In Gulfport on Saturday, Mayor Sam Henderson and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman joined over a hundred others for the 49th Street Cleanup, organized by Gulfport Neighbors, a community service organization. They were joined by the Childs Park Neighborhood Association and its president, Brother John, along with local residents, several elected officials and individuals currently running for election, Gulfport’s little league team, St. Petersburg Police Chief Tony Holloway and several members of both city’s police and fire departments.
Personal trash pickers, bags and gloves were provided. Everyone spent three solid hours picking up trash along 49th Street, at eight different intersections. Broken up into four teams, two went by foot and two by trolley. By the end of the cleanup, Justin Shea, the city’s Cultural Facilities Events Supervisor and his team had picked up enough full trash bags to fill the back of their pickup truck twice. Along the trek, four local businesses opened their doors for people to stop for water breaks.
The Gulfport Neighbors organization called on members of the community and elected officials from Gulfport and St. Pete in an effort to shed light on the fact that residents of the east corridor do care about what their community looks like.
Mayor Kriseman believes the collaboration between the two cities is long overdue. “Our communities are really just separated by a street. This is a very important street to both of our communities. It’s about time we pay attention to it and work together for the betterment of both of our communities.”
“49th Street is an interface between St. Pete and Gulfport," agreed Gulfport Mayor Sam Henderson. "It’s kind of our commercial backbone. We have businesses and residents on both sides.”
St. Pete Police Chief Holloway says, “When you charge someone with littering, instead of just making them pay a fine, we should make them come out and do this.” Commissioner Welch chimed in with the same sentiment, saying, “It’s like what I tell my daughter, there’s no fairy to come and clean up after you.”
Holloway also mentions an anonymous community watch option called tip411, in which residents and business owners can call or text with information and photos of any suspicious acts they see in their neighborhood. He says it is a way to improve communication between neighbors and the police department. He says he encourages his officers to walk and talk, “get out of the car for an hour a day and walk and talk to residents."
Henderson says that 49th Street is not part of the cute downtown area, “it's where business gets done. " He went on to say that "this is a place we need to work on. This area is designated by the county as a redevelopment district. We have some really strong business associations, especially the South 49th Street Business Association. It’s challenging when you have two different law enforcement jurisdictions managing the same area, but it’s been nice having them work with each other to keep crime in check. This neighborhood has suffered from a poor perception; it really isn’t a bad neighborhood,” he says.
Henderson also said that while the members of the Gulfport City Council come from a number of different backgrounds, they usually unanimously agree on decisions to improve the community. He says they have received a lot of support by way of grants and from the federal government. “We are doing a 37-mile connector trail through the county from the Pinellas trail to 55th Street for bicyclists and joggers,” he says. He says they also received a $200,000 state grant to connect the trail to the Sunshine Skyway Trail.
“Right here we have a $400,000 Brownfield Grant from the state. Brownfields are places that are potentially environmentally contaminated,” says Henderson. The fines and procedures for cleaning up contaminated sites is very expensive, which deters people from opening new businesses at these sites. With the grant they can do site assessments for new businesses at locations where previous businesses like gas stations and laundry mats may have left the site contaminated.
“While I’m sure people would have liked to sleep in this Saturday morning, I think it’s really nice that they came out and got together to do something nice for their community,” says Henderson.