster is running with a four-point plan he calls the Foster Formula.

Control Spending with an Eye Toward Tax Reductions
Public Safety
Neighborhood and Business Development through Customer Service
Sunshine, Transparency, and Open Government

Foster said he would restructure the budgetary process and concentrate on basic services which are essential to quality of life.

He wants to implement a service-level budgeting process, with every city department budget being reviewed every two years. Foster calls that process a hybrid of zero-based budgeting.

"Instead of starting at zero, we still start with a base that is readily acceptable as necessary (ie. 70% of current spending levels, assuming monies necessary for salaries, supplies, gasoline, etc.), rank the effectiveness of the expenditure or program, and prioritize each from most effective and beneficial to least," Foster said.

He also wants to implement a governance model that is more in line with business and competition.

"If it doesn't involve public safety, it deserves serious consideration for a budgetary reduction," Foster said.

Foster said he wants to reduce the cost of running city government, and said that can be done without reducing the quality of service.

In the area of law enforcement, Foster said his philosophy is the police should concentrate on crime prevention, including stopping minor crimes, rather than be response oriented.

"Minor offenses breed an environment conducive to major offenses, and by not enforcing the small stuff, we create an environment of disdain for law enforcement," he said.

He said he wants to increase number of officers on the street.

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