Front Porch stumbles, persists

The new head of the urban revitalization effort redirects the still-shaky program, expanding to five more cities.

By BRYAN GILMER

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 21, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- Volunteer "revitalization councils" for Gov. Jeb Bush's Front Porch Florida program either remain confused or are just getting their acts together 18 months into the program's existence.

But its state director says miscues in St. Petersburg and in urban, mostly minority neighborhoods of five other cities have taught valuable lessons to the officials who run Front Porch Florida. And the urban revitalization program, despite uncertainty in the Legislature and trouble in the original cities, is expanding.

Legislators last month were skeptical of continuing to fund Front Porch, acknowledged Office of Urban Opportunity director Alison Hewitt.

But they did appropriate $3.9-million in the budget to keep the initiative alive in the current six cities and get it started in the five new communities Gov. Jeb Bush named in March: Gainesville, Sanford, Orlando, West Bartow and Riverside/Little Havana. He plans to name more in August.

"They understood we had stumbled out of the starting blocks," Hewitt said. "We had to really tell them what we had put in place for these new five."

Hewitt told legislators that she has a streamlined plan for inducting new cities to the program without repeating the trouble experienced in the first six.

She plans to come to town to show a computerized presentation about how the program works. She will then hold several community meetings, then let the community pick a revitalization council. Before the council gets started, state staffers will train members about key things such as the rules for spending state money.

That is not how it went at all in the original six Front Porch cities. In addition to St. Petersburg, they are Pensacola, Tallahassee, West Palm Beach, Opa-locka and Fort Lauderdale.

Council members began their work without training and fought constantly as board members proposed projects that stood to benefit them personally.

Those problems began under Hewitt's predecessor, Patrick Hadley, and council chairs say things are steadily improving on Hewitt's watch. Local councils are getting projects done, like installing trash cans and security lights and conducting neighborhood parties and cleanups.

But there is still turbulence:

Only Pensacola qualified to get state grant money this year by filing an acceptable neighborhood-improvement plan. St. Petersburg and the others are just finishing spending 1999-2000 funding. With the 2000-2001 budget year nearly over, the Legislature rolled over the unspent funding to next year.

Community members elected a new revitalization council in West Palm Beach this week after Hewitt gave them the option of forming a new board or assigning the old members to represent constituencies such as the elderly, youth, religious groups and the like.

Opa-Locka council member Charles Ogugua said this week that he was ousted from his role as chairman in what felt like a "coup d'etat." That community chose to allocate constituencies to the current council members but to shift officer duties to other council members.

St. Petersburg's Front Porch board members, who took office last year after Hewitt forcibly disbanded their board and let the community choose a new one, remained so confused about what is required of them that they struggled through their May 3 board meeting.

"We don't know who we are, what we are or what we're supposed to do," Chairman David Welch said that day, clutching his gavel in exasperation.

Poor communication between Tallahassee and the local councils is a problem in several cities. The only council chairperson reached for this story who said communication is good is Darryl Scott, who chairs the effort for Greater Frenchtown in Tallahassee.

At the April St. Petersburg Front Porch council meeting, a state Front Porch staffer told them the group needs to become "self-sufficient," prompting speculation that the governor planned to cancel the program or kick out St. Petersburg, when Front Porch really was expanding.

At the May 3 meeting, Hewitt aide Yolanda Boronell told the council that she didn't know if continued state funding for Front Porch was in the budget the Legislature planned to vote on the next day. It was.

"She couldn't answer me," board member Martin Rainey said. "If she didn't know it was in there, I said, 'Maybe we're not going to get it.' "

Hewitt said Bush merely wants Front Porch councils to be self-sufficient enough to outlive his administration.

"If the governor chooses not to run again, we can't be sure (state support for local councils) will continue," she said.

Matt Walters, a mortgage banker who chairs Fort Lauderdale's revitalization council, agreed that communication is often poor.

"I don't know if that's because of the individuals they have as liaisons or just that the program from the start has always been kind of plan-as-we-go," he said.

Hewitt said she is working on the problem. She has invited the chairperson and paid community liaison from each original city to a June 2 meeting in Tallahassee for help refining their neighborhood plans. She will use the plans to seek funding for plan goals from state agencies.

Hewitt also is trying to balance providing direction with allowing Front Porch to be community-driven, as Bush wishes. She is pleased that St. Petersburg's council decided May 3 to incorporate and seek federal non-profit status, for instance, but she would not have suggested it.

Volunteer council members said they are happy for Hewitt to prescribe procedures as long as they retain the freedom to pick the projects that will most help their communities.

Hewitt said she will add procedural guidelines when she renews state contracts with the original six cities this summer.

Before, councils could simply spend Office of Urban Opportunity money on neighborhood projects. They will have to bring in "partners" for additional funding, services or goods from now on.

There will be a stringent policy against anyone serving on a revitalization council and receiving financial gain, for instance by serving as the paid executive director of a non-profit group funded through Front Porch.

That restriction vexes Welch and others around the state, who would rather do what city councils do: serve, but abstain from voting on projects where they have a conflict of interest.

Overall, Hewitt said she is pleased with the progress. If there is a long way yet to go, Front Porch has made progress, she said. St. Petersburg board meetings no longer degenerate into shouting matches as they did with the old board.

"I think they've learned to handle when they don't agree with each other," she said. "They have handled a lot in-house."

On the porch

In October 1999, Gov. Jeb Bush designated neighborhoods in six Florida cities to take part in the Front Porch Florida program. Those original six cities were St. Petersburg, Pensacola, Tallahassee, West Palm Beach, Opa-locka and Fort Lauderdale. In March, Bush added five cities to the Front Porch list. Those were: Gainesville, Sanford, Orlando, West Bartow and Riverside/Little Havana.

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