St. Petersburg's new mayor elect: Bill Foster

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

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

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

Foster beat Kathleen Ford on Tuesday, wining 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.

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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.

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.

About 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 wants 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 will restructure the budgetary process and concentrate on basic services which are essential to quality of life.

He said he will 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.

Go to Bay News 9 On Demand Ch. 342 to hear more from Bill Foster and Kathleen Ford

"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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