ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The residents in St.Petersburg’s city council District 6 are a diverse lot: they range from people living in wealthy downtown high-rises to business owners to others residing in some of the most economically challenged neighborhoods on the southside.

“The needs are too great in a large part of District 6 for far too many residents, and over the last four years we haven’t gotten nearly as much done that I think we could,” says St. Pete native Mhariel Summers, who is making her first bid for public office by challenging incumbent Gina Driscoll. Summers says that if she’s elected, she’d work to ensure “that all of the beautiful energy” being put into downtown continues, but adds that she wants that energy spread out to include some of these historically excluded areas of the city as well.

What You Need to Know

  • Summers has worked on campaigns and as a staffer for Charlie Crist, state Rep. Michele Rayner and former gubernatorial candidate Philip Levine.
  • District 6 encompasses downtown St. Petersburg as well as parts of South St. Pete.

Driscoll rejects the notion that she hasn’t been there for all of the people in District 6.

“Anyone who thinks that I’m not paying attention to any corner of my district is not paying attention to what I’ve been doing,” Driscoll told Spectrum Bay News 9 this week. “It’s been clear. If you go out and talk to folks in the different neighborhoods, they’ll tell you that I’ve been there, and my door is always open. Anyone who gets in touch with me on an idea, a question, or a concern? They hear from me, and I’ll continue to do that in my second term.”

In her initial campaign for the seat in 2017, Driscoll narrowly made the runoff election, edging out Robert Blackmon by just a handful of votes in the primary. She then went on to defeat Justin Bean in the general. An Indiana native who’s grew up in Dade City and has lived in St. Pete for 15 years now, she’s also the former president of the Downtown Neighborhood Association.

Among the issues that she’s championed is food insecurity and nutrition access.  That includes leading the way last year to create a Food Policy Council to address the issue.

“We weren’t even talking about that before I was elected to City Council, so we’ve made some great strides in urban agriculture to help more people find ways for people to grow their own food, and also shining a spotlight on the real problem that many families in our cities have and that’s just putting food on the table,” she says.

Summers says that while there’s been lots of talk about the issue, there hasn’t been nearly enough follow through. “These empty resolutions, these empty words (and) time wasting committees are not the type of action that these people need,” she says.

Regarding public safety, Driscoll says she has supported increasing more police officers, especially on the community level.

“We’re finding that our community officers and that community policing approach is so important, because it helps build trust between our residents and our police,” she says. “And I think that’s one of our main factors in stopping the violence, increasing public safety and making this just a better quality of life for everyone in St. Pete.”

Summers says it’s “paternal” to believe that more police will make the public safer.

“These people are living with mental health (issues), poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of food, healthy food access - I mean there are a lot of underlying issues that lead to crime and that’s what I’d pay attention to.”

As has been the case in every election cycle in St. Petersburg for more than a decade, questions about a potential new home (or homes) for the Tampa Bay Rays team is again a major topic on the campaign trail. If the latest reported proposals were to reach fruition, the Rays could end up playing half their games in Montreal and the other half in Ybor City.

Driscoll says she’s keeping an open mind about the “shared-season” concept.

“I was very skeptical at first, but the more I think about it, the more I see some opportunities that could come from that beyond baseball,” she says, adding that a partnership with Montreal could create more tourism and other economic opportunities for the city.

Summers says she finds the idea of the Rays potentially playing half of their home games on the other side of North America “unfortunate.”

“I would definitely love for the Rays to stay here and I would negotiate for the Rays to stay here, but this sister-city idea is a terrible idea for taxpayers,” she said last Saturday while canvassing neighborhoods in South St. Petersburg. “It’s a bad investment for us to have a spring training team plus a couple of months in one of St. Pete’s most lucrative developments in decades.”

On the fundraising front, Driscoll has raised close to $200,000 combined through her regular campaign account and her PAC, Friends of Gina Driscoll. Summers has raised more than $13,000 in her campaign account.