'I'm a career public servant': Hear St. Petersburg mayoral candidate Jim Large's pitch to voters

Former St. Petersburg Fire Chief Jim Large has his eyes on becoming the city's next mayor.

He spent 50 years with the department before retiring in 2024. He lists infrastructure, public safety and storm preparedness among his priorities.

"My focus will be simple: supporting public safety, fixing infrastructure and strengthening our city's disaster preparedness so St. Petersburg remains safe, strong and resilient," the 70-year-old wrote on his campaign website.

Large is facing off against incumbent Mayor Ken Welch, former governor and congressman Charlie Crist, St. Petersburg city councilmember Brandi Gabbard, former Shore Acres Association president Kevin Batdorf, former president of the NAACP St. Petersburg branch Maria Scruggs and previous mayoral candidate Paul Congemi.

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The election is on Aug. 18, but if no candidate wins a majority, there will be a runoff on Nov. 3.

On "Florida Matters Live & Local," Large explained why he believes he's suited for the role, storm preparedness and his elevator pitch to voters, along with other topics.

The interview below was edited for clarity and brevity.

Why do you want to be the next mayor of St. Pete, and what makes you the best-qualified candidate?

I have a lot of answers for that question, but I'll try to sum it up. So, I served the city for 50 years, and the last 18 was in an executive leadership role, and I think that's one of the main qualifications that I have, is serving as the fire chief for 18 years.

It's called the cabinet, but being part of the top administration of the city, working on budgets, working on all different issues with the city, but more than that is, I've been here since I was 9 years old. I love the city.

I see some neglect, if you will, mainly to the infrastructure, and that's a broad umbrella over a lot of issues, but we need to get back to providing everybody in the city — the whole community — the core services.

I want to ask about your departure from the city fire department. Now, you were accused of creating a hostile work environment, but you were cleared of those allegations before your retirement early in 2024, but are you worried they cast a pall over your campaign?

I'm sure that it'll come up. People will ask that question, but I stand on my 50 years of service.

As you mentioned, I was cleared. The answer to that is I was accused, I was investigated, I was exonerated, and I was reinstated.

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If you look at my career, that's the one bump, if you will, but I'm very confident in, and that that's all been settled.

You say in your campaign literature you'll support police and fire to ensure resident safety. What do you feel is lacking from public safety right now?

I don't know that there's a lot lacking. My point in supporting them is to be proactive as needs rise and not reactive.

Historically, what I've found as a fire chief, and what I've seen is it's more reactive. I use the one example of asking for a high-water vehicle, year after year, couldn't get it, couldn't get it, couldn't get it.

The city finally got one for $1 from the military, and we put about $40,000 into it. I don't remember what year it was. Now they have three custom built because of Helene. We're reacting.

There was a real need. My goal is to be proactive. We knew that Shore Acres floods, we knew that people don't listen and evacuate when you tell them to. We knew that we're going to have to go and get them. We were using dump trucks with a ladder, and so we were pushing for getting a high-water vehicle if you will.

WUSF

You've said that St. Pete Storm Preparation and Recovery in 2024 was mismanaged. How so?

First, you had Helene come through, and my daughter had a personal experience with that.

I went over, and I saw all of her stuff had to be put out on the curb, like everybody else in Shore Acres, and it had sewage in it, raw sewage, into the furniture and stuff, and it sat there for a couple of months.

We had Milton come through, which fortunately was a high wind event, so you had a lot of tree limbs down and everything.

There was no prioritization, if you will. We had tree limbs being picked up before we had personal belongings saturated with sewage being picked up.

It was kind of disorganized. It was we're going to be here, we're going to be there, we're going to be all over the city, instead of a very organized plan, number one.

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Number two, it was outside resources that were utilized, and we had plenty of resources in the city. They owned a lot of dump trucks, they owned some grapple trucks. I didn't see any city resources out on the street. You have to utilize all your resources. The outside contractors were spread thin because we weren't the only place that was affected.

What would you have done differently?

You got to communicate with the public every day, you got to let them know what's going on.

So number one, we're going to pick up all of the damage from Helene before we pick up the first tree limb. So you tell the people that have tree limb piles they're going to be there until we get all of this, because that's a physical health hazard, and it's a mental health hazard. What was going on with the people's furnishings, belongings, everything sitting on the curb, and then obviously having sewage in it was a health hazard.

The city has said they did the best they could. They feel their response was actually fairly speedy given the circumstances.

They met the FEMA 90-day guideline. That's what I'll say.

You think it could have been quicker?

I don't know if it could have been quicker. It could have been better organized and prioritized rather than leaving again ... public safety, you got to get the health hazard.

The tree limbs weren't creating much of a health hazard; they might have some rats in them or things like that.

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But these furnishings, when you see a truck picking up nothing but tree limbs, and then you drive over and see blocks and blocks of furnishings that are like I say, saturated in sewage. To me, that was unacceptable.

What's your elevator pitch to voters?

I have 18 years of executive-level leadership. I've led through all kinds of crisis storms, you know. I was the emergency manager for 18 years.

I'm not a politician; I am a career public servant, that's been my whole career.

I love St. Pete. I want to serve all the people of St. Pete. I think that city government has gotten too political. We need to take politics out of city hall.

You can listen to the full interview in the media player above. This story was compiled from an interview by Matthew Peddie for "Florida Matters Live & Local." You can listen to the full episode here.