Colleen Wright

St. Petersburg, FL, USA

St. Petersburg Reporter at Tampa Bay Times

☀️ St. Petersburg reporter @tb_times. Florida born, raised, educated3️⃣0️⃣5️⃣ @TheAlligator alum+board member🐊 @miamiherald fam🏝 she/her. [email protected]

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Articles

Mayor Ken Welch’s ‘full circle’ story to keep Rays in St. Petersburg

Sep 26, 2023 | tampabay.com | Colleen Wright

ST. PETERSBURG — Mayor Ken Welch was thinking about people like his father when he said last week that a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays will achieve what past city leaders had hoped would happen. David Welch was the St. Petersburg City Council’s only Black member in 1982 when the idea was first raised to use the city’s Gas Plant property as a site for major league baseball. Black-owned residences,businesses and churches would be demolished as a result.
St. Petersburg hires first Chief Equity Officer

Sep 26, 2023 | tampabay.com | Colleen Wright

City officials on Tuesday announced the hiring of Lenice C. Emanuel asSt. Petersburg’s first Chief Equity Officer. According to a news release, Emanuel is an executive with 25 years of experience in nonprofits, including as chief executive officer of the YWCA of Tampa Bay from 2010 to 2015. Her work starts Monday.
What St. Petersburg, Pinellas elected leaders say about the Rays deal

Sep 23, 2023 | tampabay.com | Jack Evans |Colleen Wright

Tuesday’s fanfare was just the beginning. The Tampa Bay Rays won’t be tied to staying in St. Petersburg and construction can’t start on a new ballpark until a legally binding development agreement is approved with votes from the St. Petersburg City Council and the Pinellas County Commission. That likely won’t happen until the beginning of 2024.
Detectives search for 21-year-old in Wimauma homicide investigation

Sep 23, 2023 | tampabay.com | Colleen Wright

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office deputies are searching for a 21-year-old suspect who may have been involved in a domestic altercation Saturday morning in Wimauma that ended with an adult male killed. According to a news release, the sheriff’s office received a call just before 5:30 a.m. “reporting one person was deceased after a domestic altercation.” When deputies arrived in the 3300 block of Sanchez Ranch Lane, they found an adult male with upper body trauma.
Man shot to death after confrontation in Tampa, police say

Sep 22, 2023 | tampabay.com | Amy Gehrt |Colleen Wright

Detectives are searching for a man they say fatally shot another man following an argument in Tampa Friday morning. It happened in the area of East Busch Boulevard and North Connechusett Road around 8:30 a.m., the Tampa Police Department said. According to a news release from the agency, the shooter arrived and “engaged in a confrontation” with the man he killed, then got a gun and shot him before fleeing. The man who was shot died at the scene, police said.
As Idalia debris lingers in Tampa Bay, here’s how to get rid of it

Sep 6, 2023 | tampabay.com | Jack Evans |Colleen Wright

A week after Hurricane Idalia’s storm surge caused flooding around Tampa Bay, the water is gone, but piles of debris stacked at curbs stand as a reminder of the damage caused in some of the hardest-hit areas. Cleanups were underway throughout the region this week, clearing waterlogged furniture and structural remains. Some governments in places beset by flooding, such as Pasco County and Tarpon Springs, said they expected the debris-collection process to take awhile.
St. Petersburg’s Shore Acres residents battle floods, fires, fatigue after Idalia

Aug 31, 2023 | tampabay.com | Jack Prator |Max Chesnes |Colleen Wright

ST. PETERSBURG — Sara Eve Schaeffer sat atop her kitchen counter with her dog, Delly, on Wednesday listening to the electrical currents from her appliances pop and spark as the water rose below in her Shore Acres home. A day later, there was still standing water in her daughter’s bedroom, the pink walls crinkled above the baseboards. Schaeffer worried parts of the rainbow mural she painted in 6-year-old Claire’s room would wash away.
Record storm surge from Idalia floods Tampa Bay’s beach neighborhoods

Aug 30, 2023 | tampabay.com | Colleen Wright

INDIAN SHORES — Hurricane Idalia brought the beach past the boardwalk and down the grates of Gulf Boulevard. Two Pinellas County task force workers arrived at 7:30 a.m. to clean out the sewage systems to help with drainage. Two hours later, a mound of sand and muck from three drains and the plow that pulled it out blocked the street. Around them, the surf erased the shore and lapped the back porches of homes on the Intracoastal Waterway. Pinellas County Sheriff’s Deputy Chuck Skipper took it all in.
St. Petersburg declares state of emergency ahead of TS Idalia

Aug 28, 2023 | tampabay.com | Colleen Wright

Mayor Ken Welch signed his first executive order of the year Monday, declaring a local state of emergency ahead of Tropical Storm Idalia, which is expected to strengthen in to a Category 3 hurricane. The order went into effect at 11 a.m. The latest update shows the track shifting northward, though Pinellas County is within the cone of uncertainty. The storm is expected to make landfall Wednesday morning.
St. Petersburg City Council may evaluate fire department management

Aug 24, 2023 | tampabay.com | Colleen Wright

ST. PETERSBURG — A City Council committee voted unanimously Thursday to move forward with a management study of the St. Petersburg Fire Department. Members of the Budget, Finance and Taxation Committee instructed city staff to conduct one-on-one meetings with council members to discuss the scope of the study, which would be done by a third-party consultant selected through an official bidding process.