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County Halts Crape Myrtle Upkeep

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By YVETTE HAMMETT, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 10, 2007

RIVERVIEW - The business community here is hustling to find a way to keep the bright pink crape myrtles along U.S. 301 from getting the county ax.

Members of the Greater Riverview Chamber of Commerce will meet Thursday to try to get local businesses to pick up the tab.

The flowering trees were planted in the median on the state road in 1999 after the chamber received an $80,000 matching grant from Hillsborough County and the state to beautify the highway medians. Today, 121 of the trees survive from Bloomingdale Avenue to Gibsonton Drive.

Since they were planted, responsibility for maintenance of the trees and the surrounding grass has gone from the chamber to the Hillsborough County Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation to the county Public Works Department.

With a lean budget and a county commission looking for ways to tighten the belt, maintenance for the state-owned medians is ending, said Julie Johnaboeke, a general manager for Public Works. The county had contracted out the maintenance work and was paying about $14,000 a year for the median upkeep.

'It's because it's a state highway,' Johnaboeke said. 'We would have had to sign a new agreement for 10 years, and the commission didn't want to make that commitment.'

The agreement with the county ended Sept. 30, but the county consented to give the chamber two months to resolve the issue, Johnaboeke said.

'We've talked to some of our landscape partners, and what we're talking about is a little bit of mulch and fertilizer, irrigation' and litter pickup, said chamber President Jim Johnson.

'We're trying to see if we can get businesses to sponsor sections,' he said. The trees are planted along a 2 1/2 -mile stretch of highway median, Johnson said. 'Basically, we would put it out for bid, once we got commitments from the businesses.'

The chamber would oversee the maintenance contract or contracts, and answer to the state and to the county, he said.

The state has agreed to allow the chamber to post small wooden signs in each section of median naming the business sponsoring maintenance there, Johnson said. His group is trying to determine the maintenance cost for each section.

'We're working on it,' Johnson said. 'We want to save our trees.'

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 657-4532 or at yhammett@tampatrib.com.

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