A group of Winter Haven residents met with city leaders in April to discuss their concerns about how long it’s taking to get a park built in the Boggy Bottom community.

Talks about the park started in the fall of 2020 when city officials gathered feedback about what residents wanted to see in their community.

“The park is estimated to cost about $5 million,” said Winter Haven’s Public Works director, M.J. Carnevale. “We started looking into funding in spring of last year.”

Carnevale explained that the wetland restoration process that must be completed before work on the park can begin.

“This is the wetland portion of this site," Carnevale said during a visit to the area. "We did a big restoration project here that had multiple funding partners: Polk Co., DEP, the South Florida Water management district.

"We started the construction of the wetland portion in spring of 2020. That lays the foundation for the recreation of what comes behind it.”

Carnevale said the city is currently hiring engineers take the project to the next level, but some of the people who live in Boggy Bottom said they are tired of waiting.

“Our young people have nothing to do,” said longtime resident Faye Bellamy. “I grew up in this neighborhood — it was a sore sight then and it’s a sore site now.”

Bellamy joined other longtime Boggy Bottom residents in addressing the city about what they say is a long history of not being prioritized. But the Carnevale said no district is prioritized over the other.

“The majority of the infrastructure, we collect data on the condition of,” he said. “We’ll look at a roadway, scan the asphalt for cracks – we prioritize that.”

The park’s construction is expected to begin this year with an estimated 2023 completion.

“It can’t come fast enough,” said longtime Boggy Bottom resident Calvin Mills. “When we was coming up, some dodge ball, hop scotch, shooting marbles, a little basketball, that was it and you really enjoyed yourself growing up. Today is all different.”

Mills said that many of the kids in his neighborhood have resorted to selling drugs.

“You see them on the street — you have guys selling drugs and the kids figure they can do the same thing,” said Mills. “The kids need something to do.”

Mills, who served as a Marine, said an important factor in raising kids in less affluent areas is discipline.

“When we were coming up it was discipline everywhere,” said Millis. “Even if you went to the neighbor’s house to play and you messed up, that was a whooping. When you got home, there was another one.”

This is the mentality that Mills, and other members of the older generation in the Boggy Bottom community, say they want to leave behind.