When Rick Kriseman was running for Mayor of St. Petersburg, he made a number of promises about resolving the future of the St. Pete Pier.
A referendum had stopped the proposed building of a design called "The Lens" -- with left the iconic inverted pyramid a fenced in shell of itself.
Among other things, Kriseman promised a new pier would be opened by the end of 2015.
During a recent taping of "Florida Matters" on WUSF, Kriseman admitted that goal might have been overambitious.
His administration has now bumped back an opening date for a new pier to 2017.
And PolitiFact Florida says that rates the mayor a 'promise broken'.
"This comes from his announcement on May 1 that under a new timeline, they weren't going to have a new pier open to the public until 2017," explained Josh Gillin of PolitiFact. "Designs aren't even due until next year. So, when you figure in construction, I think it was probably just a pretty big bite to take on."
A lot of the delays in making progress toward a new pier have to do with Kriseman's inability to put together a task force on the pier... a task force he promised to have up and running when he took office in January.
However, PolitiFact did not give the mayor a promise broken on the task force issue.
"No, We actually rated that task force a compromise," Gillin said. "He had said that he was going to have it put in place before January 2nd. He was going to pick a bunch of community leaders. But, you know, there are a few things on your plate when you become mayor so he finally did come up with a group and announced it the same day he announced that 2017 completion date... because he finally did it, it's a compromise."
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