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Goliath Davis III says his goal is to make the community's economy self-sustaining.
By LEONORA LaPETER
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 3, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- The city has consulted focus groups of religious leaders, business representatives and youth groups. They've talked with residents at a series of public meetings this past week.
Now it's time to come up with suggestions for promoting economic development in Midtown neighborhoods. But don't look for it all to take shape quickly, said Goliath Davis III, the city's deputy mayor for Midtown economic development.
"I"m going to come back and ask you again -- and probably people are going to say, "What is Davis doing?' -- and people are going to come out looking for the plan," Davis said at the third of a series of meetings Thursday night. "But I'm not going to develop the plan prematurely."
All the talk has expanded the definition of economic development, something Davis is intent on developing with community input. The bottom line is that people want to see good jobs with living wages, more business opportunities and training for residents.
Other residents wanted to see a post office, a supermarket, maybe a skating rink in Midtown.
Davis and the city's consultant, RMPK Group, were short on details about how they plan to accomplish all of these goals. Davis said the city can work on trying to get a postal warehouse off 16th Street S to open a small office that would accept packages or sell stamps.
But other goals aren't so easy to accomplish.
"We have to define whose role it really should be," said Kurt Easton, an owner of RMPK Group, a Cocoa Beach planning and urban design consultant. "There are things people are looking for that the government should take the lead on. But on other issues, such as retail opportunities or supermarkets or banks, those are basically private-sector decisions and the role of government is to improve the area to make it more attractive to private-sector investment."
Easton's company will come up with a series of recommendations expected to go before the Planning Commission, the City Council and the public sometime in January.
Only then will Davis come up with a plan for implementing the recommendations.
"This is deliberate on my part -- not rushing it," Davis said, "because I don't want five years from now, or six years from now, I don't want the people to stand up and say, "What did the city do?' "
Davis explains the city's role in all of this with a fish metaphor.
"I can't feed everybody a loaf of bread and fish, and I'm not going to give everybody a fish," Davis told the group of about 75 people at the Bayfront Center Thursday night. "My goal is to teach everybody to fish, to be self-sustaining, to lift the community."
Davis' meetings have attracted about 70 people a night, but many of those in attendance represent community agencies or the city, some participants said. Still, Davis and others declared the widely advertised meetings successful and helpful in his quest to define economic development.
Several of those who attended Thursday's meeting said they learned a lot and felt that they got to be part of the process.
"We talked about redeveloping the mind, teaching people what it takes to become entrepreneurs and self-sufficient," said Velma Lockett, a Midtown resident of 30 years and a St. Petersburg Housing Authority employee who attended Thursday's meeting. "It's going to be a long process, but I don't think it's unobtainable."
Herman Adams, 30, a Midtown resident who needs a job, wants to see whether city officials will carry the talk into action and how long it will all take:
"I'm wondering about all of this. Are they just words or is it really going to happen?"