Ralph Dallas Jr., 73, grew up two streets over from the former Austin’s Groceries, 160 Louis Broer Road, where law students, activists and determined Putnam County residents spoke Friday about creating a community development agency.
“We truly was a village, if you can define what a village is,” said Dallas, a former president of the NAACP. “I think we did all aspects of what (villages) entail. We had churches, schools. We had infrastructure.”
Dallas and others want the area in the area between Cracker Swamp, Turner, Yelvington roads and Putnam County Boulevard to be a redevelopment community. That could happen with the help of lawyer Thomas Hawkins, the director of the UF law school’s Environmental and Community Development Clinic. The clinic is an experience-based learning program that helps students apply their knowledge, Hawkins said. He and his students spent Friday morning and afternoon surveying buildings and land in East Palatka.
They conducted research and hope to put together their findings by the end of April to see if the community could qualify to be a community redevelopment agency, Hawkins explained.
“If we find that it does meet the criteria in law, then the county could create a community redevelopment agency there,” he said. “That would allow them to, without raising taxes, focus financial resources and attention on improvements to the community, which I think just would be a wonderful, wonderful thing for East Palatka.”
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