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By AMY WIMMER
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 6, 2001
Voters head to the polls today in two south Pinellas cities.
In Gulfport, voters will choose a mayor and two City Council members. In South Pasadena, they will select a mayor.
In each race, incumbents are running for re-election. The two mayoral races include incumbents who have held city offices since the 1980s.
If re-elected, Gulfport Mayor Michael Yakes, who has been mayor since 1991 and served on the City Council for five years before that, will be the longest-serving mayor in Gulfport history. Yakes, 57, retired from a safety training position with the state Department of Transportation.
Yakes faces recently retired Gulfport police Lt. Larry Tosi, 55, and John Freiberger, 58, a claims analyst and longtime critic of the mayor, who also ran against Yakes in 1999. For the first time in Gulfport, the mayor elected today will serve a three-year term, thanks to a charter amendment approved by voters. Council members will continue to serve two-year terms. In Gulfport's City Council races, Ward 2 council member Jack Olsen, 56, who owns a home health care agency and has been on the City Council since 1991, is seeking re-election.
Olsen faces Dawn Fisher, 67, a local volunteer and vice president of the Gulfport Chamber of Commerce, and John Hamilton, 40, an auto technician.
Ward 4 council member Larry Cooper, 51, a craftsman printer for the St. Petersburg Times, has held his council seat since 1996. He is running against Ernest Stone, 53, a taxi dispatcher who has run against Cooper twice before.
In South Pasadena, longtime Mayor Fred Held faces two competitors. Both joined the race because they thought Held could be disqualified for breaking South Pasadena's term limits rule. Held was appointed to his first term as mayor and re-elected twice to three-year terms.
Held, 74, is a retired insurance and investment consultant. He faces Lou Ippolito, 62, a retired police detective, and Ray Christensen, 68, a retired accountant.
Polls in both cities will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today.