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WATCH: Behind-the-Scenes of Florida Matters at City Hall in St. Pete

Lottie Watts
/
WUSF
WUSF's Carson Cooper (left) and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman (right).

Florida Matters host Carson Cooper literally took your questions with him when he sat down this morning with St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman at City Hall to talk about the mayor's first 100 days in office.

For an upcoming Florida Matters, we gathered your questions and comments for the mayor, loaded the audio files on a laptop and played them for the mayor during the interview. 

Listen to more questions and answers with Kriseman on Florida Matters April 15 at 6:30 p.m. and April 20 at 7:30 a.m. on WUSF 89.7 FM. 

You can watch a sneak peak of one of the questions here (we captured it on an iPhone):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPdIPU5kW1s&list=UUsN1ZItTKcJ4AGsBIni35gg

One of the concerns we shared with him came from Steven Hopkins of Bradenton, who wants to know what's going to happen to the Pier.

"The biggest thing I think is it's a shame, that a) now that many people are out of work and there's nothing being done there, and b) to me, now it just looks like a huge eyesore, in a beautiful downtown city, sitting there empty," Hopkins said. "You know, they finally did take down the chain link fence, but to me, it's starting to look like an eyesore."

Cooper asked, "How much longer before it becomes unsafe to get out there on the Pier?" 

According to Kriseman, he doesn't expect for it to become unsafe for pedestrians and bicyclists, but said vehicles are "a different story."

"The structure itself, the Pier itself, still remains closed to the public, because it's been gutted inside, so it's not safe, and we don't allow the public in there," Kriseman said. "But that was one of the things that I've done that's gotten the most positive response was taking that fence down."

Lottie Watts was our Florida Matters producer from 2012 to 2016. She also covers health and health policy for WUSF's Health News Florida .