Review on Pinellas County (Jacksonville, Miami: fit in, transplants, real estate)

[ballotpoint]

Saint Petersburg is a great town and the North parts of Pinellas County can be a nice place to settle. Honestly, Pinellas County is for young professionals, college students and retired people. Otherwise, a family does not fit in here. I would say Tampa is better suited for family communities. Here are my reasons that I feel this way after living here so many years and why I am moving:

1) There are so many child molesters per mile that they can not even follow the law of living 1,000 feet from a school. Please put in your zip code and you will be disgusted how many predators are near.
2) No public transportation- PSTA is our bus system and that is the best you will get. Enough said.
3) No law enforcement- You will notice that after a crime happens to you and it will. The law can do nothing for you and have been directed to not write tickets, so there crime statistics stay low. I do have to say Largo PD does write tickets, so they are at work. The rest of the police officers hid and play on their laptops or talk on their cell phones day and night. (Sources: Several police officers)
4) No bike or walking safety- If you want to bike or walk, go for it! Downtown Saint Petersburg is the only safe place to ride or walk. Pinellas County does have some great parks to walk and ride. Otherwise, they will kill you out here.
5) Driving is terrible- Law enforcement does nothing to stop it. The locals say it is all the Northerners that have moved down here. I am not sure who's fault it is, but if police enforced the laws and set up speed traps, there would be no problem.
6) School system- If you do not send your child to a north county, then they will not be given a great education. At the same time and you can quote me on this, some teachers consider it a great year, if they have no black students in their classroom. There are great schools throughout this county, but some of these schools are window dressing, which does not address issues of education students. Now they pass students along, so they do not affect their FCAT scores, but once. Not to mention, all the teachers that sleep with students and not even 1% have made the news. Nobody cares. They just allow it to happen. Now if you put your child in the magnet program, your child will be fine. If you put your child in the traditional program, start saving up for bail or hospital bills.
7) Concrete Jungle- It is sickening how much of the land has been built on. They are leaving no nature areas, except for a few parks and the beach. Now they are talking about drilling offshore, so there goes the beaches!
8) Hurricane locked- If a hurricane is coming, rather you have to stay or leave really earl. Otherwise, you can not get out of here. You will find out how bad traffic is during a regular day going over to Tampa. Wait for hurricane. You will live out the hurricane in your car.
9) Traffic- Lights! Lights! Everywhere is lights. You waste most of your time sitting at lights. In fairness, Pinellas County is working on US19 to be a highway system. So they are trying.
10) Newlywed or nearly dead- If you do not fall into either one, pick somewhere else to live. Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando or one of our other great beach cities. This is not the place for you or your children!

[Mike Peterson]

Just about that whole post is your opinion and almost no facts.

Your opinions are, as always on these threads, wildly exagerated.

It is not a perfect area but no where near what you try to make it seem.

[Krulik]

Agreed! Here is a good example: "Not to mention, all the teachers that sleep with students and not even 1% have made the news".

[I_Want_Snow]

1) There are so many child molesters per mile that they can not even follow the law of living 1,000 feet from a school. Please put in your zip code and you will be disgusted how many predators are near.
Can you provide FACTS and/or links on this comparing it to other places?

2) No public transportation- PSTA is our bus system and that is the best you will get. Enough said.
Go buy a car...You can pick up decent cars for less than a grand that could last you a few years. I have bought many cars for between $400-$800 and each one last me for a couple years.

3) No law enforcement- You will notice that after a crime happens to you and it will. The law can do nothing for you and have been directed to not write tickets, so there crime statistics stay low. I do have to say Largo PD does write tickets, so they are at work. The rest of the police officers hid and play on their laptops or talk on their cell phones day and night. (Sources: Several police officers)
I lived in St. Pete for 4 years, I got 2 speeding tickets for doing 11 over and one for doing 13 over. I NEVER HAD a crime happen to me and I went out all the time all by myself all hours of the night.


4) No bike or walking safety- If you want to bike or walk, go for it! Downtown Saint Petersburg is the only safe place to ride or walk. Pinellas County does have some great parks to walk and ride. Otherwise, they will kill you out here.
What do you think the parks were designed for?? To walk and ride your bike... Duh St. Pete is a pretty decent size city, you walk to walk or ride your bike, go to some smaller surrounding city.

5) Driving is terrible- Law enforcement does nothing to stop it. The locals say it is all the Northerners that have moved down here. I am not sure who's fault it is, but if police enforced the laws and set up speed traps, there would be no problem.
Like I said, I got 2 tickets and I might add, they were the FIRST tickets I have ever gotten in my life. I also know of many of my friends who got tickets for speeding, following too close, and running red lights. So you saying Law Enforcement is terrible is your general ignorant opinion.

6) School system- If you do not send your child to a north county, then they will not be given a great education. At the same time and you can quote me on this, some teachers consider it a great year, if they have no black students in their classroom. There are great schools throughout this county, but some of these schools are window dressing, which does not address issues of education students. Now they pass students along, so they do not affect their FCAT scores, but once. Not to mention, all the teachers that sleep with students and not even 1% have made the news. Nobody cares. They just allow it to happen. Now if you put your child in the magnet program, your child will be fine. If you put your child in the traditional program, start saving up for bail or hospital bills.
I can't comment on this one since I don't have kids. But to say nobody cares about teachers sleeping with students, again shows how ignorant you are.

7) Concrete Jungle- It is sickening how much of the land has been built on. They are leaving no nature areas, except for a few parks and the beach. Now they are talking about drilling offshore, so there goes the beaches!
Isn't this the way most decent size cities are? When you have 1000's of transplants moving to a place, they have to build to keep up with the population. You don't like, move to Central FL.

8) Hurricane locked- If a hurricane is coming, rather you have to stay or leave really earl. Otherwise, you can not get out of here. You will find out how bad traffic is during a regular day going over to Tampa. Wait for hurricane. You will live out the hurricane in your car.
That is why you leave when they suggest you leave. There is plenty of warnings for hurricanes. If you choose to stay till last minute and then leave, once again it's nothing but your own ignorance.

9) Traffic- Lights! Lights! Everywhere is lights. You waste most of your time sitting at lights. In fairness, Pinellas County is working on US19 to be a highway system. So they are trying.
I have lived in Michigan, Florida, Georgia, Texas. And there are just as many traffic lights in FL as there were at those places. This statement is just dumb. When you hundreds of thousands of people living in an area, you need traffic lights.

10) Newlywed or nearly dead- If you do not fall into either one, pick somewhere else to live. Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando or one of our other great beach cities. This is not the place for you or your children!
I am not a newlywed and I am far from dead. If I had a chance to move back to FL it would be the Pinellas County area and the odds are I would move back to St. Pete.

Moderator cut: comment

You don't like Pinellas County or St. Pete pack and move, no one is stopping you!! All your comments are just your opinion and opinions very.

[On-da-Beach]

I've just realized that all the teachers are child molesters! Since there is no public transportation, they are all speeding to get to schools and sleep with the students before a hurricane comes. And the police won't give them tickets or prosecute their crimes!
So as long as we're opinionating...I think posters should pass an IQ test before starting threads that are just plain stupid.

[ballotpoint]

All of these replies shows the attitude of people from Pinellas County. I gave an honest personal OPINION. Please do a search of the child molesters in your neighborhood before you buy or rent a place. It will shock you and your real estate agent will never show you this information. Also, ask people about the schools before you move. Actually, I decided to write this after I heard a group of adults and teenagers talking about these issues. They had been to other places for the holidays and found people to be nicer, public systems to run smoother and a sense of community, not a bunch of angry people bunched together in a concrete jungle. I am giving you sound advice. Pinellas County does have its positives, but its negatives are heavier these days.

[lavender]

I am somewhat saddened to read your harsh criticism of Pinellas County. I am not young professional, retired, college student or child molester. I am a mother of two teenagers, one of whom is about to go to college with a good IB diploma from a south county high school. I have another 11th grader, who will follow her from a mid county high school. They both have been through the public school system and have not been molested, run over, whilst biking to and from school, or been victim to any of the other terrible things you claim are rampant in this county. My husband and I both work (me part time) and have been welcomed, as foreigners to this county and to the community from friends who range from working class immigrants, to the highest members of Pinellas county society.

I do agree there is much that could be done to improve life here, but to say that it's perilous for children and not a place for families is not appropriate. Please don't lump me in with the few people in Pinellas county out of hundreds of thousands of regular families, who have given you a bad taste to our wonderful county. I totally do not agree with your opinion that there are more negatives than positives. Hillsborough County has a huge problem with child crime I know this as this is a field with which I am very familiar, knowing social workers and family judges from Tampa. Crime in general is a problem there too, it's way to simplistic to blame it on a group of people or a location.

I do hope you find a place that works for you, it may well be Tampa, we love Pinellas county and do not find it changed for the worse in our 10 yrs hear.