Commitment to Ethics

Commitment to Ethics

By David R. Corder

Associate Editor

St. Petersburg City Attorney John C. Wolfe knew his decision would disappoint Darryl Rouson. For years, Rouson had sought a piece of St. Petersburg's lucrative bond counsel work. Only last year, the St. Petersburg lawyer had gone so far as to partner with Nabors Giblin & Nickerson PA, an experienced bond counsel firm.

Although he admired Rouson's tenacity, Wolfe awarded the contract on a low bid to the city's long-time bond counsel, Bryant Miller & Olive PA. In an act of civil disobedience, Rouson chained himself to a chair in Wolfe's office. Within 10 minutes, however, Wolfe had peacefully diffused the symbolic protest.

"He was trying to make a point that he was very serious about," Wolfe recalls. "I just kept talking to him, and we talked about it. I told him I couldn't change my mind because the costs in the original proposal were higher for his firm. It wasn't a question whether their firm was capable of doing (the work), because it was a joint venture with another recognized bond firm. It was a question of cost."

Those who know Wolfe say they wouldn't expect anything less from Wolfe, even in the heat of the adversarial exchange. So it's no surprise why a committee of peers picked Wolfe as recipient of the 2005 Professional Award, an honor co-sponsored by the St. Petersburg Bar Association and Gulf Coast Business Review. He received the award at the group's May 13 Law Day luncheon.

By winning the award, Wolfe joins a prestigious group of past winners. Jack Helinger won the award in 2001, Louie Adcock Jr., 2002, Pamela A.M. Campbell, 2003, and Oscar Blasingame, 2004.

While no surprise to others, it was a surprise to Wolfe. "That's an understatement," he adds.

The selection committee enlisted the aid of Assistant City Attorney Jeannine Williams to award him the honor in a surreptitious fashion.

"I tried to make it as suspenseful as possible," Williams says. "I started out that (the award winner) is a graduate of the Stetson College of Law, which encompassed most of the people in the audience. Then I pointed out he's an adjunct professor at the college, which is about half the people in the audience."

Later Wolfe would tell her he realized the secret when she explained the 2005 winner also was an engineer. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Wolfe earned a master's degree in engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. He then worked four years as a nuclear engineer in Pennsylvania.

The profession bored him, however, and he decided on a career in law. The allure of warmer weather brought him to the Tampa Bay area.

"What brought me down here was a snowstorm in Pittsburgh, which took me four hours to get home on a usual 20-minute drive," he says.

Following graduation in 1973 from Stetson, Wolfe worked for about two years as an assistant Pinellas County public defender. Former St. Petersburg City Attorney Mike Davis then hired him in 1975 as an assistant attorney. In 1982, he became chief assistant attorney. Wolfe succeeded Davis when he retired in 2000.

Now Wolfe oversees a $2 million budget, a staff of 15 attorneys and nine support workers. Many of them have been with him for years.

"I told (the audience) that in our line of work politics can enter into the practice of law," Williams says. "I've never known John to compromise integrity. He's always taught us that our duty is to give the law to the mayor, City Council and staff as it is. He says, 'Don't worry about any fall out from the advice that we give. We advise what is lawful and what is ethical, period.' "

Such regard for Wolfe's ethical standards is a sentiment apparently shared by a consensus of the city's elected officials. City Council Chairman Rick Kriseman, speaking on behalf of Mayor Rick Baker and the council, lauded Wolfe for his public service to the city.

It's a sentiment shared by Rouson, too, an activist who also serves as president of the St. Petersburg branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"I worried at first whether he would be a warmed-over Mike Davis, hanging on to the vestiges of a good ole' boy network," he says. "He has pleasantly surprised me with his sensitivity and openness, including blowing wide open the diversity of his professional staff, in terms of lawyers. I believe John, if pushed a little more, will do a lot more."

Sometimes it's not an easy fete to earn such a consensus, Wolfe acknowledges. Take for instance the council's push last year to punish entertainers who utter profanities during public performances. It was his job to point out that any attempt to regulate speech surely would elicit a First Amendment challenge.

"I try to be pragmatic," he says. "I try to accomplish, obviously, what the City Council and the mayor want to accomplish. If it can't be done the way they want to do it, I look for alternatives that come as close as possible."

Sometimes that's just not possible. For instance, some labor groups recently positioned an inflatable rubber rat on a city sidewalk as part of a protest against a Progress Energy meeting. Since the prop created no obstruction, Wolfe had to advise that the labor groups had violated no ordinances.

"This has never been boring," Wolfe says about his job. "There's always something different."

While his office mostly handles routine tort work, Wolfe notes he and his staff also play a critical role in the city's evolution. For instance, he participated in the negotiations that saw the failed Bay Plaza Cos.' project evolve into the successful Baywalk retail-entertainment center.

"I negotiated the contract for that," he says.

Wolfe also played an active role in the preservation of the Renaissance Vinoy Resort, a once blighted property that now caters to well-heeled patrons.

He also gets credit for his work in city charter negotiations. He represented the city in negotiations with the citizen's committee, which ultimately resulted in the switch to a strong-mayoral form of government.

"That's really what's good about working for the city attorney's office," he says. "I can see the results of my work. I can see the Vinoy, I can see Baywalk, from my window. There's just been a tremendous change since I started. I would like to think I had something to do with it."