South Brooksville Airs Concerns

BROOKSVILLE - City of Brooksville Vice Mayor Frankie Burnett set the tone of Tuesday's neighborhood meeting in South Brooksville by urging residents to focus on future improvements and not getting too caught up in past mistakes of the county.

To that end, he asked the 25 or so people gathered at Lorenzo Hamilton Community Center in Kennedy Park to come up with a list of capital improvement projects for their area - ideas that will be formally written down and delivered to county commissioners as they craft their 2008-09 budget.

"We want to work collaboratively together and ensure some things get done," Burnett said.

He also asked the crowd to be patient and not expect those capital improvements overnight.

Burnett had the right county people there to hear the peoples' concerns: County Administrator David Hamilton, Community Relations Coordinator Brenda Frazier, County Commissioners Diane Rowden and Chris Kingsley, Parks Director Pat Fagan, County Engineer Charles Mixson, Assistant County Engineer Greg Sutton, and a contingent of sheriff's office deputies.

And the concerns were many: better street lighting along Josephine Street, more parking at Kennedy Park, improvements to Lorenzo Hamilton Community Center, road upgrades, removal of dangerous ditches, flooding, and more sidewalks so people can walk safely to and from school.

Wayman Boggs, president of the Hernando County branch of the NAACP - which co-hosted the meeting - thanked Hamilton and county staffers for their commitment to South Brooksville and promised there would be more meetings to come.

"We are trying to build bridges and this is a beginning," Boggs said.

The 70-minute meeting sprang out of a May 6 community budget workshop called by Hamilton.

At that workshop, Hamilton learned there were other things on people's mind besides the budget - things related solely to South Brooksville.

Tuesday's attendees wanted to know what the county planned to do to improve services to South Brooksville, an area they said has been neglected for years by the county.

Now, with threatened budget cuts, they worry their area will be even harder hit.

A big topic of conversation was whether the county planned to cut spending on the contaminated former public works building in downtown Brooksville.

That won't happen, Sutton assured residents.

In fact, the county plans to go ahead with a preliminary cleanup of the site while waiting for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to review past assessment reports, he said.

Fagan said Kennedy Park improvements are already slated - with 46-48 more parking spaces planned.

Also foremost on people's minds was law enforcement protection and more social services.

Several residents said they wanted more of a police presence on the streets.

Chief Deputy Michael Hensley said a community center - with a sheriff's substation - at the corner of West Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard and East Jefferson Street is already in the planning stages, with funding emanating from seized drug money, not taxpayers' money.

Now, it's only a matter of seeing if there is enough money in the budget to staff the substation, Hensley said.

Hensley said the sheriff's office can build substations and maintain a presence. But ultimately, it's up to parents and the community itself to police itself and take an active role, he said.

Another community meeting is planned. But before that happens, Burnett and Hamilton plan to walk the streets of South Brooksville to see up close the condition of the roads and walkways.

That walk is scheduled for 9 a.m. Saturday, June 28.

Burnett urged anyone interested who wants to take walk along to meet in the parking lot of Kennedy Park at that time.