City invites its leaders to meeting

City Manager Bill Horne says he'll use their concerns to help him form a plan for Clearwater's future.

By CHRISTINA HEADRICK

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 10, 2001

CLEARWATER -- Neighborhood leaders from across the city have been invited to meet with city commissioners and senior administrators Wednesday to discuss their priorities.

At least 30 neighborhood association leaders are expected to attend the forum at 7 p.m. at the Harborview Center, 300 Cleveland St. The meeting is open to anyone who wants to come.

It is being billed as a time for city officials to listen more and talk less.

"It's really a listening drill," said City Manager Bill Horne, who credited Commissioner Whitney Gray with suggesting the idea.

Horne said he would use the neighborhood feedback as he compiles a new strategic plan for the city's goals for the next decade.

Neighborhood leaders were asked to fill out cards with their area's three major issues so that city officials could prepare for the discussion. Already there are about 55 issues they want to talk about, said city spokesman Frank Klim.

Representatives of Clubhouse Estates in Countryside told the city they want to talk about the maintenance of sidewalks and streets, speeding on Countryside Boulevard and increasing security with a neighborhood watch program.

Meanwhile, the Morningside-Meadows neighborhood in east Clearwater wants to discuss having "traffic calming" measures, such as speed tables, installed in their area. The city isn't planning to pay for such a project in Morningside until 2008 or 2009.

North Greenwood's representative wants to talk about code enforcement efforts in his neighborhood near downtown. Tal Rutledge believes city code inspectors are sometimes too hard on people.

After the forum, the city has some other plans for gathering additional feedback.

Later this month, the city will spend about $7,000 to conduct an opinion poll of residents who will be asked to rank their top priorities for the city, ranging from public safety to downtown redevelopment.

The city's staff has been fine-tuning the poll for several weeks.

Originally, the poll had some questions about approval ratings for city commissioners and the mayor. But those questions were dropped after commissioners decided that they sounded too politically charged, especially with spring elections coming up.

Questions about neighborhood concerns such as maintenance of sidewalks and curbs have been added, said Jackii Molsick, the city's director of public communications.

Molsick said she would like to begin conducting polls at least once a year to see how residents think the city is doing.

After the forum and the poll, Horne wants to have commissioners hold a "visioning" workshop to clearly define their priorities. That could be done in November, unless commissioners decide they don't want to do it four months before spring elections.

Then Horne will draft his new plan, which will replace the old strategy that focused heavily on redeveloping the city's downtown, the beach, Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard and North and South Greenwood neighborhoods. It was called "One City. One Future."

Horne scrapped the plan when he became interim manager last year, saying at the time that he wanted to project a more balanced approach of dealing with infrastructure and basic city services while promoting redevelopment projects.

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