Southpinellas: Stretch of roadway to stay dark

Stretch of roadway to stay dark

The county had named Park Boulevard as one of five county roads that would be lit. Then a plan to tax power bills failed.

By MAUREEN BYRNE

SEMINOLE -- It appears that residents along a stretch of busy Park Boulevard have been kept in the dark.

After announcing nearly a year ago that street lights would be installed on a 6-mile stretch of the highway between 66th Street and Oakhurst Road, Pinellas County officials say the project is dead.

Blame it on a lack of funding, but not the Penny for Pinellas shortfall that is forcing the county to delay $122.9-million in projects beyond 2010, officials say.

County officials say the doomed lighting project is the result of a failed plan to charge a 6 percent surcharge to unincorporated residents' power bills to finance street lighting.

But to LeRoy Burchardt, who lives off Park Boulevard in the Oakhurst area, the news came as an unpleasant surprise.

"They should have been there before the shrubs and flowers in the medians," he said, referring to a recent county beautification project on Park Boulevard. "That's fine, too, but it's awful dark at night on that road."

Burchardt complained last March to County Commissioner Bob Stewart about how dark the road is. He thought the problem was solved when the county said it would install lights along the road, which is Seminole's major east-west artery.

But after Florida Power said it could not begin collecting the fee by Oct. 1, 2000, the start of the new budget year, the county dropped the plan. The tax would have raised $13.4-million for the county, $7.2-million to light neighborhood streets and major arterial roads. The rest of the money would have enhanced the sheriff's road patrols and provided a slight decrease in this year's property tax rate.

Last spring, Karen Greene, street lighting coordinator for the Pinellas County Highway Department, informed Burchardt that Park Boulevard was one of five county roads that would be illuminated.