TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Communities Are Gearing Up For A Busy Year

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 1, 2008

Updated: 12/31/2007 09:55 pm

Today marks the start of a new year, which will be marked by two municipalities searching for city managers, the addition of several schools to help ease overcrowding and continued work on Pasco's clogged roads. Here's our take on 2008's dominant issues:

New Port Richey Needs A New City Manager

Pasco County's most populous city will spend the beginning of the new year searching for a replacement for former City Manager Scott Miller.

Miller, 57, who was hired in 2004, left the city in December to begin a new job as administrator of Leavenworth, Kan., a city of about 35,000 on the Missouri River.

New Port Richey isn't expected to begin the city manager search in early spring.

Tom O'Neill, the city's public works director, will serve as interim manager until then.

Christian M. Wade

New Elementary, Middle Schools Scheduled To Open

Four new schools are set to open in Pasco County in 2008 - two belatedly and two right on time.

Gulf Trace Elementary, which was supposed to be a 2007 school, finally should be ready for students when children return from their winter break Jan. 8. The school is on Gulf Trace Boulevard in Holiday.
Construction delays kept Gulf Trace Elementary from opening in August, so students and teachers were housed temporarily in portable classrooms at Trinity Elementary.

New River Elementary students and teachers faced a similar situation. That school in Wesley Chapel also experienced construction delays and is set for a February opening.

New River Elementary, in the meantime, set up temporary shop at Sand Pine Elementary.

The two schools that were planned for a 2008 opening all along are Veterans Elementary in Wesley Chapel and Crews Lake Middle in Shady Hills. They are set to open in August with the start of the 2008-09 academic year.

The Pasco County School Board is scheduled to set attendance boundaries for those two schools in February.

Ronnie Blair

Road Projects Will Make Driving Complicated

Drivers in the Wesley Chapel-New Tampa area will find trips on the area's main roads to be more complicated than normal during 2008.

A mix of developers, county and state crews will launch aproject to improve Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, State Road 56 and State Road 54 both east and west of Interstate 75.

Plans call for widening Bruce B. Downs to six lanes from the Hillsborough County line to CountyRoad 54.

S.R. 54 will be widened to six lanes east of its junction with Bruce B. Downs as part of a joint county/state project. The highway also will be widened west from its junction of S.R. 56 to U.S. 41 as part of the development of Cypress Creek Town Center.

S.R. 56 will be extended to the east from its T-intersection with Bruce B. Downs as part of the development of Wiregrass Ranch.

The work is designed to improve traffic flow through south-central Pasco as the region's three major shopping venues get up and running.

Much of the road work could last into 2009.

Kevin Wiatrowski

3 Shopping Centers Planned For Openings

The countdown has begun toward the completion of south-central Pasco's shopping triad.

Over the course of 2008, the developers of three major shopping centers - all of them now under construction within about five miles of each other - plan to open their projects to the public within a few months of each other.

Developers' plans call for wrapping up by April or May the second and third phases of The Grove, which opened its first phase at Oakley Boulevard and County Road 54 just before Christmas.

The Shops at Wiregrass could welcome shoppers a month or two later, possibly as early as June or July, according to its developers. The open-air "lifestyle center" has been represented since late 2005 by JCPenney, which opened early under a limited development deal with the county and state.

Cypress Creek Town Center, which kicked off Wesley Chapel's commercial building boom when it won county approval in 2004, will be the last to open. The developers of the regional mall expect to welcome customers in the fall.

When all three malls are up and running, they'll give shoppers from southern Hernando to northern Hillsborough a plethora of places to spend their retail cash. The mix of tenants ranges from Best Buy and Circuit City to Sports Authority and Dick's Sporting Goods to Dillard's, Macy's and Old Navy.

The developers have also announced a host of restaurants, including a number specializing in Asian cuisine.

Kevin Wiatrowski

Wrestling Program Plans TV Show, Area Events

Florida Championship Wrestling, a WWE developmental territory that came to Pasco County in September, plans to add a weekly television program in 2008, as well as more live promotions in the area, according to local promoter Ralph Mosca.

Mosca, who closed American Combat Wrestling in 2007 to work for FCW, said a TV show likely will be produced at FCW's 20,000-square-foot training facility on Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa.

"It's half-arena, half training facility and TV studio," Mosca said. "The people who train there are all under contract with WWE, and they're looking at opening a beginner's class in January or February."

Mosca said the TV show will be targeted at a "pretty much local" audience.

"We'll want to hit Hillsborough, Pasco, Citrus, Hernando, Pinellas counties and maybe some other" areas, he said.

Among the wrestlers FCW grooms for larger stages are second- and third-generation wrestlers such as Nattie Neidhart, daughter of Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart; Ted DiBiase Jr.; Aja Anoai Jr., member of a famous Samoan wrestling family; Lacey Von Erich, daughter of the late Kerry Von Erich; and Harry Smith, son of the late Davey Boy Smith.

Mosca said he will continue to hold weekly FCW shows at Bourbon Street on U.S. 19 in New Port Richey and monthly shows at the Jewish Community Center of West Pasco in Port Richey. At a Bourbon Street show in December, WWE stars John Cena and Beth Phoenix appeared. The legendary Dusty Rhodes attended a match in October.

"You never know who's gonna show up in that building. Afa Anoai Sr. and Luna Vachon were in there the other night," Mosca said in December. "For a lousy $7 cover, you get to hang out with all these people."

Geoff Fox

Changing Of Guard At County Attorney's Office

After eight years as county attorney, Robert Sumner plans to retire early next year and end a long career as a lawyer in Pasco County.

His successor is Jeffrey Steinsnyder, a former assistant county attorney in Manatee County now in private practice. He is slated to take the reins Jan. 22 at a salary of $165,000.

Steinsnyder has signed a two-year contract with the county. He will be the first county employee to receive a car allowance of $450 a month. He also is to get a deferred compensation retirement package with a 50 percent match and a $100,000 life insurance policy.

Steinsnyder was selected among four finalists after a contentious search.

Early in the process, County Commissioners Michael Cox and Jack Mariano backed Land O' Lakes lawyer Timothy Hayes, but other board members objected, saying Hayes had been held up as the "developers' candidate" and was too divisive.

Other commissioners supported Sumner's second-in-command, Chief Assistant County Attorney Barbara Wilhite, but Cox and Mariano strongly opposed her.

Steinsnyder, who once worked for the state Department of Community Affairs and currently represents the Manatee County School Board, became the compromise candidate on whom all five commissioners could agree.

Julia Ferrante

Crowded County Jail Ready For New Addition

The need for a larger jail continues to grow almost literally by the day, but 2008 should be the year construction brings on the long-awaited expansion.

Frequent overcrowding at the jail that coincides with Pasco County's population growth was reason enough to add on to the jail. But the tornado that ripped through the Land O' Lakes Jail complex in December, destroying the minimum-security women's annex and damaging the other annex - both built from aluminum frame and plastic-coated canvas - punctuated the need for the expansion.

The inmates were evacuated moments before the twister wreaked havoc, and no one was injured.

The $17.8 million addition at the Land O' Lakes complex, 20101 Central Blvd., will include three floors and is expected to take 16 months to complete, said Dan Johnson, assistant county administrator for public service. County officials hope to fast-track the completion of the first-floor renovations in at least half that time and open it for use.

The county commission is expected to give final approval to the project contract on Jan. 8. Designs and permits are complete, Johnson said. Ground could be broken as early as February.

Lisa A. Davis

New Landfill Proposal Will Be Hotly Debated

Expect to hear a lot of debate about what to do with Pasco County's growing trash habit.

Expect to hear a lot about the controversial proposal from Angelo's Aggregate Materials to build a 90-acre landfill east of Old Lakeland Highway and south of Enterprise Road.

Proponents say it is the safest, least expensive way to handle the county's garbage. Opponents, many of whom favor expanding the Shady Hills waste-to-energy plant, point to environmental concerns and the landfill's proposed location near the Withlacoochee River and the Green Swamp.

The Department of Environmental Protection has been reviewing and dissecting the landfill application for at least a year.

In February, Angelo's is expected to submit more information to the agency for further review.

Nicola M. White

Mayor, Commission Races Highlight Election

There will be at least one new face on the five-member city commission in 2008, and a new mayor, after a volatile, controversial 2007.

It's also possible two incumbents could return to office.

Here's the situation. All commissioners represent the city at large, and all terms are four years. The terms are staggered so that only two or three seats expire in any single election cycle.

Candidates are required to "qualify" or formally declare themselves for the April election in February. They need the backing of 20 registered voters, who support their candidacy, on a petition.

Mayor Hutch Brock has decided not to run again, after eight years on the commission, including four years as mayor. In Dade City, the mayor is elected by other commissioners to run the commission meetings and represent the city, in addition to retaining voting rights on the panel.

So Brock's departure opens up the field for new commissioner candidates and new mayoral contenders. The new mayor will be elected in May when the new commission is seated.

Meanwhile, longtime Commissioner Eunice Penix, a retired teacher, has decided to run again. Commissioner Steve Van Gorden, who also fills the job of mayor pro tem, is also seeking re-election. Van Gorden is a school principal who was first elected in 2004.

Van Gorden has started organizing his campaign earlier than in the previous race. He announced his intention to seek re-election in August. He started raising money in December, he said, and had $5,000 by the end of the month.

Van Gorden said he is intent on seeing the commission chart a steady course in 2008.

"I think we are starting to heal," he said, following a public clash in 2007 between Commissioner Camille Hernandez and Brock. Hernandez made allegations of corruption and coercion against Brock that she could not support, and that he effectively refuted. The other commissioners, following a motion by Van Gorden, officially distanced themselves from Hernandez's claims.

Hernandez is not up for election this time so voters will not be making any direction decisions on her record. Hernandez' seat comes up for re-election in 2010, along with fellow Commissioner and former Mayor Scott Black.

Jo-Ann Johnston

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT