Safety Harbor Makes It To Round 2 Of Strongest Town Contest

SAFETY HARBOR, FL -- The votes have been tallied, and Safety Harbor has made it to the second round in its effort to be declared America's strongest town.

Last week in the first round of the contest, Safety Harbor beat out Marshfield, Massachusetts, earning the majority of the popular vote. Now Safety Harbor will attempt to do the same as it faces off against Erwin, Tennessee.

See related story: Safety Harbor In Running To Be America's Strongest Town

Strong Towns is a nonprofit organization that helps foster economic development in small towns across the United States and Canada to make them financially stronger and more resilient to changes in the economy.

Each year, supporters of the movement are invited to enter their town or city in the annual Strongest Town Contest, a bracket-based competition designed to spotlight communities from around the world that are building enduring financial resilience at the local level and actively embodying the Strong Towns approach to economic growth and development.

Safety Harbor was among the top 16 contenders selected for the initial round. Last week's voting narrowed the field to eight candidates.

Through three more rounds of competition, Strong Towns members as well as nonmembers are invited to vote for their town in match-ups with similar towns.

The three rounds include:

ELITE EIGHT (March 25-28) Based on the votes, Strong Towns will invite eight towns to move on to the next round and invite the nominees to send five photos with captions which illustrate the strength of the town. These will be published on the website along with commentary from Strong Towns staff. Again, members and readers will have a chance to vote between town match-ups.

FINAL FOUR (April 2-5) In the Final Four round, the four top vote-getters will participate in a Strong Towns podcast to make their case for why theirs is the strongest town. Strong Towns will publish these podcasts and invite the audience to listen and vote in two final match-ups.

CHAMPIONSHIP (April 8) Finally, the top two towns will be invited to debate and discuss the strength of their towns. The audience will vote between these two towns and the winner will be declared on April 12.

• Voting is weighted so that Strong Towns member votes comprise 50 percent of the tally and non-member votes make up the other 50 percent.
• Only one vote per person per match-up.
• The winning town will receive a visit from Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn to celebrate the victory and share the Strong Towns message.

Last year's winner was Muskegon, Michigan.

Safety Harbor is represented by resident James Fogarty who nominated Safety Harbor for the honor. Fogarty has also created the Strong Towns Tampa Bay Facebook group to provide a forum for residents to discuss ideas on strengthening their towns.

An engineer working on pedestrian safety and transit, Fogarty said he got involved after reading an article by the Strong Towns founder on common-sense approaches to engineering design to make roads safer for pedestrians.

"It connected a lot of dots for me," said Fogarty. "Safety Harbor, as a small town, has used common sense to wisely stretch its resources to provide a stellar quality of life."

Fogarty said it was the friendly, small-town atmosphere that attracted him to Safety Harbor.

"The city is blessed with a beautiful public waterfront, and is convenient to many other urban areas, world class beaches, and other cultural amenities that are nearby," he said. "Probably the best feature of Safety Harbor is the lifestyle I am able to enjoy as a resident. Despite living in the suburbs about three miles from the center, I can easily walk to my job, to grocery stores or to a bagel shop for coffee in the morning, all less than a mile away."

All this, said Fogarty, makes Safety Harbor an ideal candidate for the Strong Town honor.

"While there are some things that could be worked on, there are also lots of things that make Safety Harbor a good candidate for a Strong Town," he said.

Click here to see what Fogarty wrote about Safety Harbor.

Voting for the second round ends Thursday at 1 p.m. Cast your vote for Safety Harbor here.