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Foster takes unpredictable path
By LEONORA LaPETER
© St. Petersburg Times,
He drifted through thick marijuana smoke. He saw bodies slamming and beer flying. He watched a mother send her grade-school age child on a crowd-surfing ride. He came face to face with shock-rocker Marilyn Manson backstage and decided he was afraid of him. This is the council member who wanted to ban mosh pits and general admission concerts at Tropicana Fieldafter a Metallica concert a year ago. The same person who spent four to five days a week in church when he was a child because his mother was a Baptist church organist. But even while acknowledging his fear and concern, Foster left Ozzfest with this impression: It was not that bad. And he has ended his opposition to such shows at the city's stadium for now. In recent months, Foster has let his deep religious convictions show more frequently as he has increasingly fallen on the losing end of City Council votes. He has refused to consider, even for a moment, adding protection for gays and lesbians to the city's human rights ordinance. But he has also proved himself a defender of the U.S. Constitution who voted to sue a hospital that aligned with the Catholic Church -- even though that alignment guaranteed a prohibition on abortions. A Republican, he prays over just about every decision he makes and believes homosexuality is a lifestyle choice rather than something you are born into. A conservative Christian, right? Well, yes. Clearly. But Foster's a complicated guy. Just when you think you've got him sized up, he surprises you. * * * Foster, 38, practices probate and estate law with his father in a squat, one-story brick building on Fourth Street N. His mother answers the phones. His wife is his paralegal and office manager. The family has firm ties to St. Petersburg. Foster's great-grandfather ran a general store on Central Avenue at the turn of the last century. His great-grandparents are among the pioneers listed at Pioneer Park. He and his wife, Wendy, and their two children, Christine, 10, and Will, 6, live in the home he grew up in at Shore Acres. Religion has always been a part of Foster's life. He went to Keswick Christian School through the eighth grade, then transferred to Northeast High School. In high school, he played football and sang in the choir. He joined a service organization sponsored by the Rotary and a singing troupe called the Gondoliers. He met his future wife, Wendy, in civics class. He wrote in her yearbook that he wanted to be president of the United States one day. During law school at the Baptist-affiliated Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., he worked for a mortuary two nights a week and on weekends. As an apprentice, he embalmed hundreds of bodies. Foster said he learned how to deal with grieving families, a skill he began using when he returned to St. Petersburg to join his father's law practice as a probate and estate lawyer. Not exactly a high-profile area of law, but it suited him. In 1993, Foster walked into City Hall and picked up a packet to run for City Council. He hadn't even consulted his wife. He was up against Ed Cole, his own pediatrician, the former mayor known for spending $68 on his campaign. Foster knew he couldn't win, but he tried to learn. Kathleen Ford, who would later become a council colleague, served as a campaign adviser. Foster didn't win. But after the election, Mayor David Fischer appointed him to the city's Nuisance Abatement Board. He was 30 years old. * * * It was late -- just days before Christmas 1999 -- during one of those famously long 15-hour City Council meetings. Foster, first appointed to the council in 1998, had won the District 3 seat in an unopposed race nine months earlier. Foster placed a pillow on the dais and put his head down, face first. In his four years on the council, Foster has frequently been the one to break the ice with a joke. He is a regular prankster. He has hidden council member Richard Kriseman's jacket -- so he doesn't have it during televised meetings. Once when relations grew strained between the council and former Mayor Fischer, it was Foster who bought green fuzzy balls at a crafts shop, placed them in envelopes and sent them to his council colleagues, signed "Love Dave." He called them "warm green fuzzies." He's a frequent whistler, typically selecting a soundtrack from a Broadway play, such as Phantom of the Opera or Sound of Music, and whistling all of its tunes throughout the day. "Most people don't equate fun guys with religious guys, but I can have a good time like the best of them," Foster said. But beneath the boyish face, there is a serious side to Foster. You can see it in his starched shirts and formal business suits, the close-cropped blond hair. And in his relationship with God. "I know this sounds kind of hokey, but I'm a person who's led by the Holy Spirit," Foster said. "I can't be anybody else." Still, Foster rarely reveals that kind of devotion in his public life. He said he is not hiding it. He just doesn't believe in forcing his Christianity on others when he is doing the "people's business." Foster said he recognizes that his conservative Christian values may limit his political career, but it is not something he can worry about. "I am who I am," he said. "I think I have a special perspective and knowledge of this document we call the Constitution. And I think, short of the Bible, that's probably the most significant document ever created. And I will say it is probably the most significant document created by man as opposed to the Bible, which are the words of God." Foster is known to support issues that go against his religious core. He has given adult book stores a variance because it fell within the bounds of the law. "I'll fight to keep them open if it means protecting the Constitution of the U.S., because the Constitution protects us all," Foster said. Foster said he was also led by the Constitution when he voted to sue Bayfront Medical Center over its partner BayCare's religious health directives, which stopped most abortions. Although he is anti-abortion, except for medical necessity, Foster said this wasn't about abortion. It was about separation of church and state. But when it came to a human rights ordinance to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identification, Foster stood firm.Even then, Foster said his opposition was based on constitutional law, not religious doctrine. "You can't always predict what he's going to do," said First Deputy Mayor Tish Elston. Council member Jay Lasita wonders whether Foster's decisions are sometimes motivated by politics. To Lasita, Foster never made a good argument last year when he was trying to cut the city's tax rate. "It was playing politics," Lasita said. "If Bill's got a downside, he can do that sometimes." Lately, Foster has found himself alone in voting on issues -- seven times since the new council took office in April. And he was the only council member to come out initially against raises for council members. "On the last City Council, that wasn't a role he played," said former mayoral candidate and planning commission member Karl Nurse. "He was, I thought, a force of conciliation. And now on a number of issues, he's sort of staking out the one end." When the African People's Education and Defense Fund sought to name a city-funded gym, "Uhuru Black Gym of Our Own," Foster was one of the first to stand up against it. When the group came back seeking to name it the All People's TyRon Lewis Community Gym, Foster disappeared for the vote. Lewis, an 18-year-old whose fatal shooting by police in 1996 sparked racial disturbances, was also a petty criminal. "It made me physically ill," Foster said. "The thought of having to support that made me sick." Foster now regrets he didn't vote against it -- he didn't vote at all. Foster hasn't always navigated the city's black community with ease. After a tense moment in a council meeting during which Foster questioned Police Chief Goliath Davis III, NAACP president Darryl Rouson called Foster to ask him why he was targeting one of the black community's "heroes." Foster said it wasn't personal or about race. They prayed over the phone to repair the rift. Foster and Davis later embraced. "I'm a hugger," Foster said. Foster said today he and Davis get along. Davis could not be reached to comment. "It's not that (Foster) doesn't care or like black folks, but that he just wasn't sure about how to charter in those waters," Rouson said. "I just don't think that he knew exactly how to show it and how to express himself among black folks." Foster is not sure whether he will run for mayor in four years. He has been asked about becoming a circuit judge. And some would like to see him run for the state Legislature. Foster, who recently lost 20 pounds on the Subway diet, said he'll make those decisions when the time comes. "I've managed to offend just about everybody in this city," he said. "If people judge me on one single issue, I will be a one-termer. But I respect people who can look at the big picture and and can judge my performance on that picture."
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