Is the Kriseman administration playing straight on the Pier?

By: Eugene Webb, PhD

Coauthor of: So You Want to Blog

It is not a secret that Mike Connors is no fan of the Pier and especially the inverted pyramid.

The Kriseman administration's decision to let Connors run the Pier project and chair the Selection Committee was a ticking time bomb that finally went off late Friday afternoon.

Following almost 8 hours of tedious discussion of all the remaining Pier proposals with Connors virtually dragging comments out of the committee members, Connors at one point sank back in his chair and commented he was getting tired.

Connors noted for his eloquent and often quaint handle on the English language has been a stalwart staffer for at least three Mayors. He is smart, fearless and those who don't respect him in the City organization are either very brave or really stupid.

Well beyond the point where most people would have thrown in the towel, Connors kept pushing along in the final Selection Committee meeting trying to get to his boss's objective of a ranking of three of the proposals. 

When the discussion got around to ranking the four, not three, remaining proposals, Connor's frustration was beginning to rise.

In what some might actually call a near rant, he expressed his strong disdain for anything a that retained the existing Pier or any of its structure, thus putting him in direct opposition the City's recent survey of public opinion which rank Destination Pier as their first choice.

So was Connors speaking for Connors, or was he speaking for the administration? It probably doesn't really matter because the perception is Connors is the City guy running the Pier show, and as they say in government perception is reality. The guy running the Pier project wants the inverted pyramid GONE.

It's been a long time since I saw Mike Connors come that unglued, and even longer since anything near his very public anti inverted pyramid mini rant.

This round of the Pier saga is starting to look like another train wreck.

When a representative of St. Pete Polls a local poling organization offered to share some of their results on the Pier Survey, he was allowed to speak, but then when he asked if he could have the poll shown on the screen and thus TV, Connors lateralled to the Legal Department who promptly said "no". The Poll supports the City survey and indicated Destination Pier is the overwhelming choice of the public.

Just kind of makes one wonder.

The end of Fridays meeting had to be some where close to Mayor Kriseman's worst nightmare. All this effort and not even a ranking and the old LENS opposition looking very concerned about ignoring the public's input.

Looking at the expressions on Mr. Ballard and Mr. Risser faces as they spoke at the end of the meeting, it seems the Kriseman dream team has some damage control to do.

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