Citizens express concerns about homeless gathering in Gillespie Park

(Last week, This Week in Sarasota presented Part I in a series of stories about Citizens’ Input at City Commission meetings. Those quoted in the story appeared during the afternoon session. In this story, we hear from citizens who spoke at the evening sessions and expressed concerns about the growing number of homeless people hanging out in Gillespie Park. Additional installments will look at citizen opposition to a new Wal-Mart on Ringling Boulevard and citizen support for changes to parking enforcement hours.)

During the evening session of the Dec. 3 Sarasota City Commission meeting, 21 citizens signed up to address commissioners during Citizens’ Input. More than half of those who spoke addressed issues pertaining to the homeless, with many Gillespie Park residents sharing concerns about the homeless converging on the city park that shares the same name as the neighborhood surrounding it.

Because of the large number of citizens signed up to speak during the evening session, Mayor Suzanne Atwell proposed that each speaker be limited to two minutes instead of the normal three minutes in an effort to limit Citizens’ Input to roughly 30 minutes, which is common practice when so many wish to address commissioners.

City Clerk Pam Nadalini then read the city’s Pledge of Conduct: “We may disagree, but we will be respectful of one another. We will direct all comments to issues. We will avoid personal attacks.” After the “pledge of civility,” citizens were called up, five at a time, to take a seat at the table that faces the commissioners.

The New Hotspot

Gillespie Park resident Dale Orlando was the first to speak, expressing concerns about “the influx of homeless people” spending their days in Gillespie Park, which is located a couple blocks north of Fruitville Road and a block west of U.S. 301.Orlando mentioned unsightly amounts of trash left behind by park users and expressed her opinion that removing the park benches from other city parks (namely, Five Points Park) has led to greater numbers of homeless people gathering at Gillespie Park.

“The solution is not musical benches for Sarasota,” she told commissioners. “I hope this group will consider coming up with a commission or an advisory group to develop some long-term solutions.”

Orlando’s comments illustrate to some degree the commission’s approach of “kicking the can down the road” when addressing homelessness. Until the homeless have more job opportunities, more services and some legitimate options pertaining to where they spend their free time, this problem is simply going to move from one public space to another.Occupy Sarasota activist Chris Young thanked Commissioner Paul Caragiulo for his efforts to modify the local noise ordinance before addressing the commission’s methods of addressing homelessness.

“It’s time for an emergency election. You guys failed,” he said, suggesting that an entire new commission be elected or that the city government be disbanded entirely, with the county government absorbing it.

Young referred to the “sick video” that surfaced in late November showing Sarasota Police Officer Derrick Gilbert throwing a homeless man face-first into an automated ticketing booth at the downtown bus terminal. The officer is now on paid suspension pending an internal investigation.

“Officers are not above the law, folks. Wake up,” Young said, also calling for equal disciplinary measures to be imposed on the SCAT-employed security guard that stood idly by while the incident took place.

Concluding his remarks, Young turned toward the new city manager and said, “Mr. Barwin, I hope you do a better job.”

Holland's Opus

City commission candidate and Gillespie Park Neighborhood Association President Linda Holland told commissioners she had been contacted by numerous neighbors regarding the “increased negative activity” taking place in the park over the past two months.Holland owns many rental properties in the area and has spent the past two decades advocating for the neighborhood in her efforts to see it live up to its full potential.

She reeled off a litany of alleged park violations that included smoking, drinking, public urination, leaving behind excessive trash, discarding cigarette butts in the pavilion area, drug use, drug trafficking and prostitution.

“It’s a beautiful park and we worked long and hard for many years to make the kind of park that everybody can use, but there’s a group that’s just become abusive in relation to their use of the park,” she said.

Holland showed commissioners photos of trash and uneaten food left in the park on Thanksgiving Day and said, “The folks grilled food on the grill and then they left it so the rodents could come get it. The problem now, regretfully, is this is the standard of the park. It has gotten to the point where something has to be done.”

One of the acts Holland mentioned---smoking in the park---is no longer illegal. One week after the last commission meeting of the year, Sarasota County Judge Maryann Boehm declared the city ordinance banning smoking in public parks was legally unenforceable, striking down an ordinance aimed directly at the homeless.

Seven more Gillespie Park residents addressed commissioners on this issue.

Bill Holland suggested installing security cameras in the park.Julie Bentley said, “There’s definitely a subculture in the park that use the park that tend to be the messy people. They smoke a lot of dope, a lot of Spice (synthetic marijuana). You can smell it, clouds of it.”

Bentley suggested putting a sign in the park informing users that they are under surveillance, with neighbors sitting in the park in pairs and using their cell phones to inform police of illegal activities.

Citing a dramatic increase in people congregating in the park, Janice Holland said, “They take over the pavilion. No families with small children use the pavilion anymore. In the past, they used to have children’s birthday parties almost every Saturday and they no longer do that.”

She mentioned people sleeping on park benches overnight, using tree branches as fuel for their cooking fires and discarding chicken bones on sidewalks that create a choking hazard for passing dogs.

Charles Morris eloquently stated his case, saying, “This is not an effort to attack homeless individuals, nor to portray them negatively. The individuals to which I am about to refer, and their behavior, are not of homeless individuals, but are individuals who have no respect, no regard for any other individual that may want to enjoy or use the park. Nor do they have any concern for the residents of the neighborhood surrounding the park.”

Morris concluded his remarks by encouraging commissioners to “help those that need help” while also addressing those “that are simply breaking the law.”

My Old Neighborhood Having formerly lived in the Gillespie Park neighborhood, where I frequently walked my dog, Mellie, this author sympathizes with the concerns expressed by those residents. Yet, I find it incredulous to hear reports of rampant drug use, drug dealing, prostitution and other illegal activities taking place within 100 yards of the police substation located at the southwest end of the park.

By failing to patrol their own backyard and allowing these criminal acts to take place, these officers and the department they work for are as much to blame for the decline of the park as those committing the offenses.

At the same time, I believe that anyone using the park, regardless of their social status, should treat the park and its visitors in a respectful and law-abiding manner. Being homeless does not entitle one to boorish or illegal behavior and such behavior only contributes to public disdain for the homeless.

A proactive solution would be to assign an officer or two to patrol the park from open to close, getting to know the park users and respectfully enforcing the existing laws regardless of the park visitor’s economic or social status.

I realize this might be a drain on police department resources, but this is known as “community policing,” and from what I’ve been told, these are the kinds of ideas that appeal to incoming Police Chief Bernadette DiPino, who arrives in January.

In the meantime, City Manager Tom Barwin and interim Police Chief Paul Sutton have been asked to assemble a “homeless task force” in an effort to address the types of issues raised by concerned citizens.

Mayor Atwell mentioned the task force during her commissioner’s report, saying, “I’m already getting calls and meeting with people who want to partake in that,” noting that she envisions a group that represents a wide spectrum of stakeholders at both the city and county levels.

The mayor concluded her remarks by saying, “Just like at Five Points, I firmly believe with this we have a call to action, and that means we get beyond the ideology, we get beyond the dreaming and do what we need to do to get this thing moving in all the neighborhoods.”

It remains to be seen whether this task force will accomplish anything, or accomplish anything that benefits the homeless community, but at least the commissioners are responding to the concerns of the citizens and expanding their efforts to address homelessness in Sarasota.

A Thought to Bank On

In regard to the homeless in Five Points Park, Gillespie Park and throughout Sarasota, Steve McAllister offered an interesting perspective, saying, “This is a symptom of our society. Unfortunately, it’s lopsided, it’s economically unbalanced. We have fiscal system that we use as our economic system that crashed 13 times in 17 years and it’s not a good way to develop civilization.”

He explained that he and others affiliated with the Transition Sarasota movement have started something called The Common Wealth Time Bank, an alternative form of “currency” launched on Labor Day that currently boasts more than 180 members.

According to McAllister, the system is based on five core values: “We are all assets; Some work is beyond price; Helping works better as a two-way street; We need each other; and Every human being deserves respect.”

McAllister said he hopes to speak with commissioners at greater length in the future about this barter-based effort that ideally would account for every hour of service given to the community.

“For each hour of service anyone gives, you get a time dollar and you can use with anyone else in the community for any other service you need,” he said.

“So far it has been exchanged for food, it has been used for shelter and it has been used for help with gardening, with medical care and alternative healing. There are a number of ways we can realize the abundance that we have as a community without relying on an unsound fiscal plan that, as we’ve seen, just isn’t holding up.”