Jobs and housing are big concerns of voters who were recruited for a focus group.
By JOSE CARDENAS
Published September 17, 2005
CLEARWATER - Eleven men and women took the elevator to the fourth floor of the county Utilities Building on Thursday night. Their mission: help the Pinellas County Commission shape a long-term vision for the future.
Each had answered a newspaper ad looking for registered voters willing to share their opinions on public issues as part of a focus group.
"It's a different approach," than public hearings, said focus group member Richard Garrabarant. "And it's much more worthwhile."
Garrabarant took a seat around the table with the other men and women, all from their 30s to their 70s. Only six had lived in Florida more than 10 years. The group was one of nine the county has recruited to advise officials as they work to draft their first-ever 10-year strategic plan.
Consultant Herb Marlowe asked the group members to list their top three issues to gauge whether their priorities are the same as the commissioners'.
"Affordable health care," said panelist Sherry West of Clearwater as Marlowe typed information into his laptop.
"Low-income, affordable housing," said Dan McGrew, 71, of Clearwater.
"We don't really have a recycling program," said Gary Adkins, 38, of Dunedin.
"Make sure the mentally retarded have some place to go instead of being homeless," said Mark Hand, 32, of Safety Harbor.
The nine focus groups will be held at sites from Palm Harbor to St. Petersburg through Oct. 1.
The county wants to know what issues have emerged as areas of concern for residents in the last couple of years, said Laura Berkowitz, the county's senior research manager for economic development.
"Affordable housing was not really on the radar screen two years ago,"' she said. "Now, with condo conversions and mobile (home) park conversions and an increase of cost of housing, it's pretty high on the agenda."
At the start of Thursday's session, the participants were told what the commissioners are tentatively focusing on:
Protecting the environment as the county grows.
Creating a better place to live through better-paying jobs.
Transportation.
Work force housing.
Better private and public facilities.
Health care and social supports.
County officials have spent a year studying what issues to address and policies to implement as they take the first steps on the plan.
The information from the focus groups will help the county develop a scientific phone survey in the next few weeks for a broader range of residents. The survey also will be placed on the county's Web site, www.pinellascounty.org for residents to fill out.
Commissioners tentatively aim to draft a version of the plan by December and adopt the final version by February.
Thursday, when Marlowe asked what panelists' first priority would be for the county's plan, the leading choice was jobs, chosen by about a third of the group.
Housing was also one of the choices. In the discussion that followed, panelist Hand said he did not think that the word "housing" alone put enough emphasis on housing for the poor.
Others spoke of the increasing price of land in Pinellas, the difficulty getting developers to include units for low-income people and the conversion of apartments to condominiums.
"The land is just one component," said Hand, who suggested the county buy land and allow Habitat for Humanity to develop the housing. "Incentives for developers is another component. ... There are incentives. ... No taxes for 10 years."
"What is happening is they're turning apartments into condos, and where do the people go?" said Karen Vanderwalker, 44, of Palm Harbor.
The next question revealed that the second-highest priority was housing.
Asked where the county should spend its money if additional taxes are needed, 36 percent of the group, the biggest portion, said it should spend on health care and social supports first. Next was transportation.
On a question about transportation, 55 percent of the panelists thought the county's priorities should be to make the current system better, expand road capacity next and add more public transit last.
Some in the minority thought public transit should have a higher priority.
"I know it costs a lot of money on the front end," McGrew said. But he said that if buses and trains were to run every few minutes, people would use them.
Adkins was skeptical.
"A lot of people that I know would not take the bus no matter what," he said, calling instead for car pooling. "That's what we do. I pick up people on the way to work."
The county's solicitation of registered voters for the focus groups - as opposed to all taxpayers - raised the eyebrow of at least one resident, Norman Roche. He wondered whether the commissioners simply want to learn what issues to campaign on.
"It certainly brings into question the intent of the (newspaper) ad from my perspective," said Roche, who unsuccessfully ran for the commission in 2004 and plans to run next year.
That seemed a little cynical to Commissioner Calvin Harris. He countered that public officials are often criticized for not listening to constituents and urged to run government like a business.
Marlowe said that counties sometimes opt to use registered voters for panels because they are more likely to be in tune with the issues and know how government works.
Berkowitz said research with registered voters would be more valuable if a portion of the strategic plan called for a referendum.
With dwindling financial resources, Harris said, the commissioners simply want guidance on how best to spend taxpayers' money.
"The other side is that we could do as governments have done in the past and not ask people," he said. "Before we embark ... we are going to give you an opportunity, and that is all it is intended to do."
