Please, Bill Foster, stopping saying your vision is to make St. Pete “cool”

During a Friday morning “mayoral conversation” sponsored by the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce, mayor Bill Foster was pressed by moderator Chris Steinocher to outline his vision for the city without rehashing the debate over a new baseball stadium or Pier.

Foster’s answer is a perfect example of his main issue as a communicator: his diction, as in the words he chooses when speaking. Often times, they just don’t seem natural coming from him.

“My vision is to coordinate and bring all of that together and to make sure it all explodes,” Foster said on Friday, reports Mark Puente of the Tampa Bay Times. “My vision is to make St. Petersburg cool.”

First of all, “explodes” is not a word a politician should use when discussing urban life. There are just so many other ways Foster could have said what he meant to say: “… make sure it gets to the next level” or “… make sure it all takes off.” Just not “explodes.” When he speaks like that, Foster sounds like a teenager who has drank one too many sodas.

Worse, however, is when Foster uses the word “cool.”

There is nothing cool about Bill Foster. He’s a nice guy. A good family man. He’s been a decent mayor. But he is like the least cool guy in City Hall. Scratch that, there’s Jim Kennedy, so make that Foster is second least cool guy in City Hall. 

He rides a scooter. He wears those blase, not-exactly-khaki suits. By his own admission, he goes to bed before 10 p.m.

What would Bill Foster know about being cool?

Foster shouldn’t be campaigning as the cool candidate, anyway. He should be playing to his strong suit of having gotten things done, like moving the homeless and panhandlers out of the city.

Bill Foster should be running on competence, not coolness.