Opinion: A steady start for Mayor Baker

In announcing his top staff Thursday, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker laid the administrative foundation for his oft-stated political priorities: solid city services, neighborhood improvement and economic development in the black community. His choices also spoke to the tone he said he would set for his administration, one of vigor and stability.

Neighborhood activists will no doubt be pleased that Baker is bringing back a familiar face, with former city planner and neighborhood services administrator Mike Dove returning in the newly named position of deputy mayor for neighborhood services. Dove showed himself to be a creative and hands-on administrator who cut through red tape to help neighborhoods help themselves. In the position of deputy mayor for city administration, Baker kept Tish Elston, the city administrator for previous mayor David Fischer. For the third of his three deputy mayors, Baker found a man, police chief Goliath Davis, with the academic and professional credentials, community ties and personal zeal necessary to attack the economic problems in the central and southern neighborhoods of the city.

The Davis appointment was significant because it allowed Baker to keep a man whom he had praised on the campaign trail. Davis said he informed Baker, after the election, that he would retire as police chief in October and would not be talked out of the decision. In turn, Baker talked Davis into the deputy mayor's post. The role is a good one for Davis, but it also leaves Baker with a search for police chief that he will need to conduct with great care. Baker said he is planning a national search, which makes sense, and he would do well to involve the entire community in the screening process. Police union leaders, who were so obsessed with getting Davis fired and are no doubt pleased that the chief is changing jobs, need to remember that their candidate lost the election.

In just three weeks' time, the Baker administration is beginning to set a course, and the first steps are steady ones. Baker has surrounded himself with people who have professional credentials, not political ones, and he has built an organizational structure that speaks to his priorities. Good start, Mayor.

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