City Park Center Of Neighborhood Spat

Resident Ted Budary said Friday that he wanted a chance to be heard by the city council after his complaint to city staff about his neighbor doing as she pleased with a city park at Valencia Circle didn't seem to get him anywhere.

His house is located at 704 Summit Drive, on the circle.

"It looks like somebody's backyard," Budary said, pointing at lawn furniture, a swing chair, checker table, picnic table, birdhouses and a wishing well, erected in the park. "Not a park."

Paver stones that run from his neighbor's front door to her mailbox match those placed in the circle that lead across its diameter to her driveway, he complained.

Her yard has several bird houses too, and items in the circle are strikingly similar to those in her yard.

"She even calls it her park," he said.

By "she," Budary was referring to his neighbor Mary Shivers, who also lives across from the circle at 1604 Valencia Ave. She did not answer her doorbell on Friday around noon for a comment.

Budary said he and his wife are not pleased with the loose, unauthorized items, but when they contacted the city, they didn't feel like anyone was listening.

"They seemed to be quite OK with it," said Budary. "When you go to the park downtown, you see city benches and garbage cans, that's it; and landscaping. I'd have preferred if they would have put in more trees.

As a matter of fact, said wife Jennifer Budary, a palm tree was removed to make room for a non-functional fountain.

"But when it came to that furniture, I told Scott (Noethlich, city administrator) I'm gonna put my old hillbilly barbeque out there and some rickety old chairs," Ted Budary said.

Budary and Jennifer are also concerned that neighborhood children could get hurt playing on some of that unbolted, unauthorized furniture, like a sit-swing, for example. The city seemed to have the attitude that it's only libel for the first $100,000, he said.

"I've seen that thing tip over," Budary said of the sit-swing. "I'm afraid those (loose) items will become flying debris in the hurricanes."

The Budary family and the Shivers' would live right next door to each other on the circle, if it wasn't for Valencia Avenue separating their properties.

Budary has lived there just over seven years and Shivers moved in when she inherited the property, he said. They even got along until a horse statue came into the picture.

In November of 2007, Shivers and Susie Miller requested the city to allow them to place a bronze horse statue at Valencia Circle.

A petition was circulated for the approval from neighborhood residents to add the statue to the circle. It received 18 signatures.

"I have talked with (Roads, Grounds and Buildings Superintendent) George Fox, and he has agreed to move it to the circle for me if I am able to purchase this horse at a reasonable price," Shivers and Miller wrote. "I feel it would add a dimension to the circle and at the same time give the neighborhood something unique and different to enjoy."

The horse statue is now in place with a bronze plaque at its base in memory of Steve Shivers.

"That's fine, but put it in your own yard," said Jennifer Budary.

She bought it from Robbins Nursery, according to city documents.

The "bronze statue" is made out of cement, said Budary. A bronze statue would have cost her $15,000, he said. Not the $1,500 he estimated the concrete one cost her.

"It's far from bronze, it's cement, and the (gold) paint is already peeling off it," he said.

On closer inspection it is obvious a leg had already broken off the statue at some point over the last year, or prior to the purchase, and the statue has received a sloppy glue job to stick the busted leg back on.

A light gray cement patch shows where a chunk of the leg must have been replaced. And while the statue is on a cement slab, it doesn't appear to be bolted down.

"You see kids trying to ride it," Budary said, adding that can't be safe.

Jennifer Budary pointed at signature No. 15 on the horse petition, and said, that signer doesn't even live in the neighborhood.

"Nobody asked us," she said. "We only knew about it when they put the horse in the park."

They would have liked to have been asked, or given a chance to say no. Now they've got to see it every day. It's not even in the center of the circle, they say.

Gordon Delp, one of the signers for the horse, already circulated another petition with 32 signatures in support of Shivers neighborhood efforts. Many of those signatures are from two people living at the same address.

Delp said he lives in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Sebring and credited Shivers with keeping the circle looking lovely.

Budary wanted his chance to be heard by the council, but feels he's facing an uphill battle.

"I've been going to the meetings for the last several months," said Budary. "And there are usually one or two people there."

There probably will be more for this one, he said.