Future of Neighborhood Enhancement Program is in doubt
City officials agree that residents need to become more involved.
The future of Rome’s ambitious Neighborhood Enhancement Program, an extended focus on city services in specific communities across town, is shrouded in mystery moving forward. Commissioners and department heads spent over an hour during Tuesday’s Community Development committee meeting hashing out the pro’s and con’s of the three previous efforts.
“We still haven’t landed on the right model for our community,” said committee Chairwoman Wendy Davis. The first two efforts were 90day programs in North Rome, followed by a much shorter 30-day event in Summerville Park.
“The sustainability component from the neighborhoods was not being met,” Assistant City manager Patrick Eidson said. “I performed a drive through of Blossom Hill (North Rome) 90 days after the last day of our 90-day period and it was kind of an eye opening experience for me. We were not happy with the results.” Basically, Eidson said you couldn’t tell the city had made a concentrated effort to improve the look of the neighborhood.
Eidson said it was clear from his perspective that, if the program was continued and a neighborhood is selected for a focused enhancement effort, it needed to have some “skin in the game.”
Fire safety educator Linda Patty said residents need to undergo a fundamental change of their mindset when it comes to taking some responsibility for their own community.
“As an adult, you should care, but not everybody is going to do that,” Patty said.
Various department heads said the program took a lot of resources, from infrastructure work done by street department personnel to garbage collection to code enforcement, away from other responsibilities across the city.
Community Development Director Bekki Fox said she felt like the entire program was a city response to some North Rome community leaders desire for a major revitalization similar to what has happened with the South Rome Redevelopment Agency over the last almost two decades.
Fox said one major benefit that may have come out of the neighborhood enhancement was having the police department build closer relationships with residents in the communities. Assistant Chief of Police Debbie Burnett said that as positive as the relationship building has been, the program also stretched the already short police department staff very thin.
Eidson said if the program was going to continue in the future, he would not recommend a 90-day effort.
“It’s too much,” Eidson said.
Keep Rome-Floyd Beautiful Director Mary Hardin Thornton said she liked the idea of having a Citizens Academy, where representatives from various communities could come together once a month over an extended period of time to learn more about what the city can and cannot do for their communities. One month the emphasis might be on law enforcement, the next month it might be public works. Donnie Barrett, head of the Solid Waste department, said he liked the Citizens Academy idea as well because,
“It’s incumbent on every citizen to be a part of their neighborhood if they want a better neighborhood. We can’t come in there and fix it for them.”
“I think it’s all a matter of pride and education,” concluded Commissioner Bill Irmscher.
Eidson and city staff left the meeting without any clear indication as to what direction the commissioners would like to take for the future of the Neighborhood Enhancement program.