The race to represent District 4 on the St. Petersburg City Council comes down to two accomplished candidates who say their specific skills would translate well on the board.
What You Need To Know
- District 4 in St. Petersburg includes neighborhoods like Historic Old Northeast, Childs Park, Crescent Lake and Allendale
- The seat is currently held by Darden Rice
- The election takes place on November 2
- More Politics headlines
Lisset Hanewicz, a former federal and state prosecutor, says that her tenure as president of the Crescent Lake Neighborhood Association is what has prompted her for the first time to contemplate entering electoral politics on the local level.
“It was actually my involvement in the community – that when you start seeing the change that you can affect – it really did fulfill me, and people started asking, ‘Have you thought about running for city council?”’ she told Spectrum Bay News 9 on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Tom Mullins says that his three decades of experience working as an executive for Raymond James would be “complementary” to the current council.
“Everyone on the city council is terrific but all of their backgrounds and capabilities seem to center around local real estate or local community activism,” he says. “And I think I’m the only candidate running that brings real sort of…big time, big corporate leadership experience. It’d be good to have someone on the city council that’s been on the inside of a Fortune 500 boardroom a few times.”
In the August primary, Hanewicz came out on top with 42 percent of the vote. Mullins was second with 24 percent.
The most recent financial reports show that Mullins has raised more than $106,000, with the lion’s share coming out of his own pocket, including $40,000 during the last reporting period. Hanewicz has raised more than $99,000.
When it comes to endorsements, Hanewicz has received the backing from a number of high-profile individuals and organizations, including Mayor Rick Kriseman and Council member Darden Rice (who has been the District 4 representative since 2013). She’s also being backed by the Sierra Club, the Sun Coast Police Benevolent Association, the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 747 and the Pinellas Realtors Organization.
Mullins is being supported by Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes, but says that his campaign hasn’t been focused on endorsements.
Hanewicz is the daughter of Cuban exiles. If elected, she would become the first Hispanic to serve on the St. Pete City Council. Mullins has said that she’s running predominantly on her biography, which he says is “a very strong personal biography, and a great story, but she’s not really running on specific ideas.”
Hanewicz dismisses that comment, saying that she’s attended every candidate forum that she’s been invited to and responded in full to all the questions posed to her.
“My interviews and the forums have been out there in terms of my positions, so that’s not a problem for the public to see,” she said.
Mullins has also criticized some of the public employee unions who have endorsed her, saying, “My opponent is backed by a number of the national sort of progressive interest groups that have been the same ones that put the current mayors and municipal administrations in place in cities like Portland and Chicago and Los Angeles and San Francisco where you’ve had a real terrible – even before Covid – you had a really terrible trends in municipal performance over the last ten or fifteen years.”
That comment is similar to one that Mullins made on a campaign mailer that drew the ire of the Hanewicz campaign and representatives from the police and fire unions who are supporting her candidacy.
“The fact that he doesn’t have some of those endorsements sounds a little bit like sour grapes to me,” she says, adding that his criticism of first responders “shows a lack of empathy for those who we have to rely on.”
Mullins says he’s not backing down from those comments.
“I stuck to my policy positions where I wanted to be very protective of taxpayers and clearly they (the union representatives) didn’t have a good reaction to that.”
On the issue of affordable housing, Mullins disputes the idea more high-density housing would hurt the character of existing neighborhoods.
“Just look around. Every dead mall, every underperforming strip center, every closed grade and middle school, every dormant church campus is a potential source of responsible increase in housing supply that can help St. Pete affordable for everybody.”
Hanewicz says that changing zoning laws to allow for more accessory dwelling units could add to the current housing stock, which would provide more affordable housing for small families, but also could aid homeowners to help pay their mortgage.
On the issue of crime, and the fact that homicides are up in St. Petersburg this year (as they are in virtually every major city in the country), Hanewicz says it’s important to understand the factors behind the statistics.
“It’s very easy for someone to say ’crime’s rising,’” she says. “You have to really look at what’s going on and what is happening. If the murder rate is going up, okay, so what’s the facts about those cases? Is there something linked? Is it something to do with interpersonal conflicts? Domestic issues?…You first have to understand the facts to get to solutions, and I think that my experience as a prosecutor and understanding the system and working with the police is really going to help out on city council.”
Mullins cites national events to explain the rising crime levels across the country, such as “an open border policy,” communities that have eliminated cash bail and “having prosecutors who don’t prosecute.”
He does say he’s in favor of some sort of “intelligent” gun control policy, a sentiment expressed by current Mayor Rick Kriseman and other local officials, but which is prohibited by a 1987 law that forbids local governments from passing gun control legislation.
The race is tight, according to a recent St. Pete Polls survey, though the majority said they were uncertain or didn’t want to commit publicly to who they will support.