Fountain must go, Clearwater commissioners say

The city votes to reconfigure the roundabout to improve its safety, including knocking down the fountain at its center.

By CHRISTINA HEADRICK

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 13, 2001

CLEARWATER -- To combat roundabout rage, this city will reconfigure the Clearwater Beach roundabout and start planning how to demolish the $2.1-million fountain in the oval road's center.

City commissioners approved the changes to the roundabout after two hours of debate Thursday night and more than a year of public consternation about the lushly landscaped entryway to Clearwater Beach.

Besides changes to the roundabout's geometry, commissioners unanimously voted to ask city engineers to plan to remove the fountain and replace it with a simple reflecting pool, a cluster of landscaping or a combination. "The fountain," said newly appointed City Manager Bill Horne, "probably adds to the list of city projects that had their problems and may not have been thought through."

Commissioners said the roundabout overhaul will make it more obvious how drivers are supposed to navigate the roadway, which has become one of the county's most accident-prone intersections since opening in December 1999.

"It's time, I think, that we do something," Mayor Brian Aungst said Thursday.

The first prong of the changes -- subtle modifications to the roundabout's geometry -- is estimated to cost up to $362,000 and be completed by spring break in 2002.

These changes would include modifying exits from and entrances onto the roundabout, particularly at Coronado Drive, and allowing cars and trucks to make wider turns, city engineers said.

Some residents of north Clearwater Beach opposed these changes Thursday night, saying they are concerned the "fixes" could make the roundabout even more difficult to drive.

A crosswalk on Mandalay Avenue would be moved away from the roundabout. At its current location, pedestrians block cars exiting onto Mandalay from the roundabout, causing traffic to back up into the circle.

Commissioners also will consider removing some medians at roundabout exits, such as at the city's marina, and replacing them with raised brick pavers that would be more durable.

Buses and cars are driving over the landscaped medians, Commissioner Bill Jonson said, showing photos of a bus trampling landscaping while turning into the roundabout from the city's marina.

The second prong of the roundabout changes is removing the $2.1-million fountain in the roundabout's center. Knocking down the fountain and replacing it with landscaping in the roundabout's center would cost $545,000, by rough city estimates.

Commissioner Jonson said he thinks the fountain is distracting to drivers in the roundabout whose attention is diverted by water cascading down its outer walls. Jonson read to other commissioners from an article about how the human eye works to prove his point.

Island Estates resident Carl Wagenfohr, who sat on a committee of residents who reviewed the roundabout's operation over the past nine months, also presented commissioners with other reasons to demolish the fountain in a report he wrote on the issue.

Wagenfohr noted that drivers have complained of being sprayed by the fountain and griped that its tall, hulking mass prohibits them from gauging what other cars are doing on the other side of the roundabout.

On top of that, city records indicate the fountain is proving costly to maintain, with more than $231,000 yearly in expected maintenance costs -- money that could be used for other things such as funding the salaries of five police officers, Wagenfohr said.

The fountain also has used more than a million gallons of drinking water some months due to problems with leaks and the evaporation of water from the large, wedding cake-shaped structure, city officials say. Concern about the fountain's water use during this region's drought prompted city administrators to turn the fountain off several months ago.

"As stewards of the public's water, as stewards of the public's money, as stewards of the public's safety, I would ask you to support this," Wagenfohr said about demolishing the fountain.

Commissioners considered putting reclaimed water into the fountain, but city officials said that could lead to higher maintenance costs because the highly chlorinated water would cause the fountain's metal pumps to rust more quickly, requiring their eventual replacement at a cost of up to $200,000.

Eventually all five commissioners said they want the fountain removed, or at least drastically altered. Several noted that the fountain was originally supposed to be a reflecting pool, but under former City Manager Mike Roberto's direction, it was greatly enlarged after the commission approved the initial concept.

"I think it's somewhat ostentatious," Commissioner Whitney Gray said, ". . . and it wastes water. Right now what I'm feeling is we should remove the fountain."

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