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Is it greener on the other side?

Disparity noted in landscaping between black and white areas leads to more plantings.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published October 22, 2006

SAFETY HARBOR - Turn off Main Street at the Whistle Stop Grill and Bar and you follow the CSX railroad tracks that parallel Ninth Avenue.

The tracks cut a short, unattractive swath past industrial warehouses and through a couple of predominantly black subdivisions before heading north toward mostly white communities.

This has been a corridor that interim Mayor Andy Steingold has long wanted to dress up. But a recent effort to beautify Ninth Avenue initially disappointed Steingold and some black residents who felt that a white neighborhood got nicer greenery.

The seeming disparity emerged several weeks ago after the city planted knee-high plumbago and the like in beds of shredded cypress mulch near the Brooklyn subdivision.

Farther up, taller lush magnolias went in near the walled enclave of Huntington Estates.

That didn't look right to residents of the largely black neighborhoods.

"They felt slighted," said Ajamu Babalola, president of Common Unity Partnership or CUP, the neighborhood association that represents the Lincoln Heights, Lincoln Highlands and Brooklyn subdivisions. "They wanted something that will stand out."

Steingold agreed. He said the result of the city's Ninth Avenue beautification project - a project he championed since being elected as a commissioner in 2005 - fell short.

"When I saw the north end, I said, 'Good job,' " Steingold said. "When I drove on, it wasn't the picture of beauty I had hoped for."

The city planted $8,639 worth of 16 little gem magnolias, 16 simpson stoppers, 10 tuscarora crape myrtles, 27, petite pink oleanders, 11 plumbago, eight golden thyrallis and 17 sand coral grass infants in nine locations on the CSX right of way.

In all, the project cost $13,000.

After it was completed, some African-American residents called City Hall wanting to know why trees were planted in some areas and not in others.

"They thought that it was intentional," Babalola said.

But the city maintains it was only working within the guidelines set up by CSX, Progress Energy, which has power lines over the tracks, and MCI, which has cables running under the ground.

"We met with the CSX railroad representatives and the Progress Energy reps and they told us where the plantings could be," said City Manager Wayne Logan. "There was no racial divide."

Leisure Services director Matt Spoor discussed the issue with unhappy residents and came up with a solution.

Last week, the city planted 10 more crape myrtles along the tracks near the Brooklyn subdivision.

When asked why the city didn't plant them there in the first place, Spoor said simply, "it wasn't in the original plan."

Babalola said he's happy with the result, and the residents he has spoken to about it "feel much better about the situation."

"I think in the spring," he said, "it will be extremely beautiful."

Eileen Schulte can be reached at schulte@sptimes.com or 727 445-4153.

[Last modified October 21, 2006, 20:45:11]