Janelle Irwin Taylor
On Saturday, the Suncoast Sierra Club celebrated local candidates the group has endorsed for the upcoming St. Petersburg Municipal Election, including mayoral candidate Ken Welch and City Council candidates Copley Gerdes, Lisett Hanewicz Gina Driscoll and Richie Floyd.
About 50 people gathered at the Duncan McClellan Gallery in the Warehouse Arts District, limited due to COVID-19 precautions. The group included Sierra Club chair Ramón Cruz, who emphasized the group’s commitment to the intersection of social justice and climate action when selecting endorsements.
“We can’t think of protecting the environment without asking who are we are protecting it for,” Cruz said. “The environmental struggle, it’s also a social justice struggle, a gender equity struggle — unless we deal with all of these issues, then we will really not get ahead of the game in dealing with the climate crisis.”
Candidates mingled with Sierra Club members during a gathering that paid homage to environmental awareness, including live music powered exclusively from an all-electric Tesla.
Speaking briefly at the event, candidates faced a friendly crowd; their remarks showed it was less about earning votes and more about firing up current supporters — who already had their backs.
“Environment and equity and economy, they’re all linked together,” said Welch, a former Pinellas County Commissioner, noting that his administration would “keep listening to the science.”
“The crazy is always going to be out there ” Welch added, “but we can’t let that deter us from doing the right thing for our city.”
Dan Huber, chair of the Suncoast Sierra Club, said the endorsed candidates “are the people that we feel are the leaders” of a vision that “places the environment and equity at the forefront” and who can “actually make it happen.
Gerdes — who is running in a Special Election concurrent with the regular 2021 races to replace City Council member Robert Blackmon, Welch’s opponent, in the District 1 race — said he got into the contest for one reason.
“I’ve got a four-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son at home,” he said. “I’m living here, I’m retiring here, somebody is going to have to bury me here.” He said he wants to do his part to ensure the city is a place his kids can be proud of, and that includes protecting the city’s environmental landscape.
Driscoll, the District 4 incumbent, is facing what is likely to be easy reelection against Mhariel Summers. As of Oct. 8, Driscoll had raised nearly $117,000 for her race, while Summers has brought in less than $14,000.
“For the last two years, there has been time on my calendar every single month just for the Sierra club … because I want to hear from them, and I also want to use them as a resource because they have been a great guide for me,” Driscoll said. “St. Petersburg as a coastal community has many opportunities to really lead the way in environmental stewardship.”
Hanewicz, a former federal prosecutor running to replace City Council member Darden Rice in District 4 against Raymond James executive Tom Mullins, recalled an effort in her Crescent Lake neighborhood to clean up the lake central to the community.
“It was education; it was so the community understands, that where your stormwater goes, guess where it goes. It goes in your lake,” Hanewicz said, noting that her neighborhood’s cleanup spurred similar actions in other communities.
But District 8 candidate Floyd, a teacher and self-described progressive, received the warmest reception from the environmental activist crowd.
“It’s so important to me because we have to talk about people who don’t have time to think about climate change because they’re too busy going to work and trying to put food on the table,” Floyd said. “We’re not just in a silo. We’re all in this together.”
Floyd faces former City Council member Jeff Danner in the race to replace term-limited Council member Amy Foster.
The election is on Nov. 2.
