Welcome Officer Michael Swim and Officer B.J. Cassidy

Let’s hear it for the City of Atlantic Beach and Capt. Mike Classey for giving the Mayport Corridor 2 officers to bring back small town policing. Officer's Swims and Cassidy are going to do some serious foot work to get to know us. They are going to help improve our relationship with the police and get out meet us. The two officers will be patrol on foot and bicycle to make them selves more visible to us. Swims and Cassidy will be patrolling mainly on the weekends and early evenings to meet us and also talk about any problems we are having the area. So if you see them out and about feel free to flag them down and kindly introduce yourself to them. They should be starting their patrol in Mid-August.

I would like to personally welcome Officer Michael Swim and Officer B.J. Cassidy to your new positions and we will be seeing you around.

Lets Give Props

Lets give props to our city officials, business owners, and even those residents that go above and beyond the call of duty. If you have a Atlantic Beach Professional or Citizen who you would like to recognize for there achievements in the community and who is asset to our govt. Please email me their information. We are starting a recognition program for our officials and residents to let them know how they are appreciated. We will send out nice certificates to the individuals, and once a year the one person who is nominated the most will get a gift certificate for there extra ordinary efforts in our community. Please email Lindsay at LLibhart@poolsbylibhart.com with the persons name, address or phone number (preferably the address), your name and a short paragraph as to why you think they have gone above the call of duty. We will also post the paragraph of our "Lets Give Props" person on the right hand side of this blog. We look forward to getting your submissions.

Want to get something off your chest....

If you have any thing you would want to post or comment about, both positive and negative. Feel free to either email me to either post the article as a different identity or in your name, or if you even want to frequently post articles you can be a co-author of this blog. We are open to your community interests or even if you want to let everyone know about an event, it is a great venue for you to post your notice. I look forward to either hearing from you or posting your post. Once again when posting either through me or being added as a co-author it is extremely important to sound professional and factual, and profanity is strictly prohibited. Thanks Neighbors.

The Palms - Its an EYESORE

Welcome to the Beautiful area of Atlantic Beach and Mayport. On the right is a deserted building much like that found in blighted urban American cities. The owner had every intention of building beautiful luxury condos on the land but then the economy took a hit. Being in the construction industry I have felt this crunch more than ever so I can empathize to an extent. But I am also a citizen of this community and look at those horrible shells at least 6 times or more a day. This is my gateway to my home. I know the city has been trying to work with the owner to come to some sort of conclusion to this investment property, but who knows when the resolve will be. I would love to see some beautiful buildings on that lot but at this moment I would also love to see a big open field and those shells demolished. It might not be a bad idea to clear the land to make available for sale to another investor. But I do believe because of this issue the city has implemented codes and regulations to try to stop this from happening again. If anyone has any facts on the Palms please feel free to comment. Please also do not forget that our local government and the person who owns the property are both professionals.

Mayport Road Issues and Organization

Many of you are really concerned with the Mayport Road redevelopment.

Here is project def from COAB Dec. 12, 2005:
Mayport Road (SR A1A/101) is an urban, minor arterial roadway, under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). The Cities of Atlantic Beach and Jacksonville have identified the need for Access Management Strategies along Mayport Road to reduce the frequency and severity of motor vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian crashes along the corridor.

This is strictly from what I know, I would love for a city official to tap in if possible. My main goal is to make sure I do not misinterpret anything and lead us in the wrong direction.

I do agree that the construction is the pits but personally I kind of went through my issues with Mayport Road during the construction of the flyover. I felt that the flyover should not have been constructed until Wonderwood was completed, so I was against its construction. We too have to make u-turns or drive 10 blocks out of our way to get to our homes. But it was a construction project that FDOT also had their hand in. One thing that we have to realize is our small govt. and even the City of Jacksonville have an obligation to follow the recommendations of the FDOT in order to get the funding for the project. Our city officials have little pull on the decisions made by the FDOT. We can beat up the city as much as we want to but one strong point that must be made is that the construction is not completed and we have no idea what the long term ramifications of this will do to our community and the safety of our citizens. The road is being completed in phases we have just gone though one small phase of construction and have several more to contend with. They still are going to assess the light issues and recalibration of the walking signals, they still have to scrape the roads and repave amongst other things. As for the businesses, I am not to sure they have been loosing any revenue due to the construction or U-turns, if there are business owners who have lost revenue since the construction start please feel free to comment and update me. The construction also consists of U-Turn pop outs to give you more room on your U-Turn. Working along with the Construction effort the city has implemented Dale Hatfield who will work with the businesses and residents to follow code regulations to make our city more presentable to those who drive down Mayport Road. The policing efforts to crack down on crime in the corridor will also be a big plus for us. I do understand the stress and tension the construction has caused but it is not finished yet. We have many trials and tribulations to yet still be explored before we can finalize our decisions on the construction.

Mayport Road Updates

Work is underway on the Mayport Road coridor. I have personally had experience with many construction projects and I would like to hand out a compliment to Rick Harper and the team that is handeling this project. The work is being done with minimal interuption to traffic. I personaly cannot wait to see the improvements finished.

However they cannot forsee many of the interuptions and difficulties that we the residents of this area have to deal with on a daily basis. I encourage anyone who is experiencing any difficulty to post problems under this post. Also please contact Mr. Carper. his information is listed below. He puts out a weekly briefing on the progress of work. If you would like to recieve this simply email him and request to be on the mailing list.

Ricky L. Carper, P.E. Public Works Director/City Engineer City of Atlantic Beach 1200 Sandpiper Lane Atlantic Beach, FL 32233 rcarper@coab.us PH: (904) 247-5834 Fax: (904) 247-5843

Crime We Know About

I would like to try to keep as many people as possible informed about what I know about local crime. I know we had a shooting at the 2'nd West and Main Street area. Police said it was just a fight, but they did shoot a fire arm. If you want to comment back about local crime; so we can all stay involved and get a better idea of how we can stay safe, feel free to comment. Also we started a Neighborhood Watch meeting with the help of Det. Tiffany Layson. For now it reaches the span of Main Street from 3'rd to 6'th West. After we get more organized we can span out to those neighbors interested in joining. If you would like to start a neighborhood watch of your own, please contact Det. Layson with the Atlantic Beach Police Department and she can help you out with your block organization.
Cuddos to Pam H. for catching robbers in the act a few months back. We, on our block, have had minor theft. Several residents have had delivery packages taken from there porches while they were away, these are all things that we have to keep an eye out for. Please report them to the local police non-emergency number, so they can focus on the issue at large.

Lets Stand up For our Neighborhood

Over the years, we have had a horrible relationship with the Atlantic Beach officials. As you all know up until the most recent years we were simply the eyesore of AB. Now we are gaining attention, and in a positive way. The City of AB has employed a representative for the Mayport Corridor, Dale Hatfield, who is going to help up get the attention we need. They are taking the right steps towards improving our communications with the city and police. But it is our job to make sure that they are not going to do this until things settle down and we quiet down. We need to make sure that this becomes years of an on going program. This Blog is a way for all of us to let each other know about the issues in our neighborhoods. I personally know how hard it is to make it to the city meetings and/or the neighborhood meetings, hopefully this will help all of us to stay informed as to the happenings on OUR side of town. Just remember one thing, when we point our fingers in a negative way towards our officials, it is a natural response to block out negativity. We need to prove that we are here because we love this neighborhood and are a part of this great city of Atlantic Beach. We also need to take steps to get rid of the crime and make sure we all are informed about the issues. We can take back our neighborhood it will just take the assistance of all of us to do it.