A new study on racism came on the eve of Mayor-elect Ken Welch’s community conversations meetings all this weekend at USF St. Petersburg. He says the timing couldn't be more perfect.

“It is in so much with where we are in the city and my election," Welch said. "And the fact that we've got 300 people on a Friday afternoon who want to talk about safe neighborhoods, equitable development, education and infrastructure this city is ready for it.”

Being ready, according to the researchers who conducted the six-month study on racism, involves taking an active approach to changing the results of past actions by the city that were racially motivated, like the demolition of the predominantly black Gas Plant neighborhood in the 80s to build Tropicana Field.

“I grew up in the Gas Plant neighborhood,” Welch said. “My father was a city councilman when those promises were made and until the day he passed in 2013, he said those promises have to be brought to fruition.”

Through creating an office of Equity Department as the study suggested, Mayor-elect Welch says he wants to make good on those promises not only because it's right, but also because it's personal.

“It's a generational opportunity," Welch said. “Baseball is a priority, but it's a practice secondary priority. The real priority is those promises of jobs economic development and now equity as a part of that moving forward.”