Editors of the St. Petersburg Times; Bay Buzz pulled an online story about St. Petersburg Deputy Mayor Goliath Davis which, according to a source who works in the police department but remains close to Davis, included a headline the former police chief found objectionable.
“Goliath Davis questions some of Mayor Bill Foster’s plans” read the January 6 story written by Cristina Silva (cached here), who reported that Davis has some concerns about Mayor Bill Foster’s proposed policies regarding a plan to relax the city’s no-pursuit policy for criminals and Foster’s reorganization of the city’s arts department so that it was part of Davis’ new portfolio.
An update to the story said that Foster will, in fact, keep the arts departent under economic development. “I misspoke,” he said. “Arts is still under Rick Mussett.”
Even if Foster misspoke, why was the story pulled? Davis was quoted questioning Foster’s relation of the no-pursuit policy, so the story is still half-right. Two days after Foster took office, Davis was already questioning the new mayor’s leadership.
“Go knows he’s on shaky ground with Foster,” said a City Hall employee close to both Davis and Foster, “so I am sure Davis made as many calls as possible to get that story yanked.”
I asked the online editor of the St. Petersburg Times about why the story was pulled and was told to check with Silva since she wrote the story. Despite several comments on the Bay Buzz asking about the story, neither Silva nor editor Heather Uriquedes have explained why the story was pulled.
“One moment the story was there,” wrote one commentor, “the next moment, poof, it vanished into thin air.”