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Letter to the editor

Dirt-rich neighbors will lose to pavers

Safety Harbor will pave 600 feet of Marshall Street E, pleasing half the residents and peeving half.

By EILEEN SCHULTE, Times Staff Writer
Published September 20, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [JOSEPH GARNETT, JR. | Times] Eight houses line Marshall Street E, one of the last unpaved roads in Safety Harbor. Half the homeowners don't want it paved. "We bought into the street before we bought into the house," said Michael Svatek.

SAFETY HARBOR - Kiss this bit of Old Florida goodbye.

Only about 10 feet wide and shaded by two walls of mature oak trees, Marshall Street E looks like a 19th century wagon trail.

About 120 feet of the street was paved a few years ago, and that surface started to crumble almost immediately. The rest is more or less dirt - mostly more. When it rains the road is muddy and when the sun shines it's dusty.

You'd never guess it was a public road.

But it's one of the last remaining unpaved public streetsin the city and a rarity in Pinellas County.

Yet it is lined with some expensive houses.

You might think all the residents along the street would have rejoiced this week when the City Commission decided to pave it.

They didn't.

Of the eight residents on Marshall Street E, half were upset. They told city commissioners Monday night they like the road just the way it is.

"You could say we bought into the street before we bought into the house," said Michael Svatek, 47, a business manager for a food broker who has lived on Marshall Street E for seven years. "The street is very quiet, it has a natural trail look and feel, which to us and many other residents on that street is an integral part of our home environment."

He said he can tolerate a little mud, the occasional pothole and the dust kicked up by passing vehicles.

As for the residents who want the road improved, he asked: Why did they move to Marshall Street E to begin with?

"It would be like purchasing a boat and then asking the city to build a lake for that boat," Svatek said

But Lawrence Burke, 69, a retired developer who lives on N Bayshore Drive and has a garage and driveway that opens onto Marshall Street E disagreed. For him, it's a safety issue.

"When the large trash trucks that we have within the city come down that street, they have to dodge the potholes because they have a tendency to roll when they go into them," Burke said. "It's dangerous. It's not right. ... The city doesn't need the liability and we all need the safety. We don't have to go back to the 1800s, when residents had no choice."

In the end, Safety Harbor city commissioners decided to pave 600 feet of Marshall Street E between Westley Avenue and Bayshore Drive. The work will cost $6,000 and take place in the spring. Sixteen other substandard roads in Safety Harbor also will be improved.

"That's a public road," said Brian Bergin, 60, a retired Fortune 500 executive who lives in one of the homes lining Marshall Street E. "It's been treated as a private road by the people that don't want to see any change."

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

[Last modified September 19, 2007, 21:59:50]