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St. Petersburg City Council member Corey Givens Jr. sat through more than four hours of debate and resident testimony as suspense built toward a vote.
It was June 4, and the council was weighing whether to hire consultants to evaluate the pros and cons of leaving Duke Energy and forming a municipal-run utility. Constituents from Givens’ district, which includes some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, were among those who asked the council to approve the study. In other places, dropping a corporate utility has led to lower power bills, and in recent months, some Duke bills had spiked dramatically.
The vote would be down to the wire. One by one, each of the council members revealed where they stood. Except Givens — who got up out of his seat and left.
It wasn’t the first time he’d skipped a vote on this topic. And as his constituents have begun to speak out about issues with Duke Energy, his absence has become more conspicuous.
Last summer, during a sustainability committee hearing on the same Duke Energy study, Givens cautioned the city against moving too fast.
“We need to pump the brakes,” he said at the time. Then he left before the final vote.
Givens did not respond to texts and voicemails asking about the skipped votes. When a Tampa Bay Times reporter went to City Hall to ask him, he said he’d left those meetings because of other obligations.
“I had scheduling conflicts each time,” Givens said, adding that he supports the study. “But I am ready for us to have this conversation. For me, I think people deserve options.”
However, no scheduling conflict was listed for the 2025 committee meeting on Givens’ official calendar, which the Times obtained through a public records request. Givens’ schedule otherwise appeared detailed with various commitments, like coffee meetings, guest speaking engagements, even yoga.
On June 4, Givens did have an event listed at 6 p.m., around the time that he left the City Council meeting: Southside Fundamental Middle School was celebrating its 100th anniversary. Givens, an alum, was listed as one of the event organizers on Facebook.
Other City Council members — on both sides of the Duke issue — criticized Givens for his absence at the next council meeting.
“The most important thing that we’re supposed to do is vote,” said Deborah Figgs-Sanders, who did not mention Givens by name. “We just can’t miss important votes when our constituents expect us to be present.”
“This was decided on seven votes. And it should’ve been decided with eight votes,” said Mike Harting, who added that community events were important, but not more than voting.
“This is the job,” Harting said in the council chamber. “This is where we decide the people’s work.”
Givens did not directly address the criticism during the meeting. Instead, he lobbed a barb at Figgs-Sanders over a separate housing issue, without using her name, in a moment that turned tense.
“Our job is to respond to the immediate needs of our constituents,” Givens said. “I certainly wish the district representative would do a little bit more.”
Childs Park residents have Duke concerns
Amid the City Council drama, some residents in Givens’ district have been independently working to document their issues with Duke Energy. The problems, they say, only emphasize why St. Petersburg should consider ditching the company.
Florida Rising, an affordability advocacy group that’s fought utility rate hikes in Tallahassee, is conducting an informal survey in southern St. Petersburg, including District 7. The district covers Childs Park and other neighborhoods, including Palmetto Park, The Deuces and Bayview, plus Central Oak Park to the northwest.
Three-quarters of residents who took the survey said they’ve received “high electric bills.” An even higher percentage reported that Duke hasn’t adequately trimmed the trees near power lines to prevent outages. About 93% of residents said they’d noticed “dangerous” tree limbs in power lines near their homes or alleyways, according to survey results Florida Rising shared with the Times.
Toppled trees are a common threat to power lines in storm season, and they were largely to blame for sweeping blackouts after Hurricane Milton in 2024.
Torri Nelson, a District 7 resident who owns a small bakery business and volunteers with Florida Rising, said the group has been working for about a year and a half to bring attention to the overgrown trees. The tangled branches and cluttered alleyways are noticeably worse in St. Petersburg’s predominantly Black neighborhoods compared to whiter areas on the north side, she said.
“It doesn’t matter where you go, once you get past Fifth Avenue South, any alley you look down ... it’s easy to see something should be done,” said Nelson, 41. “There’s no reason why (Duke) can’t do it before storms. We’re in storm season now. They make so much money off of us.”
Florida Rising said it had scheduled a meeting with Duke representatives to discuss the issue next month.
Givens did not respond to a voicemail or text messages seeking further comment.
In a lengthy statement, Ana Gibbs, a spokesperson for Duke Energy, said the company has implemented three rate reductions this year to lower customers’ bills, and that it views tree maintenance as “vital” to keep power reliable. Customers often confuse power lines with communication lines — which are located on the same poles, but typically lower down — and Duke is solely responsible for electrical equipment, Gibbs said.
“Duke Energy would welcome the opportunity to review the statistics provided by Florida Rising,” she added. “60% of the work in St. Petersburg this year was in southern St Petersburg/southern Pinellas County.”
Jerome King, a Florida Rising organizer who also lives in Givens’ district, said he would be more frustrated if the Duke feasibility study had failed because of Givens’ absence, instead of narrowly passing. Still, King said the Childs Park area isn’t fully represented unless their council member votes.
“Does he support the feasibility study, or does he not? If he is in support, how much of that support can be reflected in his ability to be there to cast his vote as our representative on City Council?” King said.
He also said that he hopes Givens can improve his scheduling to miss fewer votes in the future.
“At some point, a scheduling conflict won’t be a justified rebuttal.”
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