The Real Legacy of Clearwater's Mayor

You might have read some place about Clearwater's mayor, Frank Hibbard, single-handedly tearing down some of the city's playgrounds. What was written was not an accurate and fair assessment of our mayor. Unless he is doing this in the middle of the night it would seem pretty strange as he is only one vote on a council of five members.

In 2005 Clearwater's Parks and Recreation department proposed reducing the number of playgrounds in the city. The goal was to reduce costs by eliminating maintenance, inspections, and insurance premiums associated with playgrounds. A plan was created to remove some older playgrounds when the equipment had exceeded its useful life. The new plan called for playgrounds not to be further than one mile from where any resident lived in Clearwater.

The Trust for Public Land, a land conservation group that promotes conservation, protection and preservation of public land, compiles an annual report on public playgrounds per capita. The 2010 City Parks Facts report is available on-line and provides insight into measuring how cities in the United States rank with regard to playgrounds.

(*)Since Clearwater is not a large enough municipality to be included in the report data was obtained and compiled from other reliable sources. 

Overall Clearwater is not that far from the U.S. median and technically 20 playgrounds is the goal for 2019, not the current higher number. The Trust for Public Land also measures how much cities expend per resident for parks and recreation.

(*) Once again Clearwater was not a large enough municipality to be included in the report so data was obtained and compiled from other reliable sources.

Clearwater expends a significant amount on parks and recreation for our quality of life. It does a very good job of it too. It puts a lot of pride into maintaining its swimming pools, recreation centers, bike trails, tennis courts, ball fields, playgrounds, youth camps, fitness courses and many other recreational events and facilities. Go out and take a look at some.

There is more to neighborhoods than just playgrounds. Our mayor, and city council, look at the bigger picture and you can frequently see them out and about talking with citizens at various events and functions. By asking and engaging in dialogue with residents and visitors they get a better understanding of what is taking place.

The Parks and Recreation department gets a lot of input to help with planning and decision-making too. It conducts surveys like the recent perception survey that asked residents about items of importance. There are also many volunteer residents that serve and assist as aides or Parks and Recreation Advisory Board members too. It is not the mayor that single-handedly makes these decisions.  He only gets to deliver the message and take the darts and arrows.

Could things be improved? Sure but you would be hard pressed to find anyone more dedicated than our mayor who works very hard at this insane part-time job.  When he is not working he uses his down time to go out and work towards promoting and making sure Clearwater is a great place to live. Just go to any non-profit meeting or city sponsored event and he is probably there, working and promoting Clearwater. How he explained his job as part-time to his family has got to be one of his greatest sells of all time.

The legacy Mayor Hibbard is going to leave is one of helping to chart and guide a course of leading Clearwater through some tough turbulent times. Under his watch he helped bring a lot of issues in for a landing, and saw to it that when things needed attention he addressed it. His experience and knowledge helped Clearwater pay less for debt instruments and he found ways to make a tight budget workable.  He didn't always make the right choice but he lead by making a choice. He delivered the city's messages on good days and on days he probably wished he was a million miles away.

His legacy will be that he served Clearwater with passion, committment and dedication and continued to help make it a great place to live. Thank you Mayor Hibbard. The citizens of Clearwater owe you a debt most will never understand and very few will ever repay.

Contact us to find out more about the Clearwater Neighborhoods Coalition.  You can comment about this blog below or you can take this to our forum.

Clearwater Neighborhoods Coalition