Running a city like St. Pete is no easy job. You have meetings with police unions, a historically disenfranchised black population you want to help, the whining privileged folks upset that the curbside recycling program isn't exactly as they think it should be... and then you have your rock climbing wall ribbon cutting.
Climbing a rock wall to cut a ribbon wasn't exactly Mayor Rick Kriseman's idea (we have it on good authority that Kriseman's chief of staff, Kevin King, came up with this idea, something we're sure will be reflected in his next evaluation), but the mayor certainly gave it his all at the July 25 ribbon cutting at Vertical Ventures, a new rock climbing gym in St. Petersburg's Grand Central District.
Kriseman's Spiderman-like moves put him up the wall more quickly than – we're going to go out on a limb here and say – any former St. Petersburg mayor. So easily, in fact, that he overshot the ribbon and had to come back down the wall to cut it.
Vertical Ventures (116 18th Street South) restored an old storage facility east of the Interstate 275 overpass, converting it to a climbing gym with a weight room and cardio area. The space makes creative use of old shipping containers from the port of Tampa. Saturday's event marked the gym's grand opening. Kriseman had one training session at Vertical Ventures before the his ribbon cutting.