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Health & Fitness

Kathleen Ford at Her Finest

An accomplished lawyer intently focused on representing the people who had signed the Pier Petition. And represent them she did.

I have been a Kathleen Ford watcher for almost two decades, from her very first term on City Council to her last run for Mayor.

Kathleen was a pivotal player on Council when I was assistant Director of the IT Department and working on cell towers and right of way management. She always was engaged, often skeptical and ready to pounce if you made a mistake.

I became quite a student of Kathleen's demeanor. In the later years as she ran for Mayor of St. Pete, I got to the point where I could tell how a campaign stop was going to go by the way she walked into the room.

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Calm and smiling things would likely go well. Stiff and stern, it was going to be a long night.

I found it interesting in the Pier lawsuit that the City decided to go after the structure of the filing and not focus on the real issue, the public's right to have a say.

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Kathleen will argue the law with you all day, but often comes up growling if you attack her directly. I figured it was going to be an interesting hearing on Wednesday.

Kathleen walked into the court room calm, smiling and confident.

From the outset something seemed wrong. The City attorney took an aggressive stand on the structure of the complaint; at times it seemed almost directly attacking Ford's ability to properly structure the complaint. Maybe the intent was to goad Ford into a reaction. If so, it did not work. Even the Judge appeared uncomfortable a couple of times.

I watched and waited for Kathleen's temper to rise, but it did not happen. She agreed with several of the City's points and so stipulated. Some of the wind had gone out of the City's argument. The City Attorney went on, often loud and in great detail, about the technicalities of the complaint but never got to the core point: Why was the issue not put on the ballot?

When Kathleen finally got to speak, she was calm, factual, straight forward and well prepared. Her comments were on point, she did not attack back but just drove the issue home and agreed to work to repair the complaint.

In the end the Judge agreed with a couple of the points of dismissal, but retained the rest, ordering arbitration to resolve the ballot language and work out the election process.

To long time Kathleen Ford watchers it was a stunning performance. Gone were the theatrics, the often snide remarks. In their place, an accomplished lawyer intently focused on representing the people who had signed the Pier Petition. And represent them she did.

Even in the impromptu press conference that followed the hearing, Ford remained on point, passing on several good opportunities to take a heavy shot at the administration.

There are some takeaways in all of this for the City administration. First, when the public wants to vote, you should probably go along with them, and second, it rarely pays to shoot the messenger.

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