Is being mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida’s fifth-largest city, a remote job?

ST. PETERSBURG — For a Florida mayor, being within the path of a hurricane is a dreaded however anticipated ceremony of passage.

There’s a drill: Mayors declare a state of emergency and activate an operations middle, turning into “incident commanders.” It’s a possibility to take cost and be within the nationwide highlight. If all goes properly, prefer it usually did when St. Petersburg was spared final month, it’s a tangible second that may exhibit management and administration beneath tense circumstances.

Mayor Ken Welch spent the night time of Sept. 28, when situations from Hurricane Ian have been at their worst, at his house whereas his interim chief of employees, metropolis administrator, communications workforce and different metropolis officers left their households to spend the night time on the new emergency operations middle on the St. Petersburg Police Department.

“It was a matter of do I sleep upstairs or do I get a chance to go and check on the family since the storm has changed direction,” he mentioned. “There was no issue at that point, and I don’t think there’s an issue now.”

That remote method is a component of a bigger sample with Welch. The Tampa Bay Times reviewed the quantity of occasions Welch swiped into City Hall along with his key card from his inauguration Jan. 6 to Sept. 7. Excluding duplicates, when Welch entered greater than as soon as in a single day, Welch swiped in 60 occasions.

Counting workdays however excluding holidays, that’s an attendance price of 34.3%. Had Welch swiped into City Hall each workday since his inauguration, his final time at City Hall would have been March 31.

Welch’s former deputy mayor, Stephanie Owens, who resigned following accusations that she created a poisonous work surroundings, which she denied, swiped in 73 occasions throughout that point — an attendance price of 41.7%.

City officers initially declined to supply the key-swipe information for the mayor, saying it was captured on the town’s safety system, which they mentioned is exempt from public file. After negotiations with a lawyer from the Times, the town agreed to supply the information.

The Times additionally requests Welch’s calendar weekly. A recurring Monday assembly with the town growth administrator is held over Zoom. So are Tuesday conferences along with his cupboard, who’re anticipated to work in-person. Many different conferences on Welch’s calendar are held just about or over the cellphone.

In an interview final week, Welch mentioned these digital conferences save him and others the time of driving and parking.

“If folks are expecting me to be tethered to my office and City Hall 24/7, that’s not the way that I approach it,” he mentioned. “I’m here when I need to be. We meet virtually, when that makes sense. And I’m out in the community.”

“I just want to be clear that the taxpayers are getting their money’s worth,” Welch added. “Every waking moment I’m working for this city.”

Welch says his key swipes and calendars solely inform elements of his story, and that he stays up each night time till 9 or 10 p.m. “doing his homework.”

“Well you don’t see everything — when I’ve got study time, when I’m prepping talking points, researching an issue,” he mentioned. “But look, the people put their faith in me that I would do this job the same way I’ve done public service for 20 years. And believe me, they’re getting their money’s worth.”

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The City Council chairperson, Gina Driscoll, normally has a standing 30-minute cellphone name with Welch each month to catch up. Being a City Council member is a part-time job. They are paid lower than a quarter of Welch’s $227,910 annual wage.

Driscoll says she’s normally at City Hall three days a week. “More often than not,” she mentioned, Welch isn’t there.

“I’m not sure how you can effectively run a city of our size without being present in the day-to-day operations of the city,” she mentioned.

As for Welch not staying the night time on the emergency operations middle, Driscoll mentioned, “We’re fortunate that we have really strong members of the administration who showed the dedication to keep their hands on the steering wheel during a challenging and frightening time for our city.”

Welch mentioned his method of being out locally is how he’s best.

“I’m not responsive to someone’s idea of when I shouldn’t be in a certain place. They weren’t elected to run a city government. I was. I know how to do this,” he mentioned. “I’m not sitting in a throne in City Hall. I’m out in the community working with my team.”

For Hurricane Ian, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor spent the night time on the metropolis’s emergency operations middle on the GTE Financial Credit Union headquarters. During Hurricane Irma in 2017, former St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman remembers his blow-up mattress deflating on the metropolis’s former emergency operations middle on the water sources middle.

In an interview with the Times, Kriseman recalled buying and selling snacks along with his employees and taking part in playing cards with water sources employees till the early morning hours.

“It gives you an opportunity to get to know the people that you work with,” he mentioned. “It’s more tense because you’re concerned about your community and you’re there for long extended periods of time with these people.”

Another purpose: Being on the emergency operations middle means at all times having energy and being capable of keep in contact along with your prime employees.

“It’s critical that the folks who are there that you have to rely upon to advise you and implement your directives,” Kriseman mentioned. “They’re there because that way you have direct communication with them and they can go ahead and do what needs to be done, to proactively prepare or after the fact respond.”

Welch has higher lodging than Kriseman did for Irma. The three-year-old emergency operations middle on the new St. Petersburg Police headquarters is constructed to resist a Category 5 hurricane, and the mayor has his personal workplace and personal convention rooms.

Welch mentioned he went house the night time of Hurricane Ian as a result of his 12-hour shift was over and the storm’s course veered away from St. Petersburg. He mentioned the choice to go away the emergency operations middle was “not a unilateral one,” and he obtained the OK from the emergency supervisor and St. Petersburg Police Chief Tony Holloway.

On the town’s organizational chart, Holloway, like each different metropolis worker, studies to Welch.

Asked about displaying solidarity by staying with metropolis workers who couldn’t go house to their households in the course of the storm, Welch mentioned, “That was not a concern that anyone had. We were relieved that the storm was less of a threat to us at that point.”

For appearances on nationwide tv as mayor, Welch spoke with CNN and MSNBC from his house. He tweeted a photo of taking President Joe Biden’s cellphone name forward of the hurricane from his house workplace.

On the morning of Thursday, Sept. 28, the day after Hurricane Ian made landfall, Welch was not on the emergency operations middle by 6 a.m., which is when employees staying on the middle have been required to report. He as an alternative did a 7 a.m. interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe from his house. He arrived on the emergency operations middle after that with Fray’s donuts for the workforce.

“I wasn’t worried about optics,” Welch mentioned. “I wanted to get the information out.”