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?

oe Hamilton:
We are back for My Mayor Season 2, Episode 2 with candidate Maria Scruggs. Good to see you.

Maria Scruggs:
Good to see you as well, Joe. I hope the day is going well.

Joe Hamilton:
It is.

We’ve got a batch of five new questions for you.

First, what’s something you’ve become much better at in the last five years that would surprise your younger self?

Maria Scruggs:
After many years of managing people from different generations, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds, the biggest thing I’ve learned is how to listen.

When I was younger, I thought it was important to have all the answers and all the solutions, and that everyone would naturally get on board.

Surprise, surprise. That wasn’t always the case.

One thing I’m really passionate about is employee surveys, but not treating them as just another exercise. You have to really digest what people are telling you.

People want to be heard. If they don’t believe you’re genuinely listening, whether because you’re looking at your computer or texting while they’re talking, they know.

When people can tell you’re fully present and truly trying to understand them, it makes all the difference. That’s been one of the most valuable lessons of my career.

Joe Hamilton:
That makes a lot of sense.

As mayor, there will be tens of thousands of people who want to be heard. How do you balance genuinely listening with the reality that there are only so many hours in the day?

Maria Scruggs:
The first thing I believe is that the City’s 3,800 employees have to become an extension of the mayor.

One thing my current staff will tell you is that if you ever start believing you’re somehow better than the people you’re serving, you’re going to have a problem.

The people we serve are our customers, and they deserve to be treated the way we’d want to be treated.

That’s a culture shift I want to bring to City Hall.

When I talk about my platform, my number one priority is engaging the cabinet and every employee underneath them so everyone understands the culture we’re building.

You’re right. I can’t be everywhere.

But every employee receiving a paycheck from the City of St. Petersburg should represent the mayor’s commitment to listening, respecting residents and making sure their voices are part of the decision-making process.

We’ll also have systems in place that demonstrate we’re listening, processing feedback and incorporating it whenever possible.

Joe Hamilton:
Surveys can be really powerful for that.

Maria Scruggs:
Absolutely.

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

Maria Scruggs:
I’d like people to ask themselves:

“Do I really know Maria?”

Or maybe,

“How have I come to know Maria?”

I’m amazed how often people form opinions entirely from social media.

People will tell me, “Oh, I know Maria.”

In many cases, that’s the furthest thing from the truth.

I remember being at Publix one day when several people came up to me. They were all Facebook friends of mine. I didn’t recognize them.

They were genuinely surprised.

Later I asked my daughter, “Is this how Facebook works? Do people really expect you to know them personally?”

She explained that you’re really supposed to accept friend requests only from people you know.

I had simply accepted everyone because they wanted to connect.

That taught me how much people rely on social media as the basis for knowing someone and forming very strong opinions about them.

Joe Hamilton:
Very true.

People are overwhelmed with information. They’ll grab whatever clues they can find and often place far too much weight on them simply because they don’t have other ways of getting to know someone.

Social media is often all they have.

Maria Scruggs:
Exactly.

Joe Hamilton:
Tell me about a time you realized you were completely wrong about someone.

Maria Scruggs:
As a candidate, I don’t know if I should say this, but it’s the truth.

It happened with Jim Large.

About two months ago we appeared together on a podcast, and before we started we spent about forty-five minutes just talking about family, friends and growing up.

Before then, he had always felt like an adversary because I was president of the NAACP and we often found ourselves on opposite sides of issues.

I knew who he was, but I had never really gotten to know him.

When I left that conversation, I realized we actually had much more in common than we had differences.

We’re around the same age. Our children are similar ages. We both grew up in St. Petersburg. We attended the same high school.

Yes, we have some fundamental differences, but I walked away thinking very differently about him.

I’ve never told him that before, so I guess this is the first time he’ll hear it.

Joe Hamilton:
That’s really beautiful. I’m glad you shared it.

There are a lot of lessons in that.

The more time you spend with someone, the less your differences often seem to matter.

Social media works in exactly the opposite direction. It gives you a few photos and snippets, and people try to build an entire picture of someone’s life from that.

I suspect your experience with Jim would happen for a lot of people if they simply spent more time getting to know one another.

Maria Scruggs:
Absolutely.

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

Maria Scruggs:
Persistence.

As you know, I’ve run for office several times.

Just this weekend, one of the mayor’s supporters mocked me on social media, asking why someone who’s run for office for over twenty-five years would keep running after losing elections.

What that reminded me of is persistence.

Throughout my career I’ve often been the first.

I was the first African American elected homecoming queen at an integrated high school in Pinellas County.

I was the first Black female special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement assigned to the Tampa office.

I was the first Black Florida Beverage Agent assigned to the Orlando office.

When you’re breaking barriers, you’re going to fail sometimes because there are people who are determined to see you fail.

You learn from those failures, and then you keep going.

It doesn’t bother me that I’ve run six times, seven times or a hundred times.

What matters is asking myself after every success or failure:

“What lesson did I learn?”

Everything I’ve learned from those campaigns has made this mayoral race much easier because I’ve learned to focus on what really matters.

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?

Maria Scruggs:
Testing ideas.

One commitment I’ve made during this campaign is that I’m not a professional politician, and I don’t want to sound like one.

I don’t want to offer simple answers to complicated problems.

When I first considered running for mayor, I asked myself:

“What are other cities doing?”

Surely we’re not the first community facing these challenges.

I spend a tremendous amount of time researching best practices.

Whether it’s livable wages, supporting small businesses, climate resilience or storm preparedness, I’m constantly looking at what other cities have done well and what mistakes they’ve made.

We learn from success, but we also learn from failure.

If you looked through my ChatGPT history or my internet searches, you’d find pages and pages of research about how other communities have approached these issues.

That gives me confidence because I know there are people who’ve already solved many of these problems, and I can learn from their experience instead of trying to reinvent everything.

Joe Hamilton:
That makes a lot of sense. Very thoughtful.

Thank you for joining us for Episode 2. We’ll see you again in a couple of weeks for the next episode.

Until then, have fun on the campaign trail.

Maria Scruggs:
Thank you, Joe. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve really enjoyed this format, and I hope it’s helping people gain a better understanding of the candidates and a little more insight into who I am.