The Frankford Special Services District will go out of business when the year ends, said Tim Wisniewski, its executive director.
The SSD, which has provided for cleaning litter from the Frankford Avenue Business Corridor and hiring safety ambassadors, is a municipal agency that has a sunset provision, Wisniewski said. Every five years, it has to be renewed by City Council, and it hasn’t been renewed, said board chairman Jim McCarthy.
McCarthy said he doesn’t foresee the agency being revived anytime in the near future.
Much of the work the Special Services District did was battling the negative impact modern society had on Frankford’s business corridor — litter, graffiti and bad perceptions.
Wisniewski and McCarthy said the organization hired people to pick up the trash discarded along the avenue and further fought littering by installing — and bolting down — trash cans on street corners.
The street cleaning alone cost between $30,000 and $40,000 a year, McCarthy said. The organization’s funding was largely based on a tax of area businesses that was equal to one-tenth of each business property’s annual real estate taxes. McCarthy said he owns several properties and that most of what he paid was about $100 to $110 per property.
The SSD also hired “safety ambassadors” to provide security and information for shoppers and act as liaisons with police. They were based in an old police trailer at Frankford Avenue and Foulkrod Street.
There also was a detail team that looked to wash off graffiti as it appeared, Wisniewski said.
All that effort will end as the sun sets on the SSD on Saturday, McCarthy said.
“After Dec. 31, Frankford is going to look a lot different,” Wisniewski said during a phone interview earlier this month. ••
