Politics
After years of delays, Barack Obama Main Library to reopen in St. Pete
The city of St. Petersburg is reopening the Barack Obama Main Library, with an official grand reopening and ceremonial ribbon cutting scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 27.
“The reopening of the long-awaited President Barack Obama Main Library marks a proud moment for St. Petersburg,” Mayor Ken Welch said in an announcement. “I want to thank our City staff for their hard work in getting this project completed. This modernized space will serve as a resource for all who live, learn, and grow in our city, providing access to knowledge, technology, and opportunity for every member of the community.”
The ribbon cutting will take place at 9 a.m. at the library, located at 3745 9th Ave. N. At 10 a.m., the library will open to the public for the first time since closing in March 2021 for renovations. A series of delays and cost overruns delayed the project, including delays related to the COVID pandemic.
Originally estimated to cost $6 million when first announced in 2018, the St. Pete City Council has since approved nearly $16 million for the project.
The facility has since been used to train police dogs, an effort to abate vandalism that had plagued the building, including a spray-painted racial slur.
Now complete, the 40,000-square-foot library is fully modernized with new space for programming and community use. Amenities include extended hours, with the library open seven days a week from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
It also includes conference rooms, including the Obama Room and Small Conference Room for multipurpose community use. The auditorium will include new A/V capable equipment and can be used to host performances, presentations and other programming.
An on-site café will serve coffee, tea and snacks for purchase from local small businesses, while a bookstore will include a curated selection of donated books and library merchandise for purchase.
Public art will also be on display, including “Looking Out,” a large-scale installation made of hardwood veneer-core layers of dyed and natural wood with silver leaf, by artist Benjamin Butler. The piece evokes parallels between the natural water environment in Obama’s native Hawaii and the water surrounding St. Pete. It also includes a quote from the former President: “I spent my childhood on those shores, looking out over the endless ocean, and was humbled by it.”
Other features include innovate space with a STEAM-forward workshop complete with tools and equipment for local makers; a children’s space and program room; a teen room; a functional mezzanine with printers, computers and a computer lab, along with six study rooms; and a backup generator to support systemwide operations in the event of power loss.
“We’re so excited to welcome the community back to the President Barack Obama Main Library,” St. Pete Director of Libraries Beth Lindsay said. “This space has always belonged to the people of St. Pete, and we can’t wait for everyone to experience how it’s been reimagined for today’s needs and tomorrow’s possibilities.”
The building was originally built in 1963 by architect William Harvard, who also designed, or helped design, the Williams Park bandshell, the former inverted pyramid pier and multiple local churches, hotels and federal buildings.
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Mills was a day-one Byron Donalds backer in the gubernatorial race.
A former House Speaker and current candidate for Governor is leading the charge for Republicans as scandal swirls around a Congressman.
Saying the “evidence is mounting” against Rep. Cory Mills, Paul Renner says other candidates for Governor should “stand up and be counted” and join him in the call for Mills to leave Congress.
Renner made the call earlier this week.
But on Friday, the Palm Coast Republican doubled down.
He spotlighted fresh reporting from Roger Sollenberger alleging that Mills’ company “appears to have illegally exported weapons while he serves in Congress, including to Ukraine,” that Mills failed to disclose conflicts of interest, “tried to fistfight other Republican members of Congress, and lied about his party stature to bully other GOP candidates out of primaries that an alleged romantic interest was running in,” and lied about his conversion to Islam.
The House Ethics Committee is already probing Mills, a New Smyrna Beach Republican, over allegations of profiting from federal defense contracts while in Congress. More recently, the Committee expanded its work to review allegations that he assaulted one ex-girlfriend and threatened to share intimate photos of another.
Other candidates have been more reticent in addressing the issue, including Rep. Byron Donalds.
“When any other members have been involved and stuff like this, my advice is the same,” said Donalds, a Naples Republican. “They need to actually spend a lot more time in the district and take stock of what’s going on at home, and make that decision with their voters.”
The response came less than a year after Mills, a New Smyrna Beach Republican, spoke at the launch of Donalds’ gubernatorial campaign.
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Staff writer Jacob Ogles contributed reporting.
The cold war between Florida’s Governor and his predecessor is nearly seven years old and tensions show no signs of thawing.
On Friday, Sen. Rick Scott weighed in on Florida Politics’ reporting on the Agency for Health Care Administration’s apparent repayment of $10 million of Medicaid money from a settlement last year, which allegedly had been diverted to the Hope Florida Foundation, summarily filtered through non-profits through political committees, and spent on political purposes.
“I appreciate the efforts by the Florida legislature to hold Hope Florida accountable. Millions in tax dollars for poor kids have no business funding political ads. If any money was misspent, then it should be paid back by the entities responsible, not the taxpayers,” Scott posted to X.
While AHCA Deputy Chief of Staff Mallory McManus says that is an “incorrect” interpretation, she did not respond to a follow-up question asking for further detail this week.
The $10 million under scrutiny was part of a $67 million settlement from state Medicaid contractor Centene, which DeSantis said was “a cherry on top” in the settlement, arguing it wasn’t truly from Medicaid money.
But in terms of the Scott-DeSantis contretemps, it’s the latest example of tensions that seemed to start even before DeSantis was sworn in when Scott left the inauguration of his successor, and which continue in the race to succeed DeSantis, with Scott enthusiastic about current front runner Byron Donalds.
Earlier this year, Scott criticized DeSantis’ call to repeal so-called vaccine mandates for school kids, saying parents could already opt out according to state law.
While running for re-election to the Senate in 2024, Scott critiqued the Heartbeat Protection Act, a law signed by DeSantis that banned abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy with some exceptions, saying the 15 week ban was “where the state’s at.”
In 2023 after Scott endorsed Donald Trump for President while DeSantis was still a candidate, DeSantis said it was an attempt to “short circuit” the voters.
That same year amid DeSantis’ conflict over parental rights legislation with The Walt Disney Co., Scott said it was important for Governors to “work with” major companies in their states.
The critiques went both ways.
When running for office, DeSantis distanced himself from Scott amid controversy about the Senator’s blind trust for his assets as Governor.
“I basically made decisions to serve in uniform, as a prosecutor, and in Congress to my financial detriment,” DeSantis said in October 2018. “I’m not entering (office) with a big trust fund or anything like that, so I’m not going to be entering office with those issues.”
In 2020, when the state’s creaky unemployment website couldn’t handle the surge of applicants for reemployment assistance as the pandemic shut down businesses, DeSantis likened it to a “jalopy in the Daytona 500” and Scott urged him to “quit blaming others” for the website his administration inherited.
The chill between the former and current Governors didn’t abate in time for 2022’s hurricane season, when Scott said DeSantis didn’t talk to him after the fearsome Hurricane Ian ravaged the state.
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