Opponents to extension of road get nowhere

As alternate plans are rejected, about 100 frustrated residents plan to pressure the County Commission.

By ERIC STIRGUS

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 3, 2001

LARGO -- Michael Knotts thought he had a great solution to the dispute over the county's planned extension of 119th Street N from the Ridgecrest community to his Largo neighborhood.

Knotts and others say that connecting 119th to 16th Avenue SW would create traffic problems in their neighborhood. So Knotts' plan would connect the roads, but the link would be opened only during emergencies. A separate road would be constructed to allow Ridgecrest Elementary School parents to drop off and pick up their children.

Knotts discussed the proposal with County Commission Chairman Calvin Harris for about two hours Wednesday. It was a cordial chat, but in the end, Harris remained adamant that the roads be connected and opened around-the-clock for motorists.

Thursday night, Knotts and about 100 people met to consider their next step. Audience members were given fliers asking them to attend a County Commission meeting on Feb. 20 to speak against the plan. County commissioners are expected to hire a company to extend the road next month. Construction is scheduled to begin in April.

"Wear something red or orange and bring a red or orange flag to wave," the fliers read. "We need everyone's support to stop the road."

Knotts spoke about his meeting with Harris, which led to complaints from neighborhood activists that the commissioner and other county officials have ignored them.

"It's a campaign of silence and misinformation," Ruth Dowling, a leader of the Taylor Lake Homeowners Association, said of the county's efforts to extend the road.

"He wasn't really responsive to what I was trying to say," Knotts told the audience.

Dowling and her neighbors are concerned that once the roads are connected, traffic will spill into their neighborhood. Some, citing crime statistics from the Sheriff's Office, are worried that there will be additional crime in their community.

Some supporters of the road extension say the complaints about crime are a smokescreen for racial prejudice because the extension will connect black and white neighborhoods. Ridgecrest is a mostly African-American neighborhood while most of the residents who live north of that neighborhood are white.

Dowling rejected such thoughts.

"This is a traffic issue," she told the audience. "I don't care who is driving the cars."

Sheriff's Office statistics show crime has dropped in Ridgecrest in recent years. Harris called worries about crime "phantom concerns."

Harris suggested adding some traffic-calming devices on 119th Street N to stop people from using the road as a cut-through. But Harris insisted the road must be extended. "As that school grows, as the community grows, as partnerships with Largo continue to grow, it just makes sense to have that (road) done," Harris said.

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