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 4, we asked:

  • If you could spend a week shadowing anyone, who would it be? 
  • What’s something you’ve become less certain about as you’ve gotten older? 
  • Tell me about a time you had to choose between being liked and being respected. 
  • What’s a misconception about success that you no longer believe? 
  • What’s a compliment you’ve received that has stayed with you for years? 

Joe: We are back on My Mayor, episode four, the last episode before the primaries, and joining me is candidate Maria Scruggs. Great to see you.

Maria: Good afternoon. Good to see you as well.

Joe: Ready to dive into five new questions?

Maria: I’m ready.

Joe: All right, number one. If you could spend a week shadowing anyone, who would it be?

Maria: Well, Joe, I am definitely a planner, and in anticipation of winning the mayor’s race, I mapped out my first 100 days on the job. And in doing that, the first five days will be spent shadowing legal. One of the reasons that’s so important is because it’s very important that as the mayor, I understand the charter authority. Reading it is one thing, but the practicality of it — I understand the public records process, which is huge for me. I look at our contracting and procurement processes, which have caused me some concern, and, more importantly, all of the major development agreements. There is a lot going on in this city, and I think without having a working understanding from day one as to what that looks like from a planning standpoint, it would be political suicide.

So in response to your question, it would be shadowing the legal department — because, as I understand the structure of the way legal is organized in the city, or divided in the city, its various attorneys have various areas of responsibility. So I wouldn’t know that it would be any one individual, but certainly the legal department. And then one of the last things I would have to focus on accomplishing is understanding the coordination of an orientation between myself and the city council — what would that look like, and how would we go about getting that done, so that that also occurs within that first 100 days.

Joe: Makes sense. You mentioned public records. There’s been some discussion about that through various media outlets recently, and obviously there is a right for people to have access to public information. We have our sunshine laws, and some of those requests can require hours of research and hundreds of pages of documents back. The administration does have the ability to charge for that time if they need to. What’s your general philosophy on expected turnaround time on public records, charging for public records? If you were able to implement your dream system for public records requests, what would that look like?

Maria: Well, the one thing that I have often questioned with the city of St. Petersburg is, because of the heavy responsibility of the city clerk, I am unsure as to why that process lies with him or his office — and I think it’s primarily him. Just coming out of Orange County Corrections, like you say, we have a multitude of public records requests, as you can imagine. And there’s one person that’s responsible for that — one centralized person. I think that one of the things that happens in our city is we have various pockets of responsibility spread across different people.

I believe in following the law. I believe that the records should be appropriately — there’s a certain reasonable amount of time to produce records. But also, one of the things I would be doing is looking at how we are maintaining records. I tell you, I did a public records request for the We Are St. Pete funds, and the city was going to charge me $1,087 for the production of those records. And I thought, “Wait a minute now.” That’s something you should have in a relatively simple format that’s condensed into one report — as for at least who has them, how much was allocated, and how much of the funds have been spent, that kind of thing. And I was told, “No, it’s not done like that. It’s spread across different administrators.” And I said, “Really?” While there may be areas of responsibility, there has to be a centralized tracking of those funds.

And sure enough, in one of our public records requests, we had gotten into the auditing process and found that in 2022, the internal auditor — the first finding on that audit was the management of grants and not having a centralized process. So I’m like, “Okay, this explains it.” And no, I’m not going to pay $1,087 for something that should have been relatively easy to respond to. So it’s definitely a pet peeve of mine. I certainly believe that there should be either one centralized person or one centralized office, and that’s all they do. Because I just think that’s a lot of responsibility for the city clerk to take on. And what I’m not sure of is if the charter calls for that function to be under the clerk — and that’s something I have to check out.

Joe: Right. It seems like if all the information’s digital, it would be a pretty good use case for artificial intelligence to be able to sort through and pick that data and then present it to the clerk for approval —

Maria: Absolutely.

Joe: — at least without having to put the man-hours in.

Maria: Absolutely. Certainly an opportunity for some improvement. Again, I don’t come with a criticizing eye. I come with an eye for resolving problems, and that is one of the highly criticized areas within the city.

Joe: What’s something you’ve become less certain about as you’ve gotten older?

Maria: Wow. Well, I had fun with that one. Of course, obviously, looking at it from the lens of an African American woman who’s navigated public service, earned advanced education degrees, managed organizations, continued serving my community in spite of the fact that I commuted 1,500 miles a week —

Joe: Wow.

Maria: As I have gotten older, I have become less certain that all of that matters — that my responsibility is basically on me just to keep doing the right thing. And this was probably more evident when I saw the recommendations from the Times and the justification of one of the candidates that they recommended, needing to work on the skills to be able to manage being the mayor. And I thought, “Oh, isn’t that unique?” You have a candidate that has all those skills, but yet was not considered as one of the candidates for recommendation.

And so, look, again — I believe there will be a switch. I believe there will be a time certain that things will change. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve just wondered. And even young people critique the degrees and the experience. Their thing is, “I just turned 25 and I want to be the mayor of St. Petersburg, or the next congressman. I don’t have to have all that in my tool belt, and AI helps me be successful in that.” And of course, like I said, I’ve become less certain about that as well in my latter years.

Joe: Well, that’s sad to hear. If I’m understanding you, you’re a bit deflated by — you feel like you’ve done the things and checked the boxes and achieved the things you needed to do, the inputs to be in the position to be able to have the outputs of these roles and these elected positions. And now you’re asking if it was worth it or not, or maybe that there was never really a path to success based on other factors.

Maria: Yes. And Joe, I’m rather straightforward, and sometimes that can be my demise, but I’m okay with that, because I believe in speaking my truth, and I definitely encourage others to do the same. There were, of course — the social media was hot after the recommendations came out, and one person put it out there, “Oh, if Maria Scruggs was Brandy Gabbert” — meaning if she was a white woman —

Joe: Right.

Maria: — “it would’ve been an automatic recommendation from both editors.” And I couldn’t argue with that. And particularly since we’ve had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with the public in these public candidate forums, and to see and experience the feedback from every part of town — that has been absolutely awesome. I wouldn’t have ever even given it a thought that I was being treated differently, or was going to be treated differently, because people were just like, “Oh man, it’s time. It’s time to have somebody that really understands what government is about and how to run it.” And so I was deflated when the recommendations came out, and looking at some of the justification, I just thought, “Wow. All of this for nothing.” But as my team says, we keep doing the right thing in hopes that things will change.

Joe: Yeah. And it’s obviously a big and multilayered topic that’s persisted throughout history in various incarnations, and I don’t know how to tackle that in its totality. But I will say that putting your ideas out there does matter. Yes, some of the rules and credential values have changed or whatnot, but you’re still having an influence — and a big influence. Some of the most influential people I know were runners-up in elections, and yet the people they were able to reach, and whose respect they earned, continue to listen to them and be influenced by them, whether that person was elected or not. And so I hope you’ll take some value and solace in that. The system makes it much more difficult for you, but it does not mean that you aren’t having an impact, and that your work doesn’t have a lot of value and hasn’t changed lives.

Maria: And you’re absolutely correct — and that was my point, that I know it is having an impact, based on the feedback I’m getting in real time from people that did not know me. And for the first time, they’re hearing from me, and they’re in awe and feeling very comfortable in saying so. We had the forum with the meet-and-greet with the Arts Alliance last week, and it was basically a five-minute presentation, and after that we had an opportunity to meet and greet the guests. Packed house, easily over 200 people. And my intent after I finished speaking was to go and start mingling, but I never got a chance to get out of my seat, because I had a line wrapped around the area. There were older people that I was offering, “Well, you want to sit?” “Nope, we’re going to stand right here in line in our space.” And I tell you, that was probably a very defining moment, because people stood in line after hearing my five-minute presentation, and from that little bit of time felt, “This lady has something to offer the city of St. Petersburg.” So, yep.

Joe: That’s wonderful.

Maria: Yeah.

Joe: Wonderful.

Maria: Excuse me.

Joe: Tell me about a time that you had to choose between being liked and being respected.

Maria: Oh, wow. That was definitely the time that I decided to run for mayor. As you know, again, going back to race and in my own community — concerns that I was splitting the vote, taking votes away from Mayor Welch, and how could I do that? So that caused some trepidation with folks, and I stood on the basis for which the way this decision came to run — that it was certainly something I was called to do, and that things were lining up for me to do just that. I’ve just built in my career on public service and leadership and managing organizations. I just believe that when you are focused on results, when you’ve gone through the process of decision-making, that everybody’s not going to agree with you. But what I have found 99% of the time is they will respect you when they can clearly see that there has been a thought in this process — that this was not something that I woke up and decided that I’m going to run for mayor, and I may be challenging the first Black mayor of St. Petersburg, but this is the why behind it.

And since, actually — I love social media, because people who initially took some challenges with that have since gone on public media and said, “Uh-oh, wait a minute. I get it. I get it, and that’s who I’m supporting, because I now understand why she did what she did.” And I tell people, when they come to the term about likability, my favorite saying is: they — meaning the people —

Joe: Right.

Maria: — didn’t like Jesus, Martin, Malcolm, John, and Robert so much that they killed them. So you’re not going to always find everybody’s going to like you, and that can’t be the threshold that you use in a leadership role. Of course, we’re human, and you want people to like you, but more importantly, you strive for respect — that people can depend on you showing up when it’s time to show up.

Joe: Wonderful. So you mentioned there was some pushback on split-the-vote concerns during the last election. And obviously, with Mayor Welch as the first Black mayor in St. Pete’s history, I’m certain that added to the urgency and the energy about doing everything people perceived they could do to get him elected. Has that narrative shifted at all now that we’re back around again, and Mayor Welch has had his first term? Are you still getting the split-the-vote concerns, or has that largely gone away? And why do you think that has gone away, if so?

Maria: Oh — the term that I was talking about was this term, when I initially filed.

Joe: Oh, okay.

Maria: There was, yeah, there was pushback —

Joe: My mistake.

Maria: — as to why would I run against the first Black mayor. And of course, my response was, “Because he’s not doing the job. I don’t care what color he is. At the end of the day, we should want somebody in the seat that’s doing what they need to do, and these are my reasons why.” And what I was saying is that when I was able to see some of the people who had that original concern eventually come on social media, on Facebook, in support of me, I said, “Okay, the tide is shifting.” People are recognizing that in order for us to — we’re always struggling, being African American. We always are going to be. We’re in America. There are just a lot of historical wrongs that have not been righted. But in that is our responsibility to make sure that we’re holding each other accountable for the things and positions that we’re in.

And that it’s not lost — I’ve even had some people attack me on social media by saying, “Why aren’t you just giving him a break on this one particular issue regarding the bonuses?” And I had some pushback and folks feeling that, “Oh, that’s how you’re treating the Black man.” And no — the Black man has committed a secondary felony, based on the statute that I’m reading. The analogy that I used is that, look, I’ve just come out of a — or at the time I was still employed, I’m retired now — but a jail where there’s a lot of folks that have committed a second-degree felony. And we just don’t say, “They made a mistake.” No. We hold the mayor to a higher standard, and particularly when the mayor’s own chief of staff has publicly said to the committee of the whole that there was a crime committed against Florida statute. So let’s own it. Let’s acknowledge it, and then let’s move forward. But let’s not lie about it, and let’s not think that because he’s Black, I’m supposed to give him some grace in making that public statement, and I was just supposed to let it die.

And again, like I said, the balance that we have as African Americans is understanding that when we are in these positions that our forefathers fought for, we ultimately have a responsibility to do the right thing. And we probably even have a greater responsibility — the burden is even harder. Both my parents died rather young, at least I consider it young. And it’s their legacy — and my great uncle, Enoch Davis, who the Enoch Davis Center is named after — they put a lot of time in making sure that we went to school and that we did the right thing. And we weren’t going to be accepted just because we were Black, but because we were good at what we did, and our work ethic. And so those things, I think — I definitely have seen it change within the last couple of months, how people are like, “Wow. That is something to think about.” And what we want from others, we’ve got to be willing to accept for ourselves as well.

Joe: What’s a misconception about success that you no longer believe?

Maria: I no longer believe that success is measured by how many people like you, or approve of you. We talked about that a little bit earlier. For a long time, society teaches us that success means being liked, or being invited into certain circles. And I believe that that’s slowly dissipating — that success is about leaving things better than when you found them. You now hear the term “receipts.” I said in the first debate, the NAACP debate, when I was putting certain information out there, I felt really good to say, “Fact-check me.” AI makes it very easy. So I think that people are now looking at success not by what sorority or fraternity I’m in, not by what circle, but at the end of the day: have you made a difference in the lives of people, and have things become better in the organization, church, whatever you’re over — have you made it better? I think that’s what is now evolving more and more into what success is looking like.

Joe: And I think you posted on social — you were drilling down on the fact that the mayoral role is CEO of the city. And part of a CEO’s duty, in addition to operations and visioning and planning, is defining culture — what the personality of the infrastructure under them is going to be. And you do dip into likability there, the ability to have the message, and there can be different styles of that. There can be tough likability, where you’re liked through pragmatic, tough decisions and progress. There’s affability, where you just generally are happy to see the person, and that interchange is more emotional than it is operational prowess. So, with all the talk about likability and things of that nature, how do you feel like the optimal — for you personally, where would be the optimal place as CEO of the city that you would try to position yourself in that regard?

Maria: I think where I land — and I think I mentioned earlier, Friday was my last day at Orange County Corrections, where I’m officially retired now. And what likability has meant for me is what some of the people said in the cards that I received, in the messages, in the stop-bys. And I refused to allow them to have a party. No, we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to go through all of that stress and hoopla. But what it allowed was for people that really appreciated what I had done in my time there to just stop by. And I can tell you, my particular specific department is community corrections, but there were people from HR, there were people from training, there were people from facilities management, there were people on the certified side of the house that stopped by, or that sent — I said to folks, “Don’t buy me anything. If you want to really show me your appreciation, give me a campaign contribution.” There were people that did that.

And so what that said to me was that — again, it goes back to that like versus respect — there may have been decisions, and what I help people understand a lot of times: you may not like a decision that I have to make, but helping people understand that in the various roles that we have to play, there are certain levels of accountability that have to take place. And I have people laughing about it — two of the folks who I probably had to issue the most corrective action to were the ones that cried the most when I left. And what one said — it was a supervisor — what she said was, “We had our moments where we didn’t agree, but the one thing that I can say about you, Ms. Scruggs: you were always fair, and you never, ever, ever, ever treated anybody differently.”

And so when you establish that kind of expectation, and people are looking at, okay, yeah, we do have a job to do — and in this job, it’s wonderful if you can get best friends, or you find somebody you can date or something, that’s wonderful, but that’s not what we go there for. And that the likability, always, for me, in the workplace is going to center around the respect for people doing the job and holding people accountable. What I’m not doing is trying to win a popularity contest. You just don’t get the work done. And we can be our authentic selves, I have learned in the workplace, when there’s a central theme that it’s about results — because that’s ultimately what the public is holding us accountable for. Are we explaining when we can’t get the results? Are we out front and center explaining to the public why we didn’t get results? And I have just learned over the many, many years that I have been in this public sector that that’s what’s important — for people to be clear on what the job is and what the expectations are, and to respect people in those prospective roles. And by chance, if somebody should just not be able to like me — God bless them, and let’s just still get the job done. I have just found that that works for me, and, more importantly, it works for the organization that I’m in.

Joe: Yeah. For me, a big value is creating a workplace environment where people can be their authentic selves — have respect for doing great work, working hard — but if you need to be weird, be weird, whatever. I think that’s a gift to give to a workplace environment.

Maria: And Joe, I tell you, one of the beauties — I think about the people in my chain of command, and you had all ages, you had all ethnicities, genders. And when I saw that representation come to my office, or call me, or send me an email to tell me how much they appreciated me, I felt my work had been done. And that’s just truly accepting the fact that we’re all different. We’re all different. And that’s why we have to have a clear understanding of what the expectations are in the workplace. It’s all right to be you, as long as you understand that there’s a framework and a boundary for the work that we are held accountable for in the public sector. Private sector, that’s a whole different can of worms. But in the public sector, we’re using taxpayers’ dollars, and there’s an expectation that we’re to do certain things with those dollars. And how does that allow for the people to be able to be themselves? Well, because I understand — it’s clearly communicated to me as to what my responsibilities are. I’m celebrated when we are achieving those things, and I still get to be the person that I am.

Joe: Lovely. So you can’t use all those people that called you and came to your door to answer this question — but what’s a compliment that has stayed with you through the years?

Maria: Well, actually, I’m going to use it.

Joe: I got you.

Maria: I was going to read one of the cards that one —

Joe: Okay, that’s great. Yeah.

Maria: — one of the officers in my chain of command wrote me, and it’s about being consistent. I’ve known her for about 15 years that I’ve been there, and she had been in my chain of command maybe about the last 10 years. And she brought me her card and gift and said, “I’m sad but happy at the same time. You always believed in me and always had my back. You are my favorite core value: consistency.” And when you see that — I can go home now. I can go home, because the message is clear: what you have to do moving forward, what we have to do to get results, and that’s be consistent.

Joe: That’s a great compliment. Wonderful. Well, as always, I appreciate and enjoy our conversations, and I appreciate you taking the time to answer a few questions. And best of luck with the last couple of weeks before the primaries.

Maria: Awesome. Well, Joe, thank you. This has been very enlightening — the opportunity to get to different audiences, and the fact that you guys have done this four times. I’ve gotten great feedback from it, so really appreciate it.

Joe: That’s good to hear. Candidate Maria Scruggs, be well.