The race to succeed Robert Blackmon in St. Petersburg’s District 1 City Council race features two natives from the west St. Pete area – Bobbie Shay Lee and Copley Gerdes.

“Copley and I are very similar in a lot of where we came from,” Lee told Spectrum Bay News earlier this month. “I think that the main difference is that I actually have experience in local, state and federal government.  I worked with municipalities of all sizes and I’ve worked at the state level, and you take an issue like red tide – you need to be able to understand the resources are you to navigate those waters.”

Lee has worked as public speaker, lobbyist, campaign consultant and cancer advocate over the past two decades.

Her opponent, Copley Gerdes, has worked as a financial planner with Northwestern Mutual for more than a decade.

“I’m one of the most competitive people on the face of the planet,” Gerdes told Spectrum Bay News 9 this week. “And I know how to work hard, because I’ve been an underdog my whole life,” he says, specifically citing the fact that he says that “nobody” ever thought he’d ever play and later coach college baseball, which he ultimately ended up doing at Saint Leo University.

“The two things I know how to do is make sure that we’re working hard and we’re working in the right places to make sure that we’re moving the needle to continue to move forward,” he says. “The second is it’s in my competitive nature to want to make sure that we’re a shining city.”

The two candidates do not share the same position on a number of issues.  The daughter of a St. Pete Police officer, Lee says that downtown has become unsafe and that the department needs to hire more officers.

Regarding the Community Assistance Liaison (CAL) program that uses social workers in lieu of the SPPD to respond to calls for non-violent incidents in the city, Lee says that the funds shouldn’t have been diverted from its original intent to hire eight police officers.

“There’s a value to be added, but it’s a value added. It’s not in place of,” she says.

Gerdes is quick to mention that he has been endorsed by the Suncoast Police Benevolent Association, and says that all things considered, the SPPD has “done an amazing job.”

He’s a fan of the CAL program, saying it allow police officers to focus on the things that they should be doing, “crime prevention, making sure that we’re arresting people and getting good cases when a crime does happen.”

He acknowledges that the homicide rate is up in the city this year, but adds that the police have solved 28 of the 29 murders that have taken place. “That speaks very highly of our police department,” he says.

Gerdes is the son of former City Councilman Charlie Gerdes, who served as District 1’s representative from 2011 to 2019. He says that one of the things that led him to consider a run for local office was seeing his father’s ability to answer questions “pretty much to anybody that ever asked him,” as well as his ability to serve the entire city and perhaps create a legacy of some sort that can be passed on to his two young children.

Both candidates talk about the need to invest in infrastructure so that the city doesn’t have the sewage problems that occurred back in 2015 and 2016.

“We need to mitigate as much as possible. That’s what all these billions of dollars in investment is all about,” he says, adding that’s not “sexy to think or talk about.”

Lee has sent out campaign mailers referring to those sewage spills and criticized the fact that it’s led to higher water and sewer rates. “We have dumped more than a billion gallons of raw sewage into our waterways and it’s gotta stop,” she says, adding “that starts with putting (the) Albert Whitted (sewage treatment plant) back online.  But nobody will even hold themselves accountable for it.”

During her three years working as a cheerleader for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 90s, Lee was diagnosed with breast cancer. It launched a career in advocacy for breast cancer awareness for her over the past two decades plus.

“I’m a 24-year survivor, and it’s really kind of led the path where I’ve headed and everything I’ve done always comes back to health disparities, whether it’s at the policy level or the nonprofit level,” she says. Among her other jobs she’s done include serving as a lobbyist for Tampa Electric Company, and working as a political campaign consultant (she worked on Tammy Vasquez’ campaign for Pinellas County Commission last year).

The primary election in August was incredibly close, with Gerdes taking just a handful of more votes than Lee as the two advanced into next month’s general election, where the entire city will decide the contest.  A St. Pete Polls survey conducted last month showed Gerdes with a three percentage point advantage, with the majority of voters polled still undecided.

On the fundraising front, Gerdes has raised more than $70,000, while Lee has raised more than $63,000, according to their latest campaign finance reports.