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Safety first

The initiative to revitalize St. Petersburg's Childs Park area is welcome, but cutting crime must be a leading element.

Mayor Rick Baker is to be commended for expanding his effort to make St. Petersburg's predominantly black neighborhoods integral parts of what he refers to as the "seamless" city. When Baker started using the term "seamless" shortly after he was elected five years ago, many people thought he was naive.

But Baker actually had a plan. He hired former police Chief Goliath Davis as deputy mayor and put him in charge of a program to revitalize Midtown. Today, positive results of that effort, including a major grocery store, a full-service post office, new and renovated homes and landscaping, are evident throughout the community.

Now Baker has announced a similar initiative for Childs Park, just west of Midtown. Though smaller in size, Childs Park has more than its share of poverty, drugs and violence. Davis also will oversee this program, and the city will pay a consultant to assist in developing strategies to solve the area's toughest problems.

As in Midtown, home ownership will be a centerpiece of this initiative. Baker and Davis believe that ownership fosters pride and permanence in neighborhoods. Therefore, they extended a Midtown housing assistance program into Childs Park and part of the Uptown community. The assistance program makes up to $30,000 in no-interest loans available to first-time home buyers.

"Like Midtown, the Childs Park initiative will be asset-based," Davis said. "We intend to engage the most important asset, the community, in developing a plan for the area. Additionally, we intend to focus on Childs Park's other assets, which include real estate, churches, schools, businesses, the youth and other amenities. ... We will not ignore the negative influences. However, Childs Park's prosperity rests with our ability to showcase (its) assets to residents and neighborhoods throughout the city."

Greg Pierce, president of the Childs Park Neighborhood Association, said that while he supports the city's plans, he wants much more to be done to stop street-level crime. Otherwise, residents will not enjoy any revitalization.

"Yes, we have a police presence, but it's not at a level to solve our problems," Pierce said. "People don't feel safe. The police chief, the mayor and Davis just won't sit down and seriously talk about crime."

With St. Petersburg's highest concentration of people 18 and younger, Childs Park has one of the highest neighborhood crime rates. Police reports indicate, for example, that the number of drug arrests there is disproportionately high for its population. And for several years, the neighborhood has been part of the Weed and Seed program that targets heavy drug areas.

New buildings, more traffic lights, stop signs and speed humps are great and part of the long-term solution. But if Childs Park residents are afraid to leave their homes - as many say they are - making the neighborhood a part of a "seamless" city will be elusive, if not impossible.

[Last modified September 23, 2006, 01:17:02]