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Neighborhood Report

Mayor gets earful about fans' noise

Stadium neighbors say their streets become party central after games.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published August 18, 2006

David Rodriguez and a handful of his neighbors on W Woodlawn Avenue live blocks away from Raymond James Stadium, and every night after Buccaneers' games, a party crashes their narrow residential street and front lawns.

"Traffic backs up bumper-to-bumper for two hours," Rodriguez said. "People are screaming and honking their horns at 11 p.m."

Rodriguez has seen drunk people urinating on his lawn and more mooning than he can stomach. In the morning, he picks up discarded beer cans.

Rodriguez brought his concerns to Mayor Pam Iorio's town hall meeting Tuesday night at Tampa Bay Boulevard Elementary School. Iorio referred Rodriguez and his neighbors to city transportation manager Roy C. LaMotte, who said he would follow up with them.

The meeting offered residents face time with the mayor's panel of city department leaders, including fire, police, transportation, stormwater, public works, economic development and code enforcement. Before turning the floor to residents, the mayor reaffirmed her focus on making improvements to the city that everyone can enjoy, from road improvements to stormwater drainage.

She said work on a stormwater project to reduce flooding at Dale Mabry Highway between Neptune Street and Henderson Boulevard will begin soon.

Since taking office, Iorio also said she has increased the city's budget for street resurfacing and maintenance, traffic calming devices and sidewalks from $2.6-million in 2003 to $6.2-million for 2007.

"Some of these things aren't all that interesting. No one's going to have a wastewater pipe named after you," Iorio said. "But these are the important things."

She addressed her hopes for the Centro Espanol building in West Tampa, which the Tampa-Hillsborough Urban League owned before going under last month.

The city wants to buy it, Iorio said, and officials are in talks with Wachovia Bank, which holds the $1.8-million mortgage. If the city doesn't act, and the building becomes a commercial use, the city and county would have to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants already spent on the building.

"It's not a very good picture," Iorio said. The building's restoration isn't even finished inside. But she thinks eventually, it will serve the community.

"We want to use that building as a tool for redevelopment of West Tampa. It's a historic building," Iorio said. "It is one that we should have ownership of so we can protect it for the future."

She also emphasized the need to add more public transportation to downtown, where more than 17,000 new condominium residents are expected by the end of the decade.

"We need to be more forward thinking as a city," Iorio said. "As long as I'm mayor, I'm going to argue for a mass transit system that works."

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 813 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com

IF YOU GO

The mayor's next town hall meeting will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 12 at Hillsborough High School.

[Last modified August 17, 2006, 11:07:22]