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Hands join over walls for a road
© St. Petersburg Times CITRUS PARK -- It's a few minutes after 7 p.m., the official starting time for this meeting of the Upper Tampa Bay Alliance. But people need time to work the room, to schmooze. It's election season, and at least four of the guests are involved in political campaigns. If you try, you can ignore their bluster. Because, in a way, this is history. The group assembled in the stuffed lobby chairs of the First Citrus Bank come from all over northwest Hillsborough -- Westchester, Fawn Ridge, the venerable Westchase. They talk about ambulance response times, speculate about where the next public school will go. They debate the fairness of Florida's property tax laws. Is it better to protect longtime homeowners from a sudden tax hike if their land is rezoned, as could happen under the Citrus Park Community Plan? Or stick it to new homeowners, burdening them with a disproportionate share of the cost of government? It's like economics class, but friendlier. You can almost feel these walled communities reaching out to one another. "We are not an island any more," says Susan Edgerley of Westchase, one of the organizers of the Alliance, which held its third meeting Monday night. "It's not Fawn Ridge. It's not Westchase. It's all of us." The Alliance came together eight months ago for a cause not uncommon in suburbia: the need for a road. Citrus Park Drive (separating the mall from the big-box stores) dead-ends at Sheldon Road. Alliance members want it to continue, through Fawn Ridge, clear across the county-owned woods north of Westchase and Countryway. Maybe it could hook up to Montague Street, a north-south artery that dead-ends just north of Davidsen Middle School. Whatever the final configuration, they see it as a necessary alternative to Linebaugh Avenue, which will soon lead directly into Pinellas County -- with traffic growing exponentially. "I can tell you that the county is not in the business of building roads," warns Ben Kelly, a County Commission aide who is at the meeting in place of Commissioner Jim Norman. Alliance members are unfazed. After all, they argue, the county owns much of the land, so acquisition costs should not be a problem. "Now is the time for the county to switch to Plan B and finally build the road," says commercial developer Don Pleasants. A longshot? Perhaps. But they've seen longshots pay off before. Maureen Gauzza, a soft-spoken Westchase grandmother, faced one when she asked the county to build a public library in her community. Looking to broaden her base of support, Gauzza latched onto "Upper Tampa Bay," a name previously associated with an obscure rural area along Double Branch Creek. Thanks to the name, hard work and Gauzza's stubborn resilience, the library is on the county's go-ahead list. A sign is up at the Countryway Boulevard site and Gauzza's group is planning the first fundraisers this fall. Her success, in a big way, inspired Pleasants, Edgerley and Bob Argus to form the Alliance. Argus is past president of the Westchase Community Association; Edgerley is running for a seat on the Westchase Community Development District board. As Gauzza did in her library campaign, Edgerley and Argus are trying hard to avoid the appearance of a Westchase-dominated organization. "We go all the way from Bay Crest to Keystone," Edgerley says. "Our goal is to include all communities and for us to support each other and each other's plans." If the northwest is to win its share of roads, schools and other infrastructure, she says, "we need to band together to be heard." The Alliance will meet next at 7 p.m. on Sept. 30 at the bank at 13850 Sheldon Road. Edgerley put a call out Monday night for more dues-paid members. Individuals can join for $10; businesses and homeowner boards pay as much as $100. The money will support a Web site, educational materials and slick presentations to government boards. First on the list? A mounted map of the finished Citrus Park Drive.
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From the Times Marlene Sokol |
