Vincent Nowicki, a 28-year-old real estate agent who moved from Baltimore to St. Pete four years ago, is the fifth candidate to enter the race for mayor in St. Petersburg. 

The downtown resident says that he’s become acquainted with many small business owners and local residents over the past few years, and says that “whether you’ve been here for 40-50 years, or just moved here - across all spectrums - everyone seems to have an issue with the way that the city’s going.”

Nowicki says that his original intention was to run for city council this year, as the representative in his district, Gina Driscoll, is up for reelection. But he says that he was persuaded to aim higher after having many positive conversations with local community leaders.

“They said, ‘Vince, you have these ideas. You have these solutions. You have results. You have personal success. Why don’t you run for mayor? We don’t like any of the candidates that are currently running now, and what you bring to the table (is) a fresh, young, new perspective, and actually bringing solutions is something that the city can use.”

His platform consists of jobs, infrastructure and education.

“You look at reading proficiency in South St. Pete, it’s 25 percent,” he says. “You have some of the worst schools in the state of Florida, so I definitely think that those three things are going to be big issues this campaign.”

Regarding Mayor Rick Kriseman’s administration’s plans to field requests for proposals for the redevelopment of Tropicana Field, Nowicki is critical on a couple of fronts. 

He cites his experience in real estate in chastising the administration for putting an emphasis on the project when the Tampa Bay Rays still have seven more years left on their lease on the site – and the mayor himself will be leaving office in less than a year.

“No homeowner would pick out colors, pick out a contractor, pick out designs for a kitchen and a bathroom that they’re going to do a renovation for seven to ten years down the line. It just makes zero sense,” he says, adding that he doesn’t understand that for such an important development “why he’s trying to ram it through in just a few months.”

Kriseman has said that the process has been ongoing for the past five years and is not being rushed.

Nowicki also says he found it “shocking” that Kriseman didn’t consult with council members before his administration came before the council last week to get approval to hire an outside contractor to review the redevelopment proposals at the Trop. Several councilmembers did express their unhappiness last week with the process, prompting the mayor to withdraw the item.

Though the election for mayor in St.Petersburg is officially nonpartisan, it was hardly that in 2017, when Kriseman, a Democrat, battered former Mayor Rick Baker for his support of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

The four previously announced candidates in the race - Michael Ingram, Darden Rice, Wengay Newton and Ken Welch are all Democrats. Nowicki calls himself a “proud independent,” but says that he was a registered Republican when he lived in Maryland and did vote for Trump in 2016.

He’s quick to note that that he believes that Trump should have conceded that he lost the election to Joe Biden and resigned from office after what happened on Capitol Hill on January 6 “to preserve the dignity of the office (and) to take a step forward and unify the country.”

Nowicki is aware that he’s not as well-known as Rice, Welch and Newton, but says that won’t be a disadvantage for him.

“You’re going to see a lot of my endorsements are going to be from the business community and local small businesses,” he says. “There’s not one candidate from my experience living downtown or going to every neighborhood that people know. I’m not going to have big, hoity-toity endorsements. I’m going to be endorsed by the small local businesses,” specifically mentioning local establishments like 4^thStreet Pizza and Craft Kafe.

“I do business with all these people. I spend time with them. I go there. I’m the most local candidate, and I’ve been here the shortest amount of time. It’s really sad.”

The primary election takes place on August 24.