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Take A Look At The Year Ahead

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A staff report

The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 1, 2009

Fire Stations Set

LAND O' LAKES - Shiny red trucks need shiny new buildings to park in and they're getting them in some parts of the county.

Currently under construction are four Pasco Fire Rescue stations, and while most will be completed by February, at least one will come online a bit later in the year. Stations 15 (near the site of old Tampa Bay Executive Airport in Trinity), 16 (on State Road 54 in Zephyrhills) and 23 (at S.R. 54 and Land O' Lakes Boulevard) are replacement structures. A couple of the stations will have new locations in the same general area as their old stations.

Station 37 (on S.R. 54 about three miles west of U.S. 41) is a new station altogether. Most of the personnel for that station have been hired and working out of another station for months. An ambulance crew still needs to be hired, but it's not clear when that will happen. The equipment - including an engine, a rescue vehicle, a brush truck and tanker - was already purchased with impact fees.

"We're ahead of the ball," Assistant Chief Mike Ciccarello said. "We actually saved some money buying those ahead of time."

Pasco firefighters and paramedics have outgrown the old structures that are being replaced. Many of the buildings are outdated and have inadequate construction for today's standards, Ciccarello said. With the new buildings, work conditions will be much better, he said.

But what's more important, of course, isn't that equipment has a new place to park but that Pasco residents will have more efficient fire and rescue coverage geographically, he said.

Another change for Pasco Fire Rescue this year is an increase in personnel that began with a little more than two dozen new hires in mid-December. "That's not growth," Ciccarello said. "We're still trying to replace."
Ciccarello doesn't expect many more staff additions because of the county's hiring freeze. With the new hires in December, fire rescue employs 421 field personnel, including firefighters, paramedics and chiefs.

Lisa A. Davis

New Schools

LAND O' LAKES - Growth may have slowed in Pasco County, but the school district is still trying to catch up to the growth from years past.

Two schools are scheduled to open in 2009 to help alleviate crowding on existing campuses.

Anclote High School in Holiday is being built next to Smith Middle School and will draw most of its students from Mitchell High, though it will also get some from Gulf High. Once Anclote opens, Pasco will have 12 high schools.

Watergrass Elementary is being built in the Watergrass development in Wesley Chapel. Its students will come from Wesley Chapel Elementary, which is one of the most crowded schools in the county.

Watergrass will be the school district's 45th elementary school.

Committees have been working on proposed attendance boundaries to help determine which students will go to the schools.

The Pasco County School Board will hold two public hearings on the boundaries in February before making the decision.

Ronnie Blair

Road Work Ahead

WESLEY CHAPEL - 2009 promises to be the Year of the Traffic Cone in central Pasco County as government agencies and private developers move forward with a variety of long-awaited road projects. Among them:

State Road 56: The developers of Wiregrass Ranch and Meadow Pointe IV will continue the eastward extension of State Road 56. Plans call for the highway to reach Mansfield Boulevard by March, providing a link to the Wiregrass school complex.

As part of their deal with the county and state, the road builders will add a third eastbound lane to S.R. 56 and a westbound left-turn lane where the highway passes the Shoppes at New Tampa. Crews also will begin reconfiguring the heart of the intersection with Bruce B. Downs Boulevard to prepare for improvements to that road.

Bruce B. Downs: The developer of Seven Oaks will begin widening the former "Road to Nowhere" to six lanes from State Road 54 to the Hillsborough County line in January. Company officials say work will start at the northern end of the road, then move north from County Line Road. Intersection improvements will come last after the S.R. 56 work has ended.

Interstate 75 overpass: The state Department of Transportation will start work to replace the bridges carrying I-75 over County Road 54 at the heart of Wesley Chapel shortly after the first of this year. The work will replace both spans with longer bridges, allowing the road beneath to be widened.

Kevin Wiatrowski

School Funding

LAND O' LAKES - The Pasco County School Board expects 2009 to be a dismal year on the budget front.

The Legislature meets in special session this month and is expected to cut state spending because of dwindling revenue, a decision that will trickle down to local school districts that depend on the state for much of their funding.

No one knows just how deep the cuts for Pasco schools will go, but Olga Swinson, the school district's chief finance officer, has said to expect something like $10 million to $15 million.

By then, the district will have just five months left in the fiscal year. Those cuts will be on top of a $16 million cut the school board began the fiscal year with and roughly $8.7 million in cuts that came later.

School districts all across the state are experiencing similar situations.

A turnaround isn't expected anytime soon. School board members anticipate the 2009-10 budget situation will be as bad or worse as the current predicament.

Ronnie Blair

Jail Expansion

LAND O' LAKES - It's been long talked about, much needed and finally will become a reality in 2009.

The first phase of the Land O' Lakes Jail expansion is expected to be completed by the summer, with the first floor expected to open by July.

Groundbreaking on the expansion was in May. Peter R. Brown Construction Co., which has built jails or jail additions in Indian River and Hillsborough counties, is overseeing the $17.8 million project.

Once the three-story addition is completed, it will replace two tentlike structures that have been used as overflow housing for inmates. The new 96,000-square-foot facility will allow for 256 beds per floor, boosting the county's jail capacity from 1,007 to 1,775. That number includes the New Port Richey facility and the main central facility on Central Boulevard, off Land O' Lakes Boulevard.

In recent years, overcrowding has been a problem in Pasco, leading to the temporary tentlike structures and some inmates sleeping in common areas in portable "boat" beds rather than in cells.

The overcrowding also has caused the Pasco-Pinellas administrative judge to issue emergency release of some inmates who would otherwise not get out. Among other things, the act used a structured release of nonviolent offenders with little or no bail to reduce the jail population.

When an EF-1 tornado ripped through the central complex in December 2007, it destroyed one of the temporary structures, which required some inmates to be shipped to other counties' jails until it could be rebuilt.

Lisa A. Davis

New Judges

The Pasco Circuit Court bench will get a dose of fresh blood beginning Jan. 6 when newly elected jurists take their seats.

In east Pasco, Susan Gardner will preside over civil cases, taking over for the retiring Wayne Cobb. Cobb, 72, spent 31 years on the Pasco bench but has reached the mandatory retirement age.

Gardner, 46, of Hudson, defeated Robert Angus Williams in a November runoff to win Cobb's seat. She became a lawyer in 1999 and worked in private practice for six years. In 2005, she was hired by her current employer, the Pasco-Pinellas Public Defender's Office.

In west Pasco, career prosecutor Mary Handsel will start her judicial career hearing domestic violence, divorce, child support and adoption cases. Handsel, 44, of Tarpon Springs, defeated veteran attorneys Bruce Howie and Violet Assaid in the August primary.

Handsel has been a prosecutor with the Pasco-Pinellas State Attorney's Office since 1990.

Todd Leskanic

Criminal Cases

You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than accurately predicting which criminal cases will make it to trial in 2009.

The only guide is what's listed on the docket, which often changes quickly and for all kinds of reasons. Nevertheless, here's a quick rundown of some of the more notable cases that are now set for trial in the coming 12 months:

•Eli V. Alvarez, charged with DUI-manslaughter in the 2007 death of 8-year-old Kevin Bryant Jr.;

•Commie Pattmon, charged with first-degree murder in 2006 shooting death of Jeremy Henry;

•Gunwant S. Dhaliwal, west Pasco doctor charged with inappropriately touching two women who were in his offices in 2007;

•Luis A. Rivera, charged with murder in the 2006 beating death of 72-year-old William Medley;

•Joseph Coleman, charged with attempted murder in the 2006 shooting of wife, Denise;

•Lisa Marinelli, former Pasco substitute teacher accused of having sex with a minor in 2008;

•Max Horn, charged with second-degree murder in the March shooting death of Joseph Martell.

Todd Leskanic

U.S. 301 Lanes
ZEPHYRHILLS - Will Gall Boulevard be converted to a one-way street? City leaders and the Florida Department of Transportation will have to decide in the next few months.

DOT wants to convert Gall to a one-way road as part of a $70 million plan to eliminate congestion on U.S. 301 in Zephyrhills. Southbound traffic would be diverted to Sixth Street.

The city council and Steve Spina, the city manager, have been fighting the plan for seven years. In December, they persuaded the DOT to consider a plan to keep two-way traffic on Gall. The city's proposal would widen the boulevard to three lanes - two northbound lanes and one southbound.

The only way it could work is if the road could be designed within the right of way that was approved by the Federal Highway Administration. DOT spokeswoman Kris Carson said the project managers would complete their initial review by mid-February.

Laura Kinsler

Pro Wrestling

NEW PORT RICHEY - If it takes 58,000 more elbow drops to his back, that's what "Roughhouse" Ralph Mosca will endure to earn a full-time contract with World Wrestling Entertainment.

The New Port Richey professional wrestling promoter, competitor and personality made his debut in a Florida Championship Wrestling ring in December, after promoting shows for the organization owned by Vince McMahon's WWE for more than a year.

In his first match, Mosca, who entered the ring to Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks," earned a disqualification victory over bad guy Byron Saxton by immobilizing him with "The Big Bamboozle," a head butt Mosca delivers after springing from the top rope.

The next week, Mosca and New Port Richey's own Johnny Prime won in a tag-team encounter with Saxton and Tyson Tarver.

"I'm still going to try to get on with the WWE full-time," Mosca said of his 2009 plans. "And we're going to keep doing shows at Bourbon Street in New Port Richey every week, but I'm in negotiations to put on weekly shows in Melbourne and Tampa, as well.

"Dude, there are new stars coming through FCW all the time. Right now, there are 18 wrestlers, referees and divas that are working TV contracts through 'SmackDown,' 'ECW' and 'Raw.'

"

As for more ring time, Mosca, 38, said: "If that's the route I have to take so I can get a salary, I'll do it."

Geoff Fox

Fair Competition

DADE CITY - In a few weeks, the Florida State Fair Authority will find out if the state grants its application to extend the State Fair in Tampa to 18 days.

The future of the Pasco County Fair hangs in the balance. The new dates would overlap Pasco's fair, which usually starts on Presidents Day. Fair leaders say the county fair can not compete for vendors or visitors.

The Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services licenses all of the state's agricultural fairs. Pasco was one of three area counties that filed formal objections to the state fair's proposed 2010 schedule.

Department spokesman Terry McElroy said fair extensions are usually allowed - unless there are objections from neighboring fairs. Secretary of Agriculture Charles Bronson has the final say. He is expected to decide in the spring.

Laura Kinsler

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