DATE: Friday, June 13, 1997                 TAG: 9706110120

SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS     PAGE: 02   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: IDA KAY'S PORTSMOUTH 

SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan 

                                            LENGTH:   68 lines

CALL THE COORDINATOR, AND TALK SOME TRASH

Got a complaint about trash on your street?

Or an idea about making your neighborhood beautiful?

Are you interested in volunteering your skills to help landscape some of the city's schools?

Or is your forte working as a volunteer to teach young people the importance of helping keep the city and its waterways clean?

Well, Claudia Cox-Wynn, the city's new clean community coordinator, wants to hear from you. She's the center of all the city's efforts to clean and beautify, and she already has hit the ground running in her new job.

On Saturday, for the first time in a number of years, a citywide coordinated effort will be made for Clean the Bay Day.

``I was late getting started, of course, but we're lucky because we have the Navy and the Coast Guard who want to help,'' she said.

Having a coordinator will make a difference, said Jim Gildea, the city's planning director.

``When the city did a major downsizing two or three years ago, the job was eliminated, and the tasks were given to a number of other people,'' he said. ``The public never knew who to call, and we had no way to mobilize volunteers. Claudia is rapidly changing that.''

Gildea said there's no way to have an effective clean community effort without having a single individual as the focal point.

``She will be able to coordinate city resources and organize citizens,'' he said.

City Council will appoint a volunteer Clean Community Commission to back up the new coordinator. A total of 27 members will represent each of the city's nine planning districts equally. They will be the community liaisons.

Cox-Wynn has been impressed with the attitudes of people, she said.

``The first day I was here I got a call from citizens who wanted to clean up around the Dinwiddie Hotel, and then a group from the Naval Hospital called last week and offered to clean up the area around Portside,'' she said. ``Everybody is supportive of the cleanup effort.''

Aside from specific neighborhoods, she also wants to mobilize more people in the city for major regional and national efforts such as Earth Day and Clean the Bay Day.

``From now on, we're not going to miss any of those things,'' she said.

Cox-Wynn, a Portsmouth native who has been living and working in Washington, D.C., said she has ``special love and special pride in Portsmouth.''

``I come here with a new prospective,'' she said. ``I think the city is looking fantastic, and I see the energy that is building.''

She has a really personal motivation, she said. Her grandfather, Dock Leathers, died in April at age 92. He was a Naval Shipyard worker, and many years ago he bought a home in Brighton, where he lived until his death.

``When I came home for his services, it hurt my feelings to see the trash in his neighborhood,'' she said. ``So many people seem to have lost interest, and so many buildings are boarded up.''

She wants to do something about that neighborhood and all the others in the city, she said.

She also is particularly interested in working with students to create an awareness among them of beauty and cleanliness.

Her first priority is creating an awareness among citizens of what can be done. She also wants citizens to call her to tell her what needs to be done.

Although it is not yet in service, Cox-Wynn said she will have a hot line with voice mail, so citizens can call and report problems and, if possible, give her some clues as to the cause of the problems.

As soon as the line is working, the number will be published in The Currents. Meanwhile, if you want to get acquainted with the program, call her at 393-8522.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu