Welcome back to season 2 of My Mayor, the Catalyst series that helps you get to know the person behind the policy. We sat down with each candidate and asked them each the same five questions, with a few follow up questions sprinkled in. For Episode 2, we asked:

  • What’s something you’ve become much better at in the last five years that would surprise your younger self?
  • What’s a question you wish more people would ask before forming an opinion?
  • Tell me about a time when you realized you’d been completely wrong about someone.
  • What’s a lesson life taught you the hard way?
  • When nobody’s asking anything of you and curiosity takes over, what rabbit hole are you most likely to disappear into?

Joe Hamilton:
We are back on Season 2, Episode 2 of My Mayor with the current mayor, Ken Welch. Welcome, sir.

Ken Welch:
Good to be back, Joe. Good to see you.

Joe Hamilton:
We’ve got five fresh, fun questions to help the voters continue to get to know you.

Ken Welch:
Are they guaranteed fresh?

Joe Hamilton:
I can’t guarantee they’re fresh. I think that’s trademarked.

Ken Welch:
Okay.

Joe Hamilton:
What’s something you’ve become much better at in the last five years that would surprise your younger self?

Ken Welch:
It really wouldn’t surprise my younger self, but the experience of the last five years as mayor, starting with COVID and then going through five hurricanes, really sharpened my focus on what’s important.

What’s important for our city going forward is resilience. It’s our entire approach to becoming a resilient community. It’s more than just having three days of food and water. We’ve got to do much more in terms of infrastructure and helping neighborhoods rebuild better.

That was a game changer, not only for me personally but for our entire community. My focus now is what life looks like over the next 50 years for the City of St. Petersburg and how we maintain the quality of life we have. The storms really changed that focus.

Joe Hamilton:
Sometimes I think of it as being in a state of deficit. You’re at negative one, just fighting to get back to zero, to stability. Then once you’re back at zero, you’re trying to grow from zero to one. That’s common in the startup world.

Do you feel like most of your first term was spent fighting back from hurricanes and the pandemic just to get the city back on track, and now you’re looking at that opportunity to move from zero to one?

Ken Welch:
We were able to do multiple things simultaneously. That’s why I always tell the story of how great our St. Pete team is.

They dealt with COVID, five hurricanes and the Historic Gas Plant redevelopment. At the same time, they still handled water, sewer, sanitation, parks and every other city service. They were burning the midnight oil.

More than a hundred employees had damaged or destroyed homes of their own and were still working to help the community recover.

So I wouldn’t say we were focused exclusively on storm response. We were doing both jobs at once. I think that reflects the quality of employees we have in the City of St. Petersburg. People should know that.

Joe Hamilton:
Wonderful.

What’s a question you wish more people would ask before forming an opinion?

Ken Welch:
Consider the source.

That’s even more important today. I recently toured a facility where they had a QR code at one of the exhibits. You scanned it and watched what looked like a Hollywood-quality video. I asked where they found the actors. It was all AI.

Today you can create almost any narrative you want with the tools that are available. It’s more important than ever for people to do a little research and understand the source of the information.

It’s not just scammers anymore. It’s becoming a difficult world to navigate if you’re not paying attention to where information comes from.

We all need to distinguish legitimate, authentic information from something that was intentionally, or even unintentionally, built on bad information. So my recommendation is simple. Consider the source.

Joe Hamilton:
Most definitely.

Tell me about a time you were completely, or at least somewhat, wrong about someone.

Ken Welch:
That was a tough question.

I’ll go back to what became a real learning experience for me. It dates back to 2006, but it’s still the most relevant example.

When I was on the County Commission, I was assigned to the Homeless Leadership Network. I had never really worked on homelessness before, but I eventually became chair of the committee that developed the county’s first comprehensive plan to address homelessness.

I learned there are many different paths into homelessness. It’s not just one story. Many people are employed. Someone can lose housing because of a traffic accident, a medical emergency or domestic violence.

You can’t paint everyone with the same brush.

The path out is different for every person. Some need a job. Some need temporary housing for thirty days. Others need mental health or substance abuse treatment along with wraparound services.

Serving meals at Pinellas Hope and working with organizations throughout the county gave me a much deeper understanding of the issue.

I’m proud that the City of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County have a continuum of care that helps people get back on their feet every day. I’m glad we have organizations doing that work, and I’m glad we support them.

Joe Hamilton:
I’m always surprised when we cover the ALICE population. These are people who are employed, but one fender bender or one broken arm away from losing their housing because they’re living paycheck to paycheck. It’s something like thirty percent of people. It’s a real issue.

What’s a lesson life taught you the hard way?

Ken Welch:
There have been many examples. I wouldn’t call them hard as much as necessary.

Life gives you tests and trials. In my faith, you move through them. You don’t stay stuck in them.

At the time, you don’t always understand why you’re going through something. Later, you can look back and realize you’re stronger because of it. You’ve overcome that obstacle.

Life includes those trials. The key is learning from them and continuing to move forward.

Joe Hamilton:
Final question.

When nobody’s asking anything of you and curiosity takes over, what’s the rabbit hole you’re most likely to disappear into?

Ken Welch:
I just touched on it a little, but for me it’s artificial intelligence.

We’re living through something comparable to the Industrial Revolution or the computer revolution.

The more I learn about AI, agents and automated workflows, the more I see how much more productive people can become.

You still have to verify information because it’s not one hundred percent accurate. But this technology is life changing.

I think everyone should learn what it can do in their everyday life. Even more importantly, we need to prepare students and the next generation so AI empowers them instead of replacing them.

That’s what I’m spending a lot of time trying to understand. What is it capable of, and how can I use it in practical ways in my job?

Joe Hamilton:
What are some of your favorite use cases you’ve found through your research or your work?

Ken Welch:
It’s embedded in almost everything now. Whether you’re using Microsoft Word, reading PDFs or working with everyday software, AI is already there.

I use it a lot for research and for summarizing long documents.

General research is probably my favorite use. I grew up with the big red World Book Encyclopedias, so this feels like a candy store to me.

Joe Hamilton:
Whenever there’s a major technological shift, people often become uneasy because they don’t fully understand it. At the same time, there’s concern about the infrastructure behind AI, particularly data centers.

How do you approach helping the community become comfortable with AI, knowing it’s useful, inevitable and also comes with legitimate tradeoffs?

Ken Welch:
It’s similar to the Duke Energy discussions we’re having.

We need facts.

If we believe AI brings real benefits, then we also need to understand the actual environmental impacts, energy consumption and water usage. Then we can make logical decisions by weighing value against cost.

The concerns I hear most often involve energy use, water consumption and even the possibility of small nuclear reactors powering data centers. That sounds surprising, but we’ve safely powered submarines and ships that way for years.

We need to have those conversations, work through the facts and determine what it actually costs to operate these facilities and where they belong.

Joe Hamilton:
It really highlights how incredible the human brain is. It takes a nuclear reactor to do what our brains accomplish with little more than cheeseburger power.

Ken Welch:
There you go.

Joe Hamilton:
Thank you very much for taking the time. I know you’re busy. I appreciate you joining us, and good luck.

Ken Welch:
Thank you.