Pinellas Trail watchdog on the lookout for debris

John Prokop is constantly policing Jungle Terrace's part of the trail. He's looking for litter and overgrown vegetation.

By ANDREW MEACHAM

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Though it's oppressively hot and there is no breeze, John Prokop strides along the banks of the ditch like a man about to win a million dollars. Having zipped through residential back roads to get here, the watchdog of Jungle Terrace wants to show a visitor that his neighborhood's piece of the Pinellas Trail needs an upgrade.

Prokop does not look particularly fit. No one would confuse this education specialist for the Veterans Administration with an aerobics instructor. But on this muggy afternoon, there is a bounce in his step. A purpose.

He gestures to the ditch, full of tangled vegetation.

"Why can't they fill this in?"

He has other complaints -- quite a list, in fact.

There is too much trash along the trail. The underbrush makes a convenient shelter for homeless people and teen gangs. The fence running along one side serves no useful purpose and hinders cleanup. Businesses could spruce up their back yards that face the trail and move trash containers. The vines and gnarled brush growing in the ditch could be ground up, or the ditch filled in.

He stops to survey a stretch of gully behind 35th Avenue N.

"If you were paying me to maintain this, what kind of a job would you say I'm doing?" he asks.

For months, Prokop and fellow inhabitants of Jungle Terrace have been after the county parks department to clean up the trail. Behind Tyrone Mall, beneath a canopy of vines, someone has placed several palm fronds together in a makeshift bed.

"Pretty good hiding place here," he says.

Though most of the beer cans and cigarette butts are gone, a line of trash resumes behind Dillard's and continues across 22nd Avenue N. Crews had cleaned up that section of trail only the week before, said parks supervisor Jerry Cummings.

"We've got 40 miles of trail," Cummings said. Workers clean a section at a time. Both Cummings and Prokop questioned whether workers for the mall have been blowing trash from the parking lot directly into the ditch.

In one of his near daily e-mail updates on his investigation into the trail, Prokop -- who goes by the handle, "Johnny-Bow-Wow" -- told Jungle Terrace residents of an encounter with an unidentified worker who was picking up trash but avoiding the ditch, where most of the trash lay.

On Wednesday, he talked to a supervisor for TruGreen LandCare, a Tampa company the county hired in April.

"I told him I had seen a lot of improvement, but that I'd still give them a B-plus to a C-minus overall."

That upward trend may be enough to keep City Council member Bob Kersteen out of the fray, at least for now. Kersteen said he favors clearing most of the vegetation from the ditches along the trail to remove a potential hiding place for vagrants and criminals. He said he has approached a county commissioner to discuss terminating TruGreen's contract for non-compliance and then asking the mayor to enter the bidding on a new contract.

"I am ready to do that if that is what's necessary," Kersteen said, "but first I want to give the companies time to respond to our concerns."

Cummings said that removing vegetation would cause soil along the banks of the ditches to erode.

"I'm not sure what these people want for their ditches -- if they want them manicured like their yards," Cummings said. Still, he offered to talk to any residents who are concerned, even to walk the trail with them. It's an invitation Prokop plans to accept.

In the meantime, Prokop is asking his Jungle Terrace neighbors to award certificates of appreciation to trailside businesses that clean up their act. The first certificate would go to Richard's Whole Foods at 3455 Tyrone Blvd. N, whose owners put up a bicycle rack and plan to install a picnic table as a rest stop for pedestrians.

An inviting, landscaped appearance encourages business, Prokop said, and helps bring Pinellas Trail up to the standard residents want from a county park.

"I want to be proud of where I live," he said.

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