Mugging with a dog like Fritz is Gulfport’s “version of baby kissing,” Plesser quips.
By JEFFREY WAITKEVICH
USFSP Student Reporter
GULFPORT – In a quirky town with funky shops, quaint restaurants and colorful street festivals, Bruce A. Plesser seems to fit right in.
The self-proclaimed “progressive liberal” promises to “ruffle feathers” if he is elected to the City Council on March 13, and he embraces Gulfport’s unofficial motto – “Keep Gulfport Weird” – as his campaign slogan.
His campaign is, in fact, pretty weird.
Since paying the city’s $108 filing fee to run, he has neither accepted nor spent a dime on his candidacy.
He says people know where he stands on things – but also says he has a “fluid way of looking at issues” and will support what his constituents favor.
And during a candidate forum in January, he himself brought up a blemish on his record – a DUI conviction.
Plesser, 65, an attorney, is running against incumbent Dan Liedtke for the Ward 1 seat on the council, which covers the southwest quadrant of the city of 12,400.
For the most part, the campaign has been a low-key, gentlemanly affair.
When he meets people during his regular routine, he mentions that he is running for the council, Plesser said, and he is active on social media.
“I’m relying on social media and my council page (on Facebook), which I post on, to give me exposure as well as word of mouth (by people) who are politically aligned to me to spread the word,” he said.
He said that 40 years’ experience as a lawyer will help him make a difference in Gulfport.
Maintaining the city’s character is important to him, he said. He pledges to focus on fixing Gulfport’s sewage problems and study the city budget line by line.
He said he favors making Gulfport a sanctuary city, which would limit how much city police would cooperate with federal immigration officials on holding people who may be in the country illegally.
He strongly opposes having parking meters anywhere in Gulfport, and he would oppose giving city police officers the discretion to turn off their body cameras.
After a decade as a prosecutor, Plesser has spent three decades in private practice.
Plesser, a New York native, graduated from Emory University in Atlanta and law school at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1978, then began his law career in his hometown of Westmere on Long Island.
He was a prosecutor on Long Island for 10 years, then turned to private practice, where he has handled criminal, personal injury, employee rights and family law cases.
He has lived in Gulfport since 2005 and serves on the residents’ board at Town Shores, a condominium community for people over 55, where he lives.
Mayor Sam Henderson said he knows Plesser through social media and thinks he is too vocal and “reactionary.”
“I don’t think reactionary people do a good job in public service,” Henderson said. “He tends to criticize things before he understands the issue. He instead seems to go off the cuff before he fully understands. That’s a dangerous way to behave if it’s your job to understand the way things work.”
Plesser would be “a terrible person for the job,” said Henderson. “The city would suffer with him in office.”
But two-term council member Yolanda Roman, who will be leaving at the end of this term, said she likes to see turnover in office.
“If (Plesser) were to win, he would bring a different perspective, diversity of thought, maybe new challenges,” she said. “And my thing is, ‘Why not?’”
Plesser would also bring a bit of controversy.
As he acknowledged at the candidate forum, a DUI arrest in 2008 led to a conviction two years later. He completed 150 hours of community service and paid $1,082 in fees and costs, according to court records.
He mentioned the arrest while praising the city’s police. They “know everybody’s name,” Plesser said, and “they’ve always been fair to me, even when I was arrested for a DUI.”
Around that same time, he was also kicked out of O’Maddy’s Bar and Grille.
According to Plesser, he made a comment about public defenders that offended a bartender, and it led to him being escorted out by police officers.
In February 2017, Plesser returned to O’Maddy’s with a date. The manager notified police, who escorted him out and gave him a trespass warning, records show.