CHNA logo by Peter Bramley Crescent Heights Neighborhood ... · and the failure of voters to...

Sullivan Suits was one of more than 25 children who came out on April 4th to hunt for eggs in Crescent Lake Park at this year’s annual Easter Egg Hunt co-sponsored with our friends at CLNA.

CHNA General Membership & Board Meeting Topic: New St. Pete Recycling Program/Q&AMonday, May 4thRefreshments, 6:30 pm – Meeting, 7:00 pm Church of the Beatitudes, 2812 8th St. N.

May Porch Party Saturday, May 16th, 6-8 pmHome of Thomas Paterek, 432 23rd Ave. N.

Council of Neighborhood Associations (CONA) MeetingWednesday, May 20th, 6:30 pmSunshine Center, 330 5th St. N.

Crescent Heights Book ClubTuesday, May 26th, 7 pmA Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler835 26th Ave. N.

CHNA Board MeetingTopic: Bylaws Review and Planning for YearMonday, June 8thcontact: [email protected]

Council of Neighborhood Associations (CONA) MeetingWednesday, June 17th, 6:30 pmSunshine Center, 330 5th St. N.

Summer Neighborhood BBQ TBA. Planners and helpers needed! Contact: [email protected]

June Porch PartyTBA

July Porch PartyTBA

CHNA C a l e n d a rMay/June 2015 l mychna.org

If you would like to host a porch party, please email Thomas Paterek [email protected].

CHNA logo by Peter Bramley (1945-2005)

Crescent Heights Neighborhood Association Newsletter

2 May/June 2015 l mychna.org

After our CHNA meeting dealing with traffic and parking on May 30th, I received a note from a discouraged member who came away believing “if many, many, many Crescent Heights neighbors came together with a plan, then the City would consider it. As of now, nothing will change other than what the City has planned.” The note concluded, “Unfortunately, not enough neighbors seemed to be concerned enough with traffic control to make any change at this time.”

As a result of the meeting, Mike Frederick from the St. Petersburg Department of Transportation sent a letter saying that the City has performed traffic studies and is prepared to:

• Install“alleyhumps”inacoupleofthealleyswetalkedabout, to discourage speeding.

•Reversethestopsignat8thSt.N.and29thAve.N.

And so, yes, “if many, many, many Crescent Heights came together with a plan, the City would consider it.” However, both of these actions require that residents of Crescent Heights support these actions as having short-term and long-term benefits. The alley humps require that petitions be circulated among the property owners on those alleys supporting the change. The reversed stop sign requires a letter from the neighborhood association saying that the neighborhood as a whole supports the change.

For a community to work for everybody, the change has to benefit everybody.Thus,oneresidentof29thAve.N.believesstronglythatareversedstopsigncoulddiscouragespeedingforcarsturningonto29thfrom9thandheadingtoward8th.Ontheotherhand,anotherresidentisequally concerned that the same reversed stop sign could present a danger for children skate-boarding in the church parking lot. And, I have no idea who else might have concerns about this intersection – or even if the stop sign is thekeyissue.Otherpeoplemaybeinconvenienced,nowandinthefuture.That’s where a plan is required, to consider the big picture.

As for “not enough neighbors seemed to be concerned,” I hope that is not true. The committee that met with Jay Miller and the City prior to the opening of Trader Joe’s worked tirelessly to represent the interests of neighbors. A few years ago, neighbors did massive research to create a Neighborhood Plan covering everything from traffic patterns to the style and character of the neighborhood. That plan needs to be updated. Changes that benefit the whole neighborhood cannot be driven by the concerns of one person or one block. They need to come from a unified neighborhood creating a plan and speaking with one voice to the City. Let me know what you can do to make this happen at: [email protected].

Kristen Noakes-Fry

Message from the President...If You See Something, Say Something…Together!

2015 CHNA Officers & Board

President: Kristen [email protected]

Immediate Past President: Phil [email protected]

1st Vice President/Business Relations: Sean [email protected]

2nd Vice President: Thomas [email protected]

Membership: Nancy [email protected]

Treasurer: Genine [email protected]

Secretary: Susan O’[email protected]

Newsletter Editor: [email protected]

Web Editor: Steve [email protected]

Social Media Editor: Sarah [email protected]

Newsletter Layout: Traer [email protected]

Book Club Lead: Maureen [email protected]

Halloween Party: Joe [email protected]

Home of the Month: Elisabeth Nevins [email protected]

Historian: Jim [email protected]

Newsletter Delivery: Trip [email protected]

Member-at-Large: Greg [email protected]

Past President: Greg [email protected]

Past President: Stephanie [email protected]

Crescent Heights Neighborhood Association, Inc.

(CHNA)mychna.org

PO Box 76051, St. Pete, FL 33734Join online for $20/year & support us!

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Downtown Waterfront Master Plan: Mark your calendars. The Downtown Waterfront Master Plan Team is presenting the DRAFT Master Plan and Implementation Strategy at 2 public meetings: Wednesday, April 1, 6:30 p.m. and Thursday, April 2, 6:30 p.m. – Both at the USF Student Center. The two meetings will be presentation format with similar content and an opportunity to provide additional feedback. Learn more here - www.stpete.org/dwmp.

Easter Egg Drop Off: If your child will be attending the Annual Easter Egg Hunt at Crescent Lake Park, please drop off 12 filled eggs per child to 620 27th Avenue North (in the basket) between Tuesday March 31 and Friday April 3..

New St. Petersburg Recycling Program Coming Soon: The new single-stream curbside recycling program will start

Special Announcements

By Brandy Stark

OnApril15, CHNAhosteditsannualSunkenGardensevent for residents of Crescent Heights and Crescent Lake withaguestlistthatincludedSt.PetersburgMayor,RickKriseman, his Deputy Mayor, Dr. Kanika Jelks-Tomalin, andSt.PeteCouncilmember,DardenRice.Atthestartofthe evening, the mayor offered a short address to attendees, including details of the implementation of Universal CurbsideRecyclingthissummer,afterwhichheopenedthefloor to questions.

Inquiries from the audience included the selection process for the St. Petersburg Pier. The Mayor reiterated that there was one final session in which the public could voice an opinion, but once that is concluded the council would vote. He also addressed the design preference survey, which he noted allowed for people to vote for their top three selections. The top three designs were not ranked in the order of first, second or third preference, but were those that were most selected of the choices offered. The Pier is the first, though not only, part of the upcoming waterfront revitalization process.

Public transportation was also an issue. Members of the audience were concerned with cutbacks to the bus schedule andthefailureofvoterstoapproveGreenlightPinellas.KrisemannotedthatGreenlightdidgarnertheapprovalof city voters, who most directly interact with public

Many Questions Asked and Answered at Annual Sunken Gardens Event

transportation, but did not gain county-wide support. He added that he was engaged in meetings with the PSTA to explore additional options, including a ferry service designed to transport people across the bay.

The Mayor concluded his session at 6:30 pm, after which he and the Deputy Mayor left for their next meetings that evening.CouncilmemberDardenRiceremainedtotellneighbors about her current projects on City Council and to answer questions. CHNA thanks Mayor Kriseman and other city representatives for spending time with neighbors in this open dialogue session.

Message from the President...If You See Something, Say Something…Together!


BO

O K N O OK

B y M a u r e e n C a m p h i r e

histories and relationships. The Whitshanks are a family who believe certain myths about themselves. They believe they are happier than other families, and closer to each other, and they believe that Whitshanks have a way of getting what they want. In the winding course of this novel, Tyler shows how these beliefs are true in some ways, but painfully untrue in other ways.

This latest work from Anne Tyler is as masterful and absorbing as anything she has written. Her patient character development, her unsentimental portrayal of family life, and her brilliant understanding of the psychology of parents and children all combine to create a memorable and breath-taking novel. Fans of Anne Tyler will not be disappointed, and new readers will no doubt rush to read her extensive back list.

An additional review from the Los Angeles Times states that “Tyler has proved again and again that a chronicle of middle-class family life in Baltimore can illuminate the human condition as acutely as any novel of ideas, albeit with a more modest demeanor . . . The Whitshanks [are] rendered with such immediacy and texture that they might be our next-door neighbors.”

The Book Club will meet to discuss A Spool of Blue Thread at 83526thAvenue,NonTuesday,May26at7PM.Asusual,allare welcome! (with or without your sewing baskets)

For more book club information, please contact Maureen at [email protected].

This month is the last Book Club discussion meeting until September. We traditionally have taken off for the summer and have now added June to that vacation schedule. If you want to be prepared for the September discussion, you can read The Hundred Foot Journey by RichardC.Moraioverthesummer.

The Book Club choice for May is Anne Tyler’s new book, A Spool of Blue Thread. Anne Tyler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published 20 novels, the best known of which are Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant,TheAccidentalTourist,andBreathingLessons, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She has also been nominated for numerous literary awards and has won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012 she was awarded The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence.

The following review is taken from Book*Sense. In Anne Tyler’s latest novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, she does what she does best: she creates a family filled with quirky, genuine characters and deftly builds their


Fixing poverty in St. Pete

As a city leader, I find that income inequality and the plight of poverty in our city weighs upon me heavily. It’s not one of the fun or sexy issues, but no responsible leader can neglect the most seemingly intractable of all our challenges: the cycle of poverty.

That is one reason why I led the charge to pass a Wage TheftOrdinancetoprotectlowincomeworkersandgoodbusinesses who pay their workers honestly and fairly from unscrupulous competition. It’s also why I support our proposaltocreateaCommunityRedevelopmentPlan(CRP)forSouthsideSt.Pete.

In St. Pete, the geography of poverty is scattered throughout the city, but nowhere is it more concentrated than in the Southside. As the economy stabilizes, income inequality is the critical factor slowing Tampa Bay’s economic recovery. While government certainly can’t – and shouldn’t – try to fix everything, an efficient government that works well knows how to make gains on foundational issues like employment, training, and education.

That is why we are proposing the establishment of the CRPforSouthsideSt.Petersburg. TheCRPwillbuildup and deploy resources to disable the poverty trap: high unemployment, lower educational and training attainment, inadequate and insufficient affordable housing, insufficient transportation, limited access to healthcare, and increased crime rates. Study after study shows that the whole city benefits from the poorest areas improving.

Imagine if we shifted our mindset from managing poverty to eliminating it? If we took the $2.3 billion a year that we currently spend to manage countywide poverty and instead focused on eliminating poverty, we would find a better investment of our tax dollars, and we would more likely see better outcomes to get people much needed employment.

The poor are a vulnerable population that has greater exposure to factors that inevitability hit impoverished communities first, but will eventually affect us all (including things such as the rising costs of goods and services; the impacts of income inequality; and chronic medical conditions like asthma, diabetes, and heart disease). We might value and relate to the experiences of the poor differently if the problems of the poor were seen not as something to judge and punish, but an early indicator of things which affect us all. Like it or not, we are all in this together.

We know that a large pocket of poverty serves only to pull down the rest of the city. We also know that it costs less to create jobs than it does to throw money at managing the symptoms of poverty. The things that drive change are fundamental. What lifts you out of poverty? A job that pays higher than a poverty wage.

That is why I am a strong and vocal supporter of the SouthsideCRPandtheseriousplantoeliminatepovertyin the Southside. It’s not easy to accomplish, but the most important challenges never are.

St. Pete Strong,

Councilmember Darden Rice

D i s t r i c t 4 N E W S

$2 off any purchase of $20 or more!

Not valid with any other offer


When Kelly moved in, in December 2014, she came up with the idea of transforming the breezeway, now fitted out with lovely hardwood floors, into the dining area. Thus what was once mainly a convenience area has become a focal point of the house, linking the garage, side door, kitchen, and pool area.

She also prompted Stephen to start attending some porch parties. He had read about them before but never attended. In his own words, “I liked this house from the start. But it wasn’t until we started going to the porch parties that it felt like a home.” They consider the parties one of the best features of our neighborhood, enabling them to “spread our roots.” From those roots, they have built a reputation as one of the most fun houses in the area, ready to invite neighbors

In the white house on the corner of 7th St. N. and 26th Ave. N., we find inhabitants who can pretty much do anything.GraduatefromUCFandthenspendacoupleof years at SeaWorld, diving off Shamu’s nose? Sure, no problem.Runasuccessful,Ohio-basedpestcontrolcompany from a desk in St. Petersburg? Check. Tear out the old kitchen, rebuild the patio, create a covered area near the pool, plant bamboo, and make an interior wall look like a brick wall? All just part of the regular activities of our neighbors, Stephen and Kelly.

The renovations on the lovely corner home started nearly as soon as Stephen moved in to the house in April 2013.Thekitchenofthe1938home,hereports,wasseverely outdated, with older white cabinets and pink tile throughout the kitchen area and spreading into the breezeway that connected the house to the two-car garage. Mostly on his own, and with the help of some handy friends, Stephen gutted the kitchen and removed all the tile. The faucets and line to the refrigerator had been leaking for so long that the wood underneath them was “like mush.” He got there just in time, adding gorgeous tile to the floor in the kitchen, new cabinets and counters, and a cool backsplash. In addition, he widened what had been a small door from the main room into the kitchen, creating a clear view from the front to the back of the house.

Home of the Month: 2540 7th St. N.by Elisabeth Nevins Caswell

No Worries Here…


Continued on page 10

in for a weekend Bloody Mary, a glass of wine and a chat, or even some late-night festivities. For such purposes, the renovated pool area is ideal. It features bamboo that Kelly and Stephen planted, giving them privacy and a sense of a tropical oasis. They also added a ceiling over the part of the patio nearest the house, establishing a comfortable, cool seating area for friends to gather.

But they also enjoy lounging on their rescreened, rebuilt front porch, which gives them a chance to hail neighbors walking by. And they recently added a new find to the

front porch—a side table that they discovered in our last CHNA garage sale!

Just beyond the front door stands the brick wall. Stephen mountedOldChicagoSkinnyBricks(heoffersthefollowing link: www.skinnybrik.com) onto the existing plaster wall, then grouted them in place. The picture does

not quite do it justice; the wall is an eye-catching, dramatic moment that signals immediately to visitors they have entered a fun, funky, worry-free zone.

Kelly and Stephen need these oases in their home because they both use it as their office space as well. Kelly works out of the third bedroom; Stephen’s desk is off the dining area.


Noting that space can get a little tight at times—Stephen’s teenaged son lives there part-time, though his daughter has moved out—they have a grand plan for revising the layout of the three bedrooms in the house. What is now the master bedroom, with its small attached bath, will become “the boy’s room.” Then they will turn a hall closet into a half bath for guests and attach the current hall bath to the room that currently serves as Kelly’s office. That transformed room will be the new master bedroom. Finally, the remaining bedroom will serve as an all-purpose office. It’s an ambitious and exciting plan for the space. Thankfully, when it comes to Kelly and Stephen, there isn’t much that they can’t do.

Photo Credits: ©Elisabeth Nevins Caswell

Home of the Month, continued

Your Neighborhood Your Newsletter

We invite you as a resident ofCrescent Heights and active member of

our community to be a part of the newsletter. Maybe you would like to share a special

event in your family, highlight a good deed, share a recipe or poem, or tell a story about your pet. We welcome you to contribute to

the content of your newsletter.

Since we have an ace team for editingand layout, you do not need to be a writer to make your neighbors smile with your story. Email submissions (subject line “neighbor

share”) to [email protected] bythe 14th of the month prior to issue month.

All submissions subject to editing. Publication is at discretion of editor.


By SusanO’Gara

Mike Frederick, Manager of Neighborhood Transportation, City of St. Petersburg, was one of our guest speakers at the March 30th CHNA meeting. He discussed parking, traffic, and heavy trucks driving through the neighborhood and answered questions from those in the group. Mike also handed out a Crescent Heights’ Traffic Count Summary, a pamphletonResidentialParkingRegulations,andaSpeedKills Handout.

•TruckRoutesareassigned,butmanydriversdon’tknowthe rules. We have huge tractor trailers unloading now, but it is not practical to post No Truck signs everywhere.

•WiththeopeningofTraderJoe’s,therewasnottoomuchofaparkingproblem.Speedwatchsignson27th&28thstreets, in place for the opening, were educational and used only a couple of weeks.

•Addingpedestriancrosswalkson4thSt.wasalsodiscussed, Mike reminded the group that 4th St. is under theDOTofStateofFlorida,whichwouldhavetoapprovethese. He said a report has already been sent to the State and they are studying crosswalk needs.

•Mikeexplainedthatthepolicecan’tstopspeedviolators unless 10 miles mph over the posted limits in neighborhoods. He gave examples of traffic calming, such as raised intersections. Speed humps are the best and cheapest way of slowing traffic down. To obtain traffic calming measures, it must be verified that the 24-hour average operating speed is 35 mph or greater.

•Thespeedlimitinalleysis10mphbycityordinance.Speed limit signs can’t be posted in alleys because all property is private except for the paved alley. Speed stickers can be put on large garbage cans. If alley speeds are found to be over 15 mph, a petition from our neighborhood would be needed to get alley humps.

We discussed restricting parking on some or all north sides of avenues and west sides of streets. Mike made clear that a petition by CHNA would be needed to change parking ordinances.

Ourpresident,Kristen,calledforvolunteerstoformaTrafficCommittee to look at our grid pattern of stops and come up with logical breaks looking at balance and flow of traffic. The committee should also look at present parking and decide whether it should be changed to conform to city ordinance.

Traffic and Parking Issues Discussed at March 30th Meeting


CHNA PresidentKristen [email protected]

Community Service Officer(727)551-3182

Special Trash Pick-Up(727)-893-7398

Call Before You Dig1-800-432-4770

Police Non-Emergency(727)893-7780

Crime Tip Line(727)892-5000

Report Street Light Outage(location & pole # needed)1-800-228-8485

Mayor’s Action Line(727)893-7111

Important Contact Information


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GetthewordouttoallthehouseholdsinCrescentHeights.Contact Genine Thompson at [email protected] for details.

Buy a Crescent Heights Neighborhood flag and show your support!

Please contact Genine at [email protected] to place your order.

Flags cost $40, including delivery.

CHNA is accepting payments for 2015 memberships and this year we’re adding even more value.

Your CHNA membership card will allow for discounts at some of our favorite local businesses.

!

Join CHNA today!Help support the neighborhood and efforts to make this a great place to live. Cost is just $20 a year ( Jan.-Dec.). Join online and pay with PayPal at myCHNA.org!Orfilloutthemembershipformbelow and mail or bring to the next meeting.

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CHNA logo by Peter Bramley Crescent Heights Neighborhood ... · and the failure of voters to...

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