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Mayor faces challenge with last-minute entrant

Curbside recycling advocate Ed Helm files to campaign against Mayor Rick Baker.

By CARRIE JOHNSON
Published August 3, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - For most of the day, it looked like Mayor Rick Baker might win a second four-year term without having to run a campaign.

His only opponent, James A. Huff III, a laid-off electronics technician who has never held political office, dropped out of the race Tuesday morning.

But Baker's uncontested status ended a few hours later. Just minutes before the 5 p.m. filing deadline, Ed Helm, a 60-year-old retired U.S. Department of Labor lawyer and recycling advocate, jumped into the race.

Baker, 49, said he's looking forward to the campaign. The former mergers and acquisitions attorney mobilized early and has raised more than $84,000.

"Campaigns are a great opportunity to talk about what you've been doing," Baker said. "And what you're going to do in the future."

Helm is co-chairman of the First Progressive Club of St. Petersburg. He has been lobbying the city to implement curbside recycling for several months and searching for candidates to run against Baker. He finally decided to enter the race himself.

"It's always good for a race to be contested," Helm said. "It sharpens issues and gives people a choice. And I think on my issue, curbside recycling, people need choices."

This is not Helm's first foray into St. Petersburg politics. He ran for the District 4 City Council seat in 1993 but was defeated in the primary after opponents questioned whether he lived inside the district.

Helm said he's not intimidated by Baker's war chest.

"Money always talks in politics," Helm said. "I plan to raise the money I need to be competitive."

Because there are only two mayoral candidates, there is no need for a primary. Helm and Baker will face off in the Nov. 8 election.

Helm wasn't the only candidate to jump into a city race at the last minute. Three City Council candidates filed their campaign papers Tuesday, joining an already crowded field for the four open seats.

The District 6 race drew the most competition. The seat is currently held by Earnest Williams, who owns an insurance company.

Four people have lined up to run against Williams: Gerald Dwight "Chimurenga" Waller, the president of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement; Darden Rice, a community organizer for the Sierra Club; Cassandra Jackson, a former board member for the Pinellas County Housing Authority; and Maria Scruggs-Weston, a community activist.

Unlike 2003, when two council incumbents were re-elected without opposition, every council race drew at least two candidates.

Karl Nurse, the president of the Council of Neighborhood Associations, said contested races lead to better government.

"This is a good thing because it will get voters in all of the races to talk to their would-be officeholders about what's important for them," Nurse said. "It will get the incumbents and the challengers in front of neighborhood associations and business groups."

Carrie Johnson can be reached at 727 892-2273 or cjohnson@sptimes.com

Candidates in St. Petersburg's Nov. 8 municipal election:

MAYOR'S RACE

Rick Baker

Ed Helm

CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 2

John Bryan

Eve Joy

CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 4

Virginia Littrell

Kim Trombley

Leslie Curran

CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 6

Earnest Williams

Cassandra Jackson

Gerald Dwight "Chimurenga" Waller

Darden Rice

Maria Scruggs-Weston

CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 8

Jeff Danner

Jamie L. Pugh-Mayo

[Last modified August 3, 2005, 00:35:13]