The deaths of three policemen within the course of a month's time earlier this year rocked the citizens of St. Petersburg — none more so than the families of the officers, the SPPD and Mayor Bill Foster.
The murders and their aftermath also proved to be a turning point for Goliath "Go" Davis, for many years one of the area's most visible African-American leaders. A city administrator at the time and St. Petersburg's police chief from 1997-2001, he attended the wakes of all three officers — he would never not pay his respects, he says — but says he preferred not to undergo the searing experience of police line-of-duty funerals, and in fact hadn't appeared at one since 1980, when he was the pallbearer for his best friend, Herb Sullivan. In explaining to his immediate supervisor, city administrator Tish Elston, why he would not be attending the funerals of Officers Jeffrey Yaslowitz and Thomas Baitinger, he says he told her that "the bagpipes, the flyover, the pomp and circumstances" was all too much for him to process.
But as most people who live in Tampa Bay know by now, those funerals led to Davis' downfall. By not appearing at the official ceremonies for the slain officers, but attending the funeral of Hydra Lacy, Jr. — the man who shot and killed Yaslowitz and Baitinger in a gun battle — Davis suffered a backlash that ultimately ended his 37-year career with the government of his hometown. On March 2, his 60th birthday, he was informed by Mayor Foster that it was all over.
Davis explained the circumstances that led to his ouster at a news conference two days later. The fact that one of the speakers at the presser was Omali Yeshitela from the International Democratic Uhuru Party led popular radio rabble-rouser Bubba the Love Sponge to denounce him as "playing the race card."
Whether he has played it, or it's been played against him, race has always, inevitably, surfaced as an issue for Davis, an African-American pioneer in a historically segregated city. As Studio@620 co-founder Bob Devin Jones says, "This community has a very particular past, and unless and until we talk about that, way before Go Davis, then it will be the same as it ever was."
On a recent Tuesday morning, Go Davis sits across from me at a Bob Evans restaurant off of 34th Street S. in St. Petersburg, and orders a cup of hot tea. We've already had three phone conversations in which he questioned my intentions in doing this story, but now he seems relaxed and ready to engage.
Davis says that when he graduated from Rollins College in 1973, he knew he wanted to be involved in something socially active ("that was the era I was born into"). But being a police officer in his hometown was not on the list of options he was considering until a family friend challenged him to try to make a difference. He ended up staying with the SPPD for 28 years, the last four as chief.
Mayor David Fischer asked him to replace Darrel Stephens as police chief in the wake of the 1996 race riots in the predominantly African-American area of South St. Petersburg known as Midtown. During Davis' tenure, the department was subject to approximately a dozen lawsuits filed by former officers and police unions, accusing Davis of unfair and inconsistent discipline and playing favorites.
But one man who was always in his corner was the soon-to-be mayor, Rick Baker. In his just published book, The Seamless City, Baker writes that when he took over as mayor of St. Petersburg a decade ago, much of Midtown had "literally been torn apart." Describing the area as filled with blight and crime and lacking in basic services, he decided to make its redevelopment one of his four platform goals. And if he was going to succeed in that goal, he believed that the then-outgoing police chief was the "only person" who could make the effort succeed, and named him deputy mayor for Midtown economic development. In the book, Baker touts Davis' Ph.D in criminology: "Go understood the answer to crime and public safety is not just arresting people... perhaps we could head off some of our youth from going off in that direction."
Baker writes that he had to work hard to persuade Davis to buy into his vision for Midtown. But once he did, some notable progress was made — most substantively Tangerine Plaza, a 46,000-square-foot shopping center at 18th Avenue S. and 22nd Street anchored by a SweetBay Supermarket, as well as such crucial amenities nearby as a post office and a credit union. In addition to getting thousands of people signed up for checking and savings accounts, the credit union also provides financial training, which, according to City Councilman Karl Nurse, "really changes people's lives."
Although there were accomplishments in Midtown, there was also criticism from others who felt shut out of the process. One of the most virulent Davis critics is Bartlett Park civic activist Steve Swift, who questioned Davis' qualifications to run economic development after being police chief. "That's like saying a community outreach director can run a police department," says Swift, who also calls Davis "rude" and accuses him of failing to return phone calls from people he didn't want to talk to.
Former St. Pete mayoral candidate Scott Wagman questions how much involvement Davis really had in developing Tangerine Plaza. "It was the land assemblage, the legal staff, the real estate staff; I would not say it was Go."
But Larry J. Newsome, the CEO of Urban Development Solutions, the developer for Tangerine, says Davis was one of the chief catalysts for the project occurring. "Having someone on the city staff as the point man for the project was very, very beneficial for us in getting things done." When informed of Wagman's comments, he said, "Anyone who tells you that wasn't really involved, 'cause that was not true."
Flash forward to the mayoral elections of 2009. Goliath Davis had become a flashpoint of the campaign, both for candidates critical of the deputy mayor structure and those who had problems with Davis himself. But with Midtown a crucial voting bloc that historically has swung citywide elections, Davis' endorsement remained important. He initially backed Deveron Gibbons (also Charlie Crist's guy), who finished third in the primary. Ultimately Gibbons opted to endorse Foster, but a controversy arose when Foster declined to pose for a photo with Gibbons and his supporters, including Davis and Assistant Police Chief Cedric Gordon, saying that it wouldn't be appropriate to look like he was being endorsed by city employees whom he might later end up supervising. But to Davis and his friends, it felt like a diss.
On the other hand, Davis had never had a love connection with Foster's opponent, Kathleen Ford, going back to the days when she served on council and he was police chief. During the election Ford ignited a firestorm when, prodded by shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, who referred to Davis as the "quasi-leader of the African-Americans," Ford referred to Princeton scholar Cornel West and his "whole explanation about the HNIC theory, and I agree with that. We don't need one spokesman for a group." (HNIC stands for "Head Negro in Charge" — a phrase that takes on a whole different resonance when it comes from a white political candidate rather than a noted African-American academic.)
But that question — whether the community should be represented by a single voice or face — has long provoked discussion in the black community and Midtown. Gypsy Gallardo, the publisher of Power Broker magazine in South St. Pete, calls the single-spokesman model "outdated and ineffective" because that one person is naturally limited to how much they can responsibly carry forward.
The election of Bill Foster put that theory to the test. Foster announced there would no longer be a specific point person working on Midtown development. He phased out the deputy mayor position and gave Davis a new title, senior administrator of community enrichment. And some began to wonder if, under this new arrangement, the progress that had begun in Midtown would slow down.
City Councilman Karl Nurse believes Go Davis was "very effective" for a number of years, but adds, "I think it was pretty obvious under Foster that he didn't really have a relationship with the mayor."
Davis acknowledges that the line of command between the mayor, himself and his staff was not always clear. "My point is, if you're going to give me a job, and you're going to ultimately hold me accountable, then I should have some sense with what you're wanting and desiring, and what kind of direction you're giving my folks." Davis says that when the mayor wanted to meet the housing director, for example, that official would inform him, and then Davis would go to the meeting with him, sometimes surprising the mayor.
(CL placed two calls for comment to Mayor Foster's office, but he had not responded at press time.)
But even though Davis has his issues with Bill Foster, he reserves his contempt for Bubba the Love Sponge, who whipped up resentment on radio and TV about Davis after it was reported that he had appeared at the funeral of cop-killer Lacy, a black man, and not at the funerals of the two white police officers whom Lacy gunned down.
Initially, according to Davis, his attendance at the Lacy funeral had not been an issue for Mayor Foster. Today he has brought along a copy of the February 10 edition of the St. Petersburg Times, still in a plastic wrapper as if it had just been delivered. Davis dons his reading glasses and reads aloud the statement that Mayor Foster gave to the paper that day:
"'I will not sit in judgment of anyone who reaches out to a family in crisis — period. If I felt compelled to respond to every radio personality who took issue with the city, that would become all consuming, and there is simply too much work to be done.
"'The job of Dr. Davis is to help me do my job, especially in matters of community enrichment, codes, housing and business assistance,' Foster said. 'As far as I am concerned, all parties involved are performing their jobs at a very high level.'"
Davis adds that one reason he felt compelled to attend the Lacy funeral was because there was the possibility that Christine Lacy, Hydra's wife, was thinking of attending the ceremony – against the wishes of the rest of the Lacy clan — and he wanted to be there to insure that the affair didn't get ugly (she ultimately did not attend).
Then, in the wake of the slaying of officer David Crawford weeks later, the issue came up again: another police funeral. Go Davis was adamant that he would not attend (though again he did attend the wake of the officer to pay his respects). He offered to "man" City Hall, as most of the city staff would be at the event. His superior, Tish Elston, advised a compromise, through which he could be out in front of the funeral site, but he didn't want to do that, either.
Davis then went directly to speak with Foster about why he would not attend, but the two kept on missing each other. Davis says Foster called him on a personal phone line instead of his city number (he had given him the personal line during the political campaign).
In any event, Davis failed to appear at Crawford's funeral on March 1. Foster called him into his office on March 2 and fired him.
On March 4, Davis held his now-infamous news conference at the Enoch Davis Center, an event that included loads of his supporters and was broadcast live on Bay News 9 — infamous because it seemed to freak out much of the establishment media when Omali Yeshitela was given the opportunity to address the crowd. (St. Petersburg Times political editor Adam Smith tweeted, ""Go Davis wants to feature Omali Yeshitela at his presser? Really?")
But Davis says that neither the appearance of Yeshitela nor that of NAACP chair Rev. Manuel Sykes was planned. As he took questions from reporters, he received separate notes requesting that both men wanted to address the crowd, and Davis' comments afterwards — that if he hadn't already been fired before the Uhuru chairman spoke, "I would be after that" — seems to indicate that it wasn't premeditated. Though Davis also doesn't believe there was anything inflammatory said at the podium. "What he said was, 'This man got fired because he stood up for the community.'"
On WTSP Channel 10, Bubba the Love Sponge erupted in his weekly commentary segment the following week, admonishing Davis to "Take that race card that you're trying to play, shine it up really nice my friend, and shove it somewhere!" (Bubba declined CL's request for comment.)
Some of Davis' supporters say that Foster crumbled under the pressures of the Police Benevolent Association, who were not happy with Davis' absence from the funerals, and that of other critics, like Bubba. And for those who valued Davis' government role, especially regarding Midtown, the question is: Now what?
The NAACP's Sykes was one of a group of people who met with Mayor Foster in March to discuss items for Midtown moving forward. He says that "there needs to be a specific initiative," but not necessarily a specific person to continue the development of Midtown.
And what about race relations in the city? The lone black member on the council, Wengay Newton, claims the way that Foster handled Davis at the end "set us back 10 years" in terms of race relations. His colleague on the council, chairman Jim Kennedy, back in January proposed asking the nonprofit group Community Tampa Bay to help form and run meetings to discuss racial issues. (The council approved that in early March.) Kennedy says, "You need to look deeply at our region, our town, our housing patterns that developed that have led us to where we have a very segregated housing base."
Yes, the city of St. Petersburg still has issues. But will Go Davis continue to be one of them?
Perhaps. Currently, he's involved in an initiative to try to bring more charter schools to St. Pete as a means of trying to close the achievement gap among black youth there. He professes no desire to run for political office.
But when asked in a follow-up call if he would file a lawsuit regarding his termination, he laughs and says, "It's always an option."
