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City leaders pay brief homage to Jerry Mudd, approve a new leader and decide to close all offices Monday.
By ANNE LINDBERG, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 16, 2003
PINELLAS PARK -- Council members took time at the beginning and end of Thursday's council meeting to remember City Manager Jerry Mudd, who stabbed himself to death earlier in the week.
In the middle, they unanimously decreed that Assistant City Manager Mike Gustafson will oversee Pinellas Park, at least until permanent arrangements are made.
If one council member has his way, Gustafson will be the next city manager. The city is running great and Gustafson has been assistant city manager long enough to have learned the job, so he should have a chance to do it, Ed Taylor said.
"It's like they say about great college football teams: They don't rebuild, they reload," Taylor said.
Gustafson was in charge of the city Tuesday when the news about Mudd's suicide spread. He'd been managing city business while Mudd was recuperating from gall bladder surgery.
"Last week, I was dancing around, saying, 'I love being No. 2 and I can't wait until he's back,"' Gustafson said Thursday.
When the news came, Gustafson's first reaction was disbelief. That later turned to anger. The realization that he was in charge did not settle in, Gustafson said, until Thursday morning in the shower.
Gustafson foresaw no major changes in the immediate future.
"(Provide) just the same type of great service that we've given all along that Jerry expected us to give," he said.
Gustafson, 53, is a Chicago native who moved to Florida in 1973 to help his wife's family open a furniture business. Soon, he gave up the furniture business to become a construction supervisor and eventually owned his firm.
A nasty divorce led to a 1987 bankruptcy.
"She had a good attorney," Gustafson said.
Pinellas Park hired him in 1990 as a senior building inspector, and he rose through the ranks until Mudd appointed him assistant city manager four years ago.
Gustafson is a high school graduate with trade school training in carpentry. He has taken some junior college courses. His last evaluation, done by Mudd last May, rated him as outstanding, the highest ranking on the Pinellas Park scale.
At 6 feet 4, Gustafson towers above most other city officials. He is married and has four daughters.
Gustafson is known for thinking outside the box to come up with solutions to satisfy the rules, council members and developers.
"When I make decisions, I hope I'm within logic and the rules," he said. "I know I can be smacked once in a while, but I take the chance and hope I can defend what I did."
Also known for his sense of humor, Gustafson said he does not think the burdens of being Pinellas Park's city manager will get to him. He does not tend to hold things in, he said, and prefers to laugh at situations rather than becoming upset. Nor does he look back.
That ability to tease and be teased was evident at the meeting. Council members kidded him, especially about his taste for neckties. Thursday's tie was adorned with neon green aliens.
Patricia Bailey-Snook wondered if Gustafson should tone it down: "Right now, he's a Martian."
Bailey-Snook, relenting on the tie issue: "That's Mike. Okay."
Mayor Bill Mischler: "He wears weirdo ties."
The banter was one of the few light moments during the meeting, the first since Mudd's suicide.
Reminders were everywhere:
-- Mudd's office, dark, silent and untouched since Tuesday morning, when city administrators gathered there to learn the news of his death.
-- A vase of flowers by Mudd's parking space.
-- A memorial outside council chambers with white tulips, red roses, Hershey's candy like the kind Mudd kept on his desk for visitors, heart-shaped balloons, pictures of Mudd with various city employees, a hand-folded paper flower and written tributes.
-- City flags flying at half-staff.
Other cities offered support. Largo offered to lend employees so Pinellas Park staff members could leave for the funeral. St. Petersburg passed a resolution offering condolence.
At the council workshop before the meeting, Mischler said, "Since Tuesday, the word 'why' has probably been heard in Pinellas Park more than at any other time. We don't know why and we're not going to know why."
During his prayer to open the public meeting, Mischler said: "We have lost a great leader in Pinellas Park. ... We know you (God) are telling him, that you have said to him, 'Job well done, my faithful and loyal servant."'
Then Mischler told the audience: "We are in grief tonight, there's no question. So bear with all of us. ... Jerry's contributed so much to the city and we are forever grateful for all of that."
Later, the council unanimously voted to close all city offices Monday, including the library and recreation centers, so city staff members can attend the funeral.
"We feel it is fair," Mischler said. "He touched the hearts of everybody. ..."
At the end of the meeting, they talked of funeral arrangements.
"It's going be like a state funeral to us," said Taylor, whose funeral home is handling the arrangements.
Mudd, he said, would lie in the council chambers Sunday afternoon: "We're going to bring him back here in a place he loved well. Everyone is welcome. We expect a lot of people. ... Whether you knew Jerry or didn't know Jerry, you're family."