Mayor sheds light on Gas Plant bonus ‘mistake’

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch contritely accepted the blame for his administration’s well-intentioned employee bonus payments. “The buck stops here,” he said Friday afternoon.

The 17 lump-sum payments to high-ranking officials, later rescinded, totaled $250,000 and became public Aug. 16. The bonuses - which ignited a firestorm of public opinion - were a reward for those who went well beyond their typical duties during contentious Historic Gas Plant District redevelopment negotiations.

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Vintage St. Pete: The song of Joyland

You couldn’t miss the sign.

Sixty feet high, it spelled out the word JOYLAND in blinking pink, green and yellow capital letters. Between 1959 until 2003, anyone in the vicinity of 11225 U.S. 19, day or night, saw it standing there like a neon lighthouse, attached to a giant colored arrow that pointed across a parking lot to a nondescript ranch-style building.

Arts Alive! podcast: Diana Molina, guest curator, James Museum

Diana Molina, our guest on today’s edition of the Arts Alive! podcast, is creative director of the Juntos Art Association of El Paso, Texas. The city is bordered on the south by the Rio Grande river; on the other side is Juares, Mexico.

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