Avoid rhetoric; learn about plan

By DIANE STEINLE

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 25, 2000

It is a beautiful, sunny morning on the Clearwater downtown waterfront.

Too bad more people aren't here to enjoy it.

In Coachman Park, a city-owned expanse of green grass overlooking Clearwater Harbor, four little boys are gleefully chasing a red ball down the sloping brick paths. A homeless man sorts through his bag of belongings on a bench. A woman has planted her folding chair on the grass and is sunning her winter-white legs.

No one is volleying on the city tennis courts nearby.

No one is sitting on the benches that the city placed every few feet along the seawall in hopeful anticipation of people wanting to sit and watch the water.

For the most part, pigeons outnumber people outdoors on the bayfront, even on pretty days like this one. Most of the people who visit the downtown waterfront each day are sealed inside cars, zooming along the city streets and onto Memorial Causeway, which leads to Clearwater Beach.

Some people think this is a shame, that a downtown built along a waterfront ought to have lots of activities and lots of people enjoying them every day. Instead, Clearwater's downtown waterfront is a dead zone except on those rare days when there is a big waterfront event like the Clearwater Jazz Holiday or the city's Fourth of July celebration.

Clearwater's main street, Cleveland Street, leads right down to the water, but it offers little to lure people out of the malls and the suburbs and into downtown.

City officials thought there might be a way to bring new energy to the moribund downtown, so they let it be known they wanted to hear from developers who had the experience, financial backing and creativity to do a downtown redevelopment project.

The city settled on a partnership formed by two known Florida developers, George de Guardiola and David Frisbie. They came up with a BIG plan under which they would buy up private property, lease seven pieces of city-owned property, and develop retail stores, apartments, condominiums, a movie theater, a hotel, restaurants, a city pier, gardens, a new library andCity Hall, and expanded parkland.

Shake a can of soda for about five minutes, pop the top and you'll see something akin to what that proposal has done to Clearwater in recent weeks. I'm not sure I've ever seen the city this stirred up.

A referendum on July 11 must be approved for the plan to be implemented. There is plenty for voters to chew on.

For one thing, the leases of city-owned land would be for 99 years at a dollar a year. For another, none of the contracts or leases with the developers have been written yet. They will be negotiated by city officials and the developers only if the referendum passes.

At first, the debate was restrained and the questions were polite. Two citizens groups -- Save the Bayfront, which opposes the plan, and Citizens for a Better Clearwater, which supports it -- started working to analyze the proposal, raise money, distribute information and win converts.

Both sides created Web sites. Both sides spent tens of thousands of dollars for supplies and advertising. The developers and city officials explained the proposal in dozens of public and private meetings all around town.

Then things started to get messy.

A few people charged that the whole proposal was a ploy so the developers could build a casino downtown. (Casinos are illegal in Florida, folks.)

Others, without offering a shred of evidence, said the proposal was a stealth campaign by the Church of Scientology to further expand its holdings in downtown, where it already owns a substantial amount of property. Just having the word Scientology linked to the developers' proposal was enough to taint the project for some people.

Then last week the Save the Bayfront group put out an inflammatory mailing opposing the referendum. Besides being just plain wrong on several points, the mailing said this about the referendum:

"This allows the city manager to sell any of your land to the Church of Scientology for $1.00." The city manager doesn't have the authority to sell city land. And sale of land isn't even an issue in this referendum, only leasing of seven parcels. The city will retain title on every piece.

At a recent community forum, developer George de Guardiola was trying to keep a sense of humor as he was peppered with sometimes hostile questions. But his patience was clearly wearing thin after weeks of this. He said he had never seen a place where so many people seemed to fancy themselves investigative reporters.

"I have never seen an area that is so politically active," he said. "It is very difficult to navigate that political landscape."

It is also tough for Clearwater residents who just want to know the facts before they vote. Here's an idea: Ignore the rhetoric and gather the information yourself.

If you have a computer with Internet access, you can go to the city's Web site at http://www.clearwater-fl.com to see the term sheet that the city and developer have agreed upon. You can also view a drawing of the proposed downtown improvements, read the referendum questions and get the answers to frequently asked questions.

A recent mailing from the city, titled Make Your Mark, is a straight account of the referendum questions and what will happen in the event the questions are approved or turned down.

And there are two more opportunities to attend community forums where you can hear a presentation on the proposals and then ask questions. Those are at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Clearwater Sailing Center on Sand Key, and at 6:30 p.m. July 5 in the main library on Osceola Avenue downtown.

Watch the Times, too, for more information right up to the July 11 referendum.

Does this seem like a lot of effort to go to? You're right. But this may be the most important referendum in Clearwater's history.

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