When mayoral candidate Pam Iorio met my sons (Matthew, 10, and Ethan, 9) at a Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast in January, she made them a campaign promise: Were she elected, they could spend a day with her. Last week, Iorio followed through on the promise, and the boys wrote an account so their dad could take Father's Day off.
After spending the entire day with Mayor Pam Iorio, we decided her job was medium. Sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it's hard.
The hard part is she has to go to a lot of meetings, make a lot of speeches and sign a lot of papers. The fun part is she gets to own a big building, have her own driver and go on a helicopter (but we didn't go).
At 8:30 a.m., we met the mayor's assistant at the old library, and the goal was to find out what a proclamation means and what a code enforcement officer does. We found out that a proclamation is a long letter that the mayor has to sign. A code enforcement officer goes to neighborhoods and makes sure there are no old, rusty cars, broken houses or dirty grass.
Then the mayor came with a nice blue dress. The code enforcement officers had a surprise for her. It was a big cake. We ate some to start our day. In fact, everywhere we went, people gave us candy.
After leaving the code enforcement office, we went back to the mayor's office, and the mayor herself gave us a tour. We met Carla and lots of people loyal to the mayor. They had a meeting room with a big TV and a bathroom with a shower.
When the tour was over, we went to the fire department and got on a fire truck inside the fire station. There is so much equipment and buckets that you have to use. When you open the door to the truck, stairs come down. It's really cool.
We got to see how someone goes down a pole. We also saw all the other fire department badges from all over the United States and some from different countries.
Chief Pete Botto gave us a goody bag with a puzzle and a stencil tattoo maker.
We rode back on the fire truck to Mayor Iorio's office, and then the mayor's driver took us to a hall so the mayor could talk to a lot of girls about being a role model. She made a speech about what she did in fourth and fifth grade and what she did in middle and high school.
When Mayor Iorio was in fourth grade, she started a boycott at her school, and she told everyone to bring a lunch to school that day. Everyone did, and the principal was furious. So she tracked down who started this boycott, and they were the mayor and her brother.
Making a speech is hard, but she didn't have stage fright or say anything like that.
After her speech, she took us to a principals meeting. There, they had the world's best chocolate. We don't know why they called it that because we didn't like it too much. The mayor also gave a speech to the principals.
After that, we went to this humongous building and had lunch at the Tampa Club. From the club, we looked down at the Florida Aquarium, the St. Pete Times Forum and a great big cylinder building. My dad said that was the beer can building. We don't like beer.
After lunch, we went to the old city hall and rode on an old-fashioned elevator. We also went to the police station. We saw all the helmets from around the world. Plus, we liked seeing the handcuffs and this really long metal stick that they hit people with. We also met Chief Bennie Holder. Did you know he has met Bill Clinton and George W. Bush?
We ended the day by having root beer floats at the restaurant across from City Hall. The mayor said it was the first time in a long time she had a root beer float.
