At today’s City Commission retreat, the commissioners unanimously voted to rename the Southern Strategy Area (SSA) to the Southside Action Plan (SAP). They also appointed Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox as the lead commissioner for the SAP.
Williams-Cox said the SSA’s goals were not achieved because it was not a priority.
“It didn’t happen because it was not a priority. It is now a priority,” she said.
The SSA plan was originally adopted 23 years ago to counteract “an unbalanced development pattern occurring over several decades” in which the northern and eastern portions of the City saw higher growth trends. The SSA encompassed 14,323 acres, with 81% located within the city limits and 19% in unincorporated areas of the county.
Since the creation of the SSA over two decades ago as part of the Tallahassee-Leon County Comprehensive Plan, there have only been six proposed updates presented to the City and County Commissions. The primary objective of the SSA was to “encourage quality land development and redevelopment” with the goals of population growth, expansion of business and job opportunities and “attaining an income mix in the SSA comparable to the remainder of the urbanized community.”
Demographics in the area differ from the rest of Leon County. In a population summary from 1970 to 2019, the percentage of homeowners in the area decreased from 51% to 31%, with renters increasing from 49% to 66%. Since 1980, the unemployment rate in the area was nearly double that of the rest of the County.
Moving forward, the SAP will include assessments of the areas housing trends, infrastructure projects and needs, public and private developments, and identification of other “constraints that limit the growth and redevelopment” of the area. Another primary goal for the SAP during 2021 is community outreach.
City Commission Votes to Rename the Southern Strategy Area to the Southside Action Plan added by Meagan Martinez on
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Sap. Ironic.
Excellent post, Vernon, and 100% dead-nuts-on.
“It didn’t happen because it was not a priority. It is now a priority,” she said.
Social engineering never works unless you’re running a communist government with no personal liberty or freedoms. It will NOT work in a free society no matter how much taxpayer money you throw at it, or how high priority you place on it. You can subsidize business to relocate there but you can’t make them profitable, You can give people first rate housing, but that doesn’t change their perspective. You can’t make safe neighborhoods by just “wishing it to be”. The best way to help people change their circumstances is simply to accept personal responsibility for themselves and teach it to their children.
We have had leftist government in charge during the entire time frame being discussed the entire 23 years. The situation speaks loudly to leftist governing practices. Leftists do not actually have to do anything other than speak about caring about an injustice to be given credit politically regarding the injustice. In fact it is in every leftist governing body’s best interest not to actually resolve such injustices. Without perceived injustices and leftist politicians scamming the public by claiming to care about them the entire leftist political machine would be broken thus resulting in the public voting conservatives into power. This leftist basic tenant of political success is why inequities of rich side vs poor side of town can be talked about in a caring way but must never actually be resolved. Same thing about real or perceived racism which needs to be maintained not resolved in order for leftist politicians to remain in power.
Renaming to The Southside Action Plan is in line with what was just explained above. And a vast percentage of our citizens will (as planed by the leftist play book of politics) read about the renaming and see it as proof their elected officials care and thus are worthy and good.
Yet, they can’t make firefighters a priority.
Tell me one Company that would want to spend Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars building a Building on the South Side only to have a punk kid show up in the middle of the night with Spray Paint to deface it?
Get the Crime down and get tough on the Criminals FIRST. But then again, you would have to admit that it is the Blacks that do most of the crimes and we all know you will never do that.
“Moving forward, the SAP will include assessments of the areas housing trends, infrastructure projects and needs, public and private developments, and identification of other “constraints that limit the growth and redevelopment” of the area. Another primary goal for the SAP during 2021 is community outreach.”
Sounds like we’ll be hiring a lot of expensive “consultants” to do “studies” and powerpoint presentations. I guess its “Graft as Usual”
I must say I’m surprised at the name change though. In this current PC Cancel Culture environment, and given that the term “southside” has a decades-long negative connotation attached to it… it seems an odd choice.
“We shall never truly end segregation, until we first stop knowingly and willingly segregating ourselves.” ~ Edward Lyle