This is an interview with Sandra Warshaw Freedman, 55th Mayor of Tampa, retired. This interview is being conducted on December 11, 2009, at Bayshore Regency Condominiums. The interviewer is Tim Staton, representing the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library Systems’ Oral History collection project.

Interviewer: Tim Staton (TS), Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Libraries: Welcome Ms. Freedman. It’s good to see you this morning.

Sandy Freedman (SF): Nice to see you, too, Tim.

TS: Thank you so much for taking time to talk with us today and participate in our Oral History project. I have some questions about your background. Let’s get started with your childhood.

What do you recall about your childhood?

SF: I was born in New Jersey and don’t recall anything up there because we moved here when I was 2 ½. We moved out on Davis Island. And, although there were other homes there, Davis Island wasn’t totally built out at that time. There was a golf course across the street from my house. A nine-hole golf course. We still had lots of crabs in the canals. I played tennis starting from the time I was six years old at the tennis courts on Davis Island that are now very nicely, to me, named after me.

I had a rather unique childhood because I was a tennis player from the time I was nine years old. I was playing all over the state of Florida and then all over the country. Then out of the country a little bit. So I had a little bit different childhood than most kids, but it was great growing up here.

TS: So you came to Tampa when you were two years old. Is that correct? Originally from Newark, New Jersey.

SF: I was born in Newark and we lived in a little town outside Newark called Erlington.

TS: Where did you go to school?

SF: I went to Seaborn Elementary School – Seaborn Nursey School on Davis Island which is still there. And another nursery school called Helen Hill which isn’t. It was in Hyde Park. Then I went to Gory and Wilson and Plant. I graduated from Plant.

TS: Wow. Wonderful, you made the route of all the schools here in Tampa.

SF: When there weren’t that many schools here in Tampa, yes.

TS: What do you remember best about your parents?

SF: We had, and still do have, a very close knit family. My parents were the traditional kind of parents. Not real strict, but if we got out of line [pause] I think I got an occasional spanking. And that’s not bad, I don’t think. I don’t recall ever being bruised or anything like that.

My mother was a homemaker. She loved to sew and was a good seamstress. In fact, she made all my tennis clothes for a long time. You couldn’t buy tennis dresses or tennis clothes for young ladies in those days.

My father owned a jewelry store downtown. To begin with we had one car. Most families were one car families. And later, I think I was about, I don’t know, in my teens -- early teens, we got a second car. But, we traveled. We would go back to New York and New Jersey. We’d go to the Catskill Mountains and other places. I had two sisters, who were both older so we had a really good upbringing and a close knit family and lots of fun.

TS: It sounds like it. What did you and your siblings do in your spare time?

SF: As I said, I played tennis. I would come home from school, even at Gory, every afternoon and go to the tennis court. Sometimes my mother would take me. Sometimes I would walk to the tennis courts. You could let a nine year old walk, you know, two or three miles by themselves in those days without fear of something happening to them. And then I would play tennis until dark. Then somebody would pick me up and take me home. Most of my childhood revolves around my playing tennis because I just did it so much. But, as I said earlier, there were a lot of kids in the neighborhood, especially across the street there were two boys in one house and a girl in another house. We were all fast friends; very close in age. So, if we weren’t outside playing until dark, playing ball or whatever, we were crabbing in the canal that was across the street from my house. We were riding our bikes. Just doing normal things kids did, outside a lot and with very little parental supervision. Unfortunately, today you can’t do that. The neighbors all took care of everybody’s kids. You couldn’t do anything wrong and not get in trouble with the neighbor. It was a village in that sense. So, lots of good times.

TS: Would you consider Tampa back then to be a small town or was it a city?

SF: Oh no. It was a small town. I suppose in those days it was thought to be a city, but by our standards today, it was a small town. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody watched out for everybody. You kept your doors open, rarely locked the doors. In the early days of my childhood, I don’t remember locking the doors except when you went to bed at night. My father used to be able to whistle; had a really loud whistle. He used his fingers, and we could be all over the neighborhood, blocks and blocks away …

TS: And they’d hear you …

SF: At dinnertime the whistle came and we came running and everything. So, it was a small town.

TS: How long was your family on Davis Island?

SF: My family lived on Davis Island until my parents moved long after I was married. They moved here on Bayshore to another condominium 25 years ago. So, they were there 40 years or something.

TS: When did you leave home?

SF: When did I leave home? Permanently?

TS: Yes.

SF: Oh, because I used to travel and go away by myself when I was little going to these tennis tournaments by myself.

TS: So you went all over the country playing tennis.

SF: All over the country playing tennis starting from the time I was nine. I went all over the state by myself then. But, then when I was about 13-- 12 or 13 --I remember going to Chicago by myself and spending two weeks there playing tennis tournaments, Philadelphia, New York and Kentucky. I went to Louisville and various places and nobody ever traveled with me. Somebody would always be there to keep an eye on me, somebody else’s parents. But I traveled by myself a lot. I gained a great deal from those experiences and then I left for college. That was when I really left home.

TS: Did your family have any special traditions such as things they did on holidays and birthdays?

SF: Well, we always celebrated birthdays and nothing really special. My mother always made the same kind of cake for each one of us girls. She called it a ‘rainbow’ cake. It was basically a yellow cake, but she put food coloring in … a couple of drops of food coloring … then swirled it through so that it looked like a rainbow. It was always a treat for everybody, usually with a chocolate icing. That was definitely a tradition. We celebrated Jewish holidays with tradition. We celebrated New Years. People would come over. We’d always have an open house on New Years as I remember when I was little. Lots of going and coming.

TS: What part did religion play in your family?

SF: The Jewish community in Tampa in those days was very, very small. There were two – there was a temple and a synagogue. My father was very active in the Jewish community and the Jewish community center. He was president of the Jewish community center at one time. And, my parents felt it was important for us because there were so few Jewish families in town to support both the temple and the synagogue. The Temple is Schaarai Zedek and it is still here today. It’s the reform temple. And, the synagogue is also still here today, Rodeph Sholom synagogue down here on the Bayshore. So, we would go to services on the holidays; first we would go to one then we would go to the other. Every year we switched when it was Sunday school. One year we would go to the temple for Sunday school, my sisters and I, and the next year we would go to the synagogue for Sunday school. So that we could be and have both feet in both the conservative and reform Judaism and, also so that everybody would get to know each other here in town.

TS: You mentioned that you father was a jeweler and your mother was a homemaker. Is that correct? Did you ever help them out?

SF: I helped my mother around the house. We all had chores. The normal standard things throwing out the garbage, setting the table, those kind of things. Helping in the house and doing a little cooking. Although she was pretty much the queen of the kitchen.

When I was in my teens, I would always to down to the store. You could get on a bus and ride down. The bus would pick us up at the corner and go down – I think I started going downtown when I was about nine years old I by myself on the bus -- and go down to Maas Brothers and have lunch and go to one of the movie theaters. My father’s store was across the street from Tampa Theatre where TECO is now. Then I would help out in the store doing odds and ends. And, later when I was in college, I would always help him at Christmastime in the store because that was the busiest time of the year, of course.

TS: What was your first job?

SF: Well, other than babysitting jobs which I did a little of, I think the first real job was after I stopped playing tennis in the summer competitively or less competitively, about the time I was – I think it was my first year in college. Or maybe a year before that. But, I taught tennis in the recreation department program … in the summer program. We would go from one playground to another all day long an hour at a time and teach kids how to play tennis. That was the first job and I did that for three summers, I think.

TS: That must have been very rewarding.

SF: Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes I hoped for rain.

TS: How did you get your first job?

SF: Well because I played tennis and I was well known for that in the community. The people in the recreation department asked me would I care to do that. And, of course, you jumped at the chance of having a job as a kid.

TS: Which significant historical events have taken place during your lifetime?

SF: Oh, wow. We have had a lot of historical events. Some good, some bad. In no particular order, ‘cause time frame kind of--. I remember being at the University of Miami in college and the Cuban missile crisis and looking out my window and there were train tracks along U.S. 1 – the dormitory was on U.S. 1 – and seeing just convoys of military and tanks, not tanks, but armored vehicles, jeeps and all kinds of convoys with military personnel as well as guns and things like that. That was really a frightening sight and, of course, you watch it on t.v. and know what was going on … listen on the radio. And there it was, right before your eyes moving south going toward Key West. The space shots; a man landing on the moon. That was exciting. I remember living through (and I just got a shiver) the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.

It’s not one of the world events, but one of the momentous events for Tampa was when the Queen came here in 1991, and meeting the Queen and welcoming her. Having a chance to take her around a little bit, that was interesting. It hasn’t happened since and don’t suspect the Queen’s coming back again any time soon. [Laughter] It was a first ever for Tampa, and certainly for me.

There were lots of events and I’m sure I’m missing many. Every decade has some interesting times. Certainly we live in interesting times right now.

TS: That is true. Any particularly good times that you remember?

SF: Oh, lots of good times I remember. Do you mean--.

TS: In world events. Well, things that happened here in Tampa, or--.

SF: Well, I certainly remember the times when the country was euphoric. I mean the Gulf War--people were ecstatic over the Gulf War--winning the Gulf War. When the Berlin wall came down, I think we all breathed a heavy sigh of relief. And people were thrilled by that one. And the moon walk; how could anybody forget that? That was the first time, you can often see right here from my balcony, the space shots at Cape Canaveral. Those were exciting, today we say ‘ho hum’, but they were really exciting times. Probably, lots of others.

TS: How did these events affect you?

SF: I think each one leaves its mark. The most affected I think I have ever been have been by the assassinations. And I’m still affected by them. It’s hard to believe that people can be so cruel to one another and have such a difference of belief and opinion that we can do harm to one another. 9/11 was certainly an event that all of us will always remember and you can’t but not look back and say, ‘how is it possible that man can be so harmful to his fellow man?’ We have so many things that are the same about us all. The differences are really small, but the differences always seem to be the ones that divide.

TS: You said one of the things that you enjoyed most when you were mayor was when the Queen came to Tampa. Could you expound on that some?

SF: Oh, yes. She was-- she is a unique individual. Whether you favor a monarchy or not, it’s the queen of England and goes back for centuries. I met her first when my husband and I were invited to come down to Miami where her yacht, the Britannia, was docked and that’s how she had arrived. She had a gala party on the yacht. We were invited to come to the party/dinner. I think there were three presidents there and their wives. Jimmy and Rosalind Carter were there; I believe the Fords were there; and perhaps one other. I’m not sure. After that, I came back. The yacht came around the tip of Florida and came up.

We met her on a rainy day at Harbor Island. Harbor Island hotel was built and a little bit of the development had occurred, but not much. She came in. We had children there from a variety of schools. We had a band playing and she came in and said a few words. We welcomed her, then, she visited with the kids and they gave her flowers. She got into a limousine and I left. I was supposed to meet her on the Franklin Street Mall across from City Hall. The Esplanade was what it was called then, near the Hyatt Hotel. By that time, the sun had come out as it does in Florida. I think it was May, if I’m not mistaken. I was there when the limousine pulled up. Prince Phillip was with her. She got out with her pocketbook – she always carries her pocketbook. She was very pleasant, very nice. She has a beautiful complexion and was wearing a flowered dress and hat, but always with the pocketbook. She had an umbrella. The sun had come out as it does—we have a quick rain then the sun comes out– So I said to her, ‘You won’t be needing that.’ And she said, ‘one never knows.’ And she kept the umbrella. Then we walked down the esplanade; she greeted people. Later in the day, we had a reception for her for several hundred people at the University of Tampa. They gave her a gift of a crystal palm tree that we had an artist make for her. She was just very, very pleasant, a great sense of humor. I was impressed with her sense of humor-- a lovely lady. After that, she went to MacDill and saw General Schwartzkopf and then she left on the Concorde from MacDill.

TS: Wow.

SF: Yes, it was quite a day.

TS: The Concorde flew out of MacDill?

SF: Yes. Because it was the British Concorde.

TS: I see, okay. Wow. That is something else. What different jobs have you had during your life?

SF: Well, I taught tennis as I told you. After I graduated from college with a degree in government, I had planned going to law school. I had not applied and I had the summer off. I worked at the Tampa Tribune as a copy girl. The first ever copy girl that the Tampa Tribune had. Sounded big, but it wasn’t. I got a lot of people coffee during the day. Got the News of Record and the Shipping News, got the reports off the Associated Press, the teletype machine and distributed mail and things like that. And then, before I could get off to law school, I met my husband on a blind date. We got married ten weeks later, and then started raising a family.

My next job was as a member of the city council beginning in 1974 when I was first elected. Then I was elected several other times, 1975-- that was a special election in 1974, then again in ’75, ’79, ’83 as a city council member. I became Mayor in 1986.

TS: How did you become Mayor? Were you elected or did you take over for somebody else?

SF: I was the chairman. I had been elected by my colleagues on the city council to be the chairman; the first woman, actually, chairperson of the city council. And, I had that job for three years. Bob Martinez, who was the mayor at that time, decided to run for governor and had to resign to run. The City Charter requires that the chairman of the city council assume the office of mayor. I had that office for nine months-- just about nine months -- before the next election which I won. I was elected two terms as mayor.

TS: So you were Tampa’s first woman mayor?

SF: Yes.

TS: How important was that to you? Do you remember that? Was that a big thing to you at the time?

SF: It was a big thing to me at the time. I think it was a big thing to the community at the time. We had a swearing in ceremony at the time. There were hundreds and hundreds of people at the old convention center. I think it was symbolic to an awful lot of people. First, that it could be a woman. And, I think it meant a great deal to the African-American community, as well, because it was kind of like another barrier that could be broken. It meant a lot to the Jewish community, I think, because I wasn’t the first Jewish mayor, but I was the first of the twentieth century. There was someone whose name is too long to--I can’t pronounce it. But, back in the 1890’s or 1880’s he was Jewish. He would have been mayor, but in modern times. So I think there was lots of symbolism all the way around.

TS: What was a typical day like at work when you were mayor?

SF: There were no typical days. Every day was different. And that was one of the great parts of the job. I loved being mayor and, if there weren’t term limits, I would have stayed as long as the public would have had me. It was what I had always hoped to do.

As I said, I had a degree in government and I always wanted to run for public office. I always wanted to be the mayor. I never wanted to be higher than that because that just seemed like a job that would have interest. And, it did. Every day was different.

I would leave my home-- at first we had a house on Davis Island; then we moved to the condominium. But, I would leave most mornings around eight o’clock. Once or twice a week, the aviation authority would meet early in the morning at 7:30 a.m. There was one other of the authorities that and I served on that would meet very early in the morning. But, if I didn’t have a very early morning meeting or a very early morning breakfast (Tampa likes large public breakfasts).

TS: I see.

SF: Many of the organizations have fund raising breakfasts early in the morning. That’s a good time; it’s an early morning kind of place. So, I’d say that about two mornings a week I would leave at eight o’clock. Other mornings I could leave any time from 6:30 to 7 a.m., somewhere in that time frame.

There would be a luncheon or two almost every day to attend that was a public function. There were meetings in the office. There were meetings out of the office. About the first five or six years, when I was younger, I was out maybe ten nights straight to various functions – speaking engagements, meetings, events, whatever. As I got a little bit older, I couldn’t go that many nights straight. I would get in by ten sometimes eleven o’clock and then turn around the next day and start early again. So, I could go for about ten nights straight without a break about the first five years. Then, I would go about seven … six or seven … then I would need a night off. I always came home, no matter what, at five or five thirty to see my family. I didn’t often have dinner with them, but I would be home for an hour, an hour and a half when I first became mayor. My daughter was at home, she was like fourteen, and I think my middle child, one of my boys was just graduating from high school. So I always wanted to be there for them. Then I would get dressed and go out again.

The weekends were crammed. I didn’t get up at seven o’clock in the morning too often, but there were always activities during the day on the weekends and the evenings sometimes especially from like October to March. Tampa gets very busy at night in terms of public activities, events, gala, all kinds of different things. So often times, particularly during the holiday season, I would go maybe five different places during the evening. I’d stop in and say ‘hello,’ say a few words, see some people, shake hands, whatever needed to be done. Then I would go on to the next place. That was the way I did it. I don’t think every mayor does it that way. I didn’t say ‘no’ to too many things; and some say ‘no’ to a lot of things.

TS: [chuckle] Mainly civic groups, is that what--

SF: Yes. And, we had something that I started that last a while and then it just faded out. In my administration, we really were interested in helping get neighborhoods and the public involved in things. So we helped neighborhoods become neighborhood associations so they would have a voice. I remember early on, I went to some neighborhood association that had asked me to speak. I came back with this long list of questions. ‘When would sidewalks be put in?’ ‘When would trees be cut?’ All kinds of questions as you might expect to have. I didn’t know the answers just off the top of my head. I said I would get back to them or somebody would get back to them.

I remember coming to a staff meeting which I had every Wednesday morning at nine o’clock with about 20 of the top staff people. We would sit around in my office and we’d go through what each was doing plus ideas that we had and things like that. I remember saying to all of them, most of who were men, you understand, that the next time I went to a civic association meeting, they were all going with me. And it was, ‘Oh my goodness.’ ‘Oh, we don’t need to do that.’ ‘Why would we do that? They’ll get mad at us.’ All those kinds of things. I said, ‘You’re going to be prepared to know the answers to their questions before you go. You are going to see when the sidewalks are going to be put in and the lights and all the different needs are going to be met.’ And, the first few times we did it, they were just struck.

I made them go. I had one person who always balked. He was the least important actually to go, but he always balked and he only went a few times. He was older, too. He was pretty set in his ways. It’s hard to change some people. But, we would go and the public loved it [TS: “I’m sure.”] because they got instant feedback. They got to meet these people that they could never reach on the phone. [TS: “Correct, yeah.”] Bureaucrats like to isolate themselves a little bit from the public which is the opposite of what should happen.

So, we called them the mayor’s traveling road shows. And that’s the way they became known. We would do at least one a month and it was three or four hours. Another good aspect about it was the staff began to like it. They realized it wasn’t an ‘us’ and ‘them’ that we were all in it together; we were trying to help each other. We got good ideas from the public. We would frequently to, almost every time after we got started--ten or twelve of us from the staff--would go get something [a bite] to eat before we’d go because it would be seven o’clock always. And so we became more of a family and got to know each other better that way. So it was really a beneficial thing. And, we would do them as often as asked, but at least once a month. So that was another thing we did in the evenings that aren’t done that much any more. There’s some of it done, but not regularly. When I left office, we had over fifty neighborhood associations. And, when I took office, there were less than a dozen. [TS: “Wow.”] We actually had a person on staff that I brought in, and his job was to help these neighborhood associations to develop/become associations and then interact with them to solve their problems. That was a new thing. Difficult to turn the ship. [chuckle]

TS: About like turning a battleship--.

SF: Oh they thought I was crazy. They frequently thought I was crazy, but that was just one time I remember their faces, mouths dropped open.

TS: You were in public service from ’74 until ’95, ’96. Is that correct?

SF: Yes.

TS: What were some of the achievements that you are proudest of from that time?

SF: I think the one I’m most proud of is we developed early on a housing program that was a model for the country called the “Mayor’s Challenge Fund.” And, we had every bank in Tampa involved and all the credit unions were involved in helping people who couldn’t otherwise get affordable housing and traditional loans, to get loans. The city was involved because we had federal funds that we could guarantee the loans with. And there were thousands of people -- I still com across people who stop me on the street who I don’t know who say, ‘I got my house because of you.’ The loan program started in a couple of disadvantaged areas and then it spread city wide. And there were thousands of people who got affordable housing that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get it. And people who were able to fix up their homes, senior citizens in particular, who would not have been able to stay in their homes had it not been for that program. Unfortunately after I left office, there was a problem with the program because of the administrator of the program who had some legal problems went to jail and the program has never really regained any momentum.

TS: But that program boosted home ownership which, of course, helped with taxes and revenue.

SF: Well, and more importantly, it helped people really have a decent roof over their heads [TS: Certainly.] which a lot of them didn’t have.

TS: Any other achievements and that you are really proud of as mayor?

SF: I had the most diverse administration ever, and I think ever including to this day. One of the first black police chiefs--wasn’t because he was black. He was the best qualified person. But I wasn’t afraid to do that. I got a lot of flack in the early days about ‘why do you spend so much time trying to help the African-American community.’

TS: Why do you think that was?

SF: Oh, I know it was because there were--and still are unfortunately--people in the community who don’t see the blessing that diversity is. Used to hear, and I still do unfortunately, ‘those people.’ ‘Those people’ are code words for people who are different than I am. And so, I had the first woman city attorney. I mean, it was a really diverse administration; and I think the public, for the most part, was really pleased with that. I’m proud of it, because I think it kind of showed people that we could do it. That there were qualified people, number one. And number two, that someone wasn’t afraid to appoint those people.

There are lots of good things that I think we did. We did a lot of environmental stuff. We planted I don’t know how many thousands and thousands of trees. It seems small, but Tampa is much greener because of that. And, it helps the environment plus it looks pretty. We started “Paint Your Heart Out” program, which is over twenty years old and still going strong. On a Saturday in April --I don’t know the number now, it's not as many as we used to do. But over--we used to do over a hundred homes every April. One Saturday, with teams from the community, from businesses, churches and whatever, all--at no expense to the homeowner--we would paint their home and fix up their home. It was always a senior citizen who was in need. And that program continues today. It helped get people into neighborhoods that they’d never seen which was always interesting to me because it’s amazing how you go to and from work and places but you never go to places, you know, that you may have heard of, but you don’t know where they are. And so, business leaders and kids and people who would be on the teams would go into a neighborhood they’d never been to before. So that was a good thing.

I was lucky enough to speak at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, which I will always remember. Scary, but interesting.

TS: Did you meet Bill Clinton?

SF: I did. I actually went to the White House on a number of occasions. I was the first mayor in the country to endorse Bill Clinton. So that’s why he asked me would I speak at the convention and would I talk. My topic was ‘community’ because of some of the work we were doing here like the housing program. And then he invited me to stay at the White House one night. I slept in the Lincoln bedroom. It was an interesting night. It was very warm. It was in July. You may not want to hear this. It was in July, and after we had dinner and had talked for a little while, I went into the bedroom. They showed me where everything was. I read the Gettysburg address there, one of the original copies. Then I got ready for sleep. They had an electric blanket on the bed. (chuckle from TS) And, it was hot.

TS: I can imagine, July in Washington--.

SF: In July. And it was on, the blanket. I couldn’t turn the blanket off. And I threw the covers off and slept without covers. And there was a very old, probably several hundred year old clock on the mantel. It was like a metronome. It would [makes clicking sound] all night. So I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep that night. ‘Course, I think I was a little excited to be sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom.

TS: Sure.

SF: That was interesting. He appointed me to one of the national commissions. I saw him on a number of occasions-- had dinner one night a wonderful dinner with about forty people. My husband and I were invited. He was sitting just to my left. I was lucky enough to sit right next to him. Ethel Kennedy was on the other side. And Nancy Pelosi was at the table. And Quincy Jones, I mean it was a Jewish--a real mix of people that had been invited. But it was very nice returning the favor by helping him.

TS: Do you think back at your time of public services or any challenges or difficulties that you wish you could have addressed, but were not able to do so?

SF: Oh, there are always lots of things. Crime was higher than I liked. You always want it to be nothing. But, when I first became mayor, crack cocaine had just gotten busy. And, we did do one really good thing. We established the Quad Squad, which is still in existence, which fights street level drug dealing with neighborhoods, with the people. People could anonymously call and give tips and things like that about drug dealing. But it was so tragic to see, I would go with the police frequently out in the evenings. You would see little kids walking at midnight on the street, eight year olds. And, you would see parents drive up to make a drug purchase with a child in the car.

TS: Oh my.

SF: And then, Children/Family Services would have to come take the child away after the parent was arrested and things like that. You really wanted to make more of a dent. We did pretty well, but we didn’t wipe it out. Clearly, nobody has anyway, but you would see those things and say, ‘you have to keep doing things.’

Then we had lots of homeless people which we still do. I remember, I wasn’t mayor yet, but just about the mayor. Bob Martinez was out of town and it was a cold, it was December-- December of 1985. And, Morris Hintzman, who is still the head of Metropolitan Ministries, called me and said, “The mayor’s out of town and you’re the next person in line. Is there anything we can do to help these homeless people who are going to be frozen on the street. It was really, really cold. And, we opened Curtis Hixon

TS: That’s hard to imagine.

SF: It is, and it’s hard to imagine that it still happens. You know, with a much work that has been done and as much as we know about it. It is hard to imagine that we still have many of those same problems and haven’t adequately addressed them. Really addressed them.

TS: You left public service in um, as I mentioned, as you mentioned earlier, in 95-96. What have you been doing since then?

SF: Well, in ’96, umm, in late ’95, I was organizing the first ever conference on women here in Hillsborough County. I thought there was a really big need to bring women together. And, that was a very successful effort. I passed it off because early in ’96 Sam Gibbons announced that he was retiring from Congress. He had been serving [TS interrupts. “A long time.”] a long, long time. He called me one morning and said, ‘I just wanted to let you know I’m retiring.’ I then decided I was going to run for Congress. Not a brilliant idea, but nonetheless. And that was in March, I think, of ‘96. And, I ran for Congress. Three women ran and one man. And, you can imagine who won, the man. Um, anyway, that was an interesting experience. Probably a good thing for me, ‘cause I’m not sure I would have faired well in the Washington environment. But, anyway, since that time I’ve done volunteer work, I’ve served on a number of boards, helped out in a few political campaigns, when it’s somebody I really care about. Right now, I’m currently serving as the national chairman of the National Civic League, which is the oldest civic democracy organization in the country. It was founded by Teddy Roosevelt before the turn of the century, in the 1900s. It is the organization that sponsors the All-American City award and helps communities solve their problems. We send people in to help do visioning processes and solve the community. We don’t tell them what to do. We just bring the community together and help tackle a problem that that particular community or neighborhood or region is working on.

TS: Tampa won that All-American City award, didn’t they, when you were mayor, I believe.

SF: Yes. We won the All-American City award, I believe it was ’91. Last year, Tampa was one of the three finalists, but did not win.

TS: I see you are a member of an organization called the Athena Society. Could you elaborate on that some?

ST: The Athena Society was founded about thirty years ago by four women, four prominent Tampa women, who saw a need for women, professional women, and women of like mind-- progressive women --to come together in support of the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment. That’s how it really got started. I was asked to join, oh, probably the second or third year of the organization and have been a member ever since. We meet monthly, except during the summer. We have positions on issues of importance to the community and the country. It does a lot of networking. There are now about a hundred of it, probably, almost 150 women from every walk of life - doctors, lawyers, business leaders, teachers, educators, politicians. We do some good work. We also get to know one another which I think is helpful because we women haven’t always had the same kind of network and support systems that men have. And now, the Athena Society is one vehicle that does that.

TS: You mentioned earlier about that Congressional seat that is currently, I believe, held by a woman, Ms. Castor. We currently have in Tampa another female mayor, Ms. Iorio. We have a woman who is preparing to run for governor of Florida. What do you believe the prospects are for women in politics in Florida and nationwide?

SF: Well, we still don’t have enough women at every level. When I was the mayor, during that time, women mayors increased across the country, big cities. I remember going to one meeting of a U.S. Conference of Mayors and the women mayors gathered and we had like twenty-five large city mayors in the room. Now there are some, but I don’t think there are as many as there were then. So, we made some progress, but we haven’t made as much as I like at every level. But, I think women have a great deal to offer. We have a different perspective. I think we are more empowering of everyone else. It’s more of a democratic, with a small ‘d’, approach to governing, I think, bringing people together as opposed to a top down approach that’s the traditional business model that most men politicians are accustomed to. But, we still have a long way to go. Women don’t give financially as much as men do to political campaigns. If you have, as an example, if you have a woman CEO and a man CEO of like kind of companies making the same kind of salary and everything. Nine times out of ten, the woman is not going to give. We just haven’t had the tradition and the background in political giving the way men have. But, that’s coming along with the help of some organizations. But, there’s still a long way to go.

TS: You mentioned earlier some of your most powerful memories of the 60s were the assassinations of Martin Luther King and the two Kennedy brothers. What do you think of the changes in the United States during that decade?

SF: Some good, some bad. Um, I think perhaps we had a little bit out of whack on a lot of the social issues. The ‘free love’ and all that stuff that went with Woodstock and all. I think we see that today in the rap music, for instance. That’s just the progression of that era.

As I said, there have been a lot of changes that have been for the good. I mean, I don’t believe that anybody in the 60s believed there would be an African-American president. At this point in time, that is a good thing. And that is a result, in some measure, of Dr. King; in large measure of Dr. King. But, in terms of having people becoming accustomed to having an African-American in public life, it cuts both ways.

TS: Since you’ve retired, you’ve had more time, I imagine, to spend with your family. Can you remember what some of the best times and some of the worst times for your family have been?

SF: Fortunately, we have had very few ‘worst times.’ I still have a very close-knit family. We’re a large family. I guess by our standards, we are a large family. I came from a family that wasn’t a large family. I had two sisters, three girls. But, we didn’t have a large extended family. I had one aunt and one uncle. That was all. They had a couple of kids each and they were in different parts of the country. Now, here, for Thanksgiving, we had thirty-two and that wasn’t a big crowd. [“Wow,” TS] So, we always had that close-knit family and that was good.

I only remember a few bad times and those times were when my father died, or when a grandparent died. My mother is ninety-seven. And, she is still going strong. She is going to outlive me and my sisters. We kid her and tell her she is going to outlive us and she is not in our wills. I don’t know that she thinks that it’s too funny, but we think it’s funny. So the times have not been – we’ve been very fortunate.

TS: How is your family like other families and how is it different?

SF: Well [pause] our family was different, I think we were a little bit more progressive than a lot of families here. First of all, we came from up north and my parents had been exposed to more diversity and relationships that a lot of people in the south just didn’t have and hadn’t been exposed to. So, we were raised to be very open to others and to accept people. And we did. We had African-Americans in our home from an early age as guests. And people of other faiths and all. I remember we always had our Passover Seders. We always had non-Jewish guests who were friends, who would come and, maybe for the first time in their lives, listen to the Passover rituals and hear what they were about. So we were different in that respect. We weren’t as parochial as a lot of people were.

In other respects, we were very much the traditional American family. Father worked, mother stayed home and took care of the kids and the house. That kind of thing.

TS: Did you know your grandparents at all?

SF: I did know my grandparents. I knew all my grandparents. Oh, I didn’t know my grandfather, my mother’s father. He died shortly after my parents were married. So I never knew him. But I knew my parents’, my father’s mother and father very well. They had come from Poland. He was a watchmaker; she was a homemaker. And I knew my maternal grandmother very well. She died at ninety-seven. They were all very elderly when they died, so [pause].

TS: Longevity seems to run in your family.

SF: Yes. And all my children-- I have three children-- and they got to know those three grandpar – great grandparents.

TS: Were they all in New Jersey?

SF: They moved here. They all moved here early on. So they were a part of my life growing up. Grandmothers, my maternal grandmother, in particular, would babysit when my parents would go out of town or something like that. So, they were just part of our lives. They didn’t live with us, but they were close by.

TS: Close-knit. You mentioned some about what Tampa was like when you were growing up. If there were some things you would like to see in Tampa today, based on what you remember Tampa being in the past, what would that be?

SF: I don’t do too much ‘what iffing.’ But, I think we have sprawled way beyond what we should have. Let me give you an example. When I was a kid growing up, the area that we now call Carrollwood and those areas north out there, they were all orange groves. I knew people who had summer homes in that area. After school would be out in June, they would take their families and go to their summer home on a lake in that area. There was development there, but not to the extent that we just paved Hillsborough County. We’re paving Florida, and that’s really sad. We should be accommodating the growth, but in a much more concentrated fashion. Then we could have a rail and a decent bus system and the things that we still aspire to have, maybe even are trying to have, but they would work a whole lot better. And, we wouldn’t have destroyed a large part of old Florida and the environment that went with it. I still question a lot of that development sprawl. I’m certainly not anti-development, but I think the way we have done it has been really destructive.

TS: What are your plans for the immediate and future. Do you have anything on your horizon that you are interested in?

SF: Well, as I said, I’m still active in the National Civic League and I spend some time each week on that. As is every other non-profit organization probably everywhere, we’re struggling right now because of funds being reduced. We get a lot of grants from various foundations and all. That’s hard hit right now. The need is even greater that we have to meet the needs of helping communities solve these problems. So, that’s difficult. Other than that, I get up every morning, almost everyday, and say, ‘What do I feel like doing today?’ It’s a good feeling. And I can, it sounds very selfish, but I get to say, ‘no,’ now where I spent a large part of my life saying ‘yes’ because it was part of what I had to do; and I did it willingly. I rarely went someplace where I didn’t want to go because I thought I should go. But now I don’t have to get up at 6:30 and breakfast like I used to do. So, I’m very happy to do those things.

TS: Was the food good at those breakfasts?

SF: The food was never good.

TS: Really? [laughter]

SF: The food was never good, and I rarely would eat, actually. Because if you were going in and out, you know, quickly in a half hour, you wanted to see people and say hello and speak or whatever you had to do. And then, you were always up there where everybody was looking at you. You didn’t want food dribbling out of your mouth or something. [laughter] But I had some really unique experiences with people that would be sitting near me, well-known people. I’m not telling you those today, you have to leave town if that happens. But, of doing some strange things-- had really funny stories, really funny stories. I got locked in the restroom one night, accidentally, of course, at what is now the ‘something’ Pavilion. It was the old Shriners. I had to crawl under the door. And everybody, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s the mayor. She’s stuck in the bathroom.’ But, strange things; lots of strange stories.

TS: Ms. Freedman, we thank you for talking with us today. Is there anything you would like to add? Any other little [“No.” SF] anecdotes?

SF: I probably have a thousand things I didn’t even think of today, Tim. It’s always fun to reminisce a little bit, and you’ve been a joy to talk to because your fun.

TS: Well, thank you, ma’am. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking your time, we greatly appreciate it. And, thank you, again.

END OF INTERVIEW