Creative Loafing Tampa Bay keeps reaching into the mailbag, and treading carefully into the comments section. The exercise leaves us increasingly grateful for readers who come to us in print—and especially online—read the news and thoughtfully respond. Keep it coming, folks (scan the QR code if you’re the emailing type), and we’ll keep posting it.
Facing reelection, Mayor Ken Welch believes his administration did well to help St. Pete recover after hurricanes
Many industries have resilience built in where they share resources with those impacted. There was no excuse for what occurred with all of the building departments across this area. The electrical supply industry is a great example of what is possible knowing that sharing resources is how they help each other recover. It’s truly poor planning for the worst case scenarios.—Tom McDaniel
We all love living in St. Pete because of the sense of community. I remember during Irma it was everyday people stepping up to help our neighbors no matter the neighborhood. Now, people are turning it into a negative (politically charged issue) for the worst natural disaster, in St. Pete, in our lifetime. It will always take a combination of people and local government to recover.—Carla Bristol
How about waiving permit fees and fast tracking approvals. There’s plenty of actions he could have taken to get things unclogged—JP Fegan
He was rizzin’: Photos from the ‘Hunky Jesus & Foxy Mary’ contest at St. Pete’s Wet Spot pool bar
Y’all are so hateful in the comments section. Momma said, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all. I love these photos.—Brandon Steele…