Senor T’s Does Have Free Chips and Salsa! Contrary to what it says in the advertisement on pg. 47 of the New Tampa Neighborhood News edition that arrived in mailboxes throughout the 33647 zip code today, Senor T’s Mexican Restaurant (17642 BBD Blvd., New Tampa) serves FREE chips & salsa, in both the restaurant and the bar area, all the time. The error was entirely ours and we apologize to Senor T’s for any inconvenience the mistake in our ad may cause.
After two months of lining up support and organizing a campaign, Tampa lawyer and Hunter’s Green resident Luis Viera has officially entered the race for the Tampa City Council District 7 seat being vacated by Lisa Montelione.
Montelione turned in her resignation June 10 with intentions of challenging Republican incumbent Shawn Harrison for the Florida House District 63 seat in November. Montelione, who earns $42,078 as a City Council member, will continue to serve on the Council through Nov. 8.
Viera joins three others in the upcoming special election —Dr. Cyril Spiro of Cory Lake Isles, newspaper editor Gene Siudut of Tampa Palms and former police officer Orlando Gudes of the Copeland Park area near Busch Blvd.
City Council elections are usually held in March in odd-numbered years. An official date for the special election had not been announced at our press time, but the winner of it will serve until the District 7 seat is up again in 2019.
Viera, a single father whose son attends Lawton Chiles Elementary in Tampa Palms, is an attorney with Ogden & Sullivan, P.A., a civil trial practice firm in Tampa, and a former Temple Terrace resident. This is his first time running for public office.
“I took a long look at the process and took a look at life’s responsibilities, and made that personal assessment that I felt this was something I could do,’’ Viera says of his approach. “I wanted to make sure there was good support for me in this race. I wanted to make sure I’m doing well in that regard.”
Which he is, if endorsements are any indication.
While all municipal elections in Tampa are non-partisan, Viera already has a number of top Democrats lined up behind him. Since entering the race on June 1, he already has big-name endorsements, such as from U.S. Rep. (14th Congressional District of Florida) Kathy Castor.
“As an active member of our Tampa community, including work in the City of Tampa Civil Service Board, with the Tampa Hispanic Bar Association and with his autism foundation, Lawyers Autism Awareness Foundation, he (Viera) has proven to be a strong advocate for our community and a fighter for those who need a clearer voice in the community, something that I strive to do everyday in the halls of Congress,’’ Rep. Castor said in a statement.
Viera also claims the endorsements of current Tampa City Council chair Mike Suarez, former state Rep., U.S. congressman and Florida gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis and former state Rep. Mary Figg, who represented the Lutz area in the Florida Legislature in the 1980s.
“We’ll have more endorsements forthcoming and more community leaders supporting our efforts,’’ Viera says.
Will endorsements translate to votes in New Tampa and throughout the diverse District 7? Perhaps. Viera says the support he has already received will help when it comes to building on the work already done in the district, which runs north from Waters Ave. to County Line Rd. and includes Forest Hills, Terrace Park, the University of South Florida and New Tampa. “I plan on fighting for respect for this part of the city,’’ he says.
Viera, who held a fund-raising event in June, has another scheduled for Friday, June 29, hosted by Columbia Restaurant Group president Richard Gonzmart.
Speaking of raising funds, Spiro, who works in health care data analytics and has been on the Cory Lake Isles Community Development District (CDD) Board of Supervisors the past five years, had a good first month and led the District 7 pack with $10,989.83 raised in May, including $1,989.83 of his own money, plus six $1,000 donations.
Spiro was pleased with his first month’s total, considering he has yet to hold an official fund raiser.
Meanwhile, Siudut, who recently held a fund raiser at the University Club in downtown Tampa, raised $9,425 in May, according to financial reports.
“We wanted to get to $10,000 our first month, and including in-kind (non-cash, which totaled $1,280.22) donations, we did, so we’re very pleased,’’ said Siudut.
Viera, who wasn’t in the race at the time, and Gudes, who said he has yet to begin fund raising, did not file financial reports for May.
Gudes said he has been spending his time setting up a campaign headquarters, meeting with the local community to identify their needs, and was waiting for Montelione to officially resign, “before we put things in full gear.”
New Tampa resident Aarush Prasad has always been good at math, but when he got his SAT results back in February, even he was a little stunned at the results:
A perfect 800 on the math portion of the important college entrance exam.
Even more amazing is the fact that Aarush is only a seventh-grader.
“I was a little surprised,’’ says Aarush, who attends Williams Middle Magnet School on E. Hillsborough Ave. “I was pretty excited when I found out.”
Aarush was honored for his accomplishment by the Duke University Talent Identification Program (TIP) on May 16 at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Duke’s beautiful campus in Durham, NC.
The Grand Recognition Ceremony honored seventh graders across the country who earned exceptional scores on either the ACT or SAT.
The last four years, Duke TIP has named 35-60 students a year as William and Dorothy C. Bevan Scholars for getting perfect SAT math scores, which means they scored equal to or better than 99 percent of all college-bound high school students who took the test, not that they answered every question correctly.
Aarush’s mother, Veenu Gupta, is an instructor at Aloha Mind Math on Cross Creek Blvd. She said she told her son before the test to focus on the math section, since that was his strongest subject. He says he took some mock tests and read study guides to prepare.
“I told him to focus on getting a better score in the math,’’ Veenu said. “But a perfect score is really amazing.”
Aarush, who was on the Math League team at Williams that won top Hillsborough County School District honors last year, also plays the viola for the school orchestra, competed in the U.S. Chess Nationals this past fall and can complete a Rubik’s Cube in less than a minute.
Often overlooked, usually mistreated and rarely pampered, your feet are the unsung workhorses of your body.
But, undetected problems with your feet can often lead to larger problems that can affect your back, your gait, your lifestyle, and your general health. In the Wesley Chapel offices of New Tampa Foot & Ankle, longtime New Tampa resident Stephen Levin, D.P.M., helps anyone from age 0 to 100 fix those issues before they get out of control. And, with the latest in laser technology and a new shock wave therapy (see below), he is able to treat some of the most common and painful conditions with noninvasive, highly effective in-office methods.
A native of Baltimore, MD, Dr. Levin got his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in Urban Studies from the University of Maryland in College Park in 1992. He then obtained his Doctor of Podiatric Medicine (D.P.M.) degree from the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia in 1996. He completed a two-year medical and surgical residency at Montgomery Hospital Medical Center in Norristown, PA, in 1998, and then moved to Tampa, working in private practice until he opened New Tampa Foot & Ankle in 2002.
Dr. Levin moved his New Tampa location to its current location off of S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel in 2007, then opened a South Tampa location in 2012.Â
Dr. Levin is Board-certified in foot surgery by the American Board of Podiatric Surgery and also is on staff at both Florida Hospital Tampa and Wesley Chapel, St. Joseph’s Hospital and St. Joseph’s North, Tampa General Hospital, the New Tampa Surgery Center and the Ambulatory Surgery Center on E. Fletcher Ave. He has operating room privileges at Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, St. Joseph’s North and the New Tampa Surgery Center.
Until recently, Dr. Levin was the president of the Hillsborough County Podiatric Medical Association for 10 years, and in 2005, was selected as the Young Practitioner of the Year by the Florida Podiatric Medical Association.
At his Wesley Chapel office, Dr. Levin uses state-of-the-art technology to fix some of the most common foot problems, including heel pain and fungal infections.
A Wide Variety Of Services
Among the many services offered at New Tampa Foot & Ankle is Extracorporeal Pulse Activation Technology (EPAT), the method by which Dr. Levin treats heel pain. Developed in Europe and FDA-approved in the U.S., the technology consists of a console and a wand-like attachment that emits shockwaves on the area of pain.
Heel pain (such as plantar fasciitis) can be caused when certain ligaments are irritated, causing thickening, swelling and subsequently, pain. Traditional treatments have called for anti-inflammatory injections or home therapy, such as physical therapy, ice and wearing orthotic inserts. EPAT uses acoustic shock waves to stimulate or signal the body to increase circulation, says Dr. Levin, allowing the area to heal itself more quickly and effectively. While he says some patients feel sensitivity after their initial treatments, they usually acclimate to the feeling (which he describes as a rapid pulsing) as the treatments continue, generally weekly for three to five months.
“The technology has been around for one or two decades, but it has become more amenable to an office setting,” says Dr. Levin. “There’s no downtime, no medications and no infections.”
In addition to heel pain, toenail fungus is a major concern of Dr. Levin’s patients. “It’s unsightly; it’s embarrassing,” he says, adding that the fungus can be caused by trauma and even by pedicures in unsanitary conditions.
To treat toenail fungus without oral medications or topical creams, Dr. Levin uses a treatment called NovoNail, a laser that works painlessly by running over the infected nail. This creates enough heat to kill the fungus that causes the infection. Dr. Levin says three or four 20-minute treatments over the course of a year is enough to cure most cases.
In severe cases, Dr. Levin can use the laser to remove the toenail, make a tiny incision for the laser to clean and resurface the nail bed and file down any underlying bone spur, and then stitch up the incision. Within a year, he says the new toenail has usually grown in over a clean nailbed.
Heel pain and fungal infections affect a large number of patients. However, Dr. Levin handles many other issues affecting your feet and ankles, such as Achilles tendon problems, ankle instability, flat feet, arthritic foot and ankle care, bunions and corns, geriatric foot care, and warts. He also treats feet when crushed by injury and the feet of diabetics, who have poor circulation and nerve damage so they cannot feel blisters or sores and need special shoes with more room and protection. He also treats children for problems such as Severs Disease, a growth pain-related irritation of the heel, as well as ingrown toenails, warts and flat feet.
Some problems can be solved by wearing the right kind of shoes and to this end, Dr. Levin carries a plethora of foot-related products for patients to buy at reasonable prices. You can be sure they work well, because Dr. Levin says that either he, a staff member or a member of their families have tested or tried them out, such as Vionic flip-flops (Dr. Levin says those flat flip-flops Floridians tend to wear everywhere don’t do our feet any favors) and custom and semi-custom orthotic shoe inserts. Also available is a line of hypoallergenic creams and lotions, as well as tools such as pumice stones, plus compression hose and shoes for diabetic patients.
The office accepts many forms of insurance and also offers in-house financing options.
Clearly, Dr. Levin’s services are in high demand. Since he started his own practice, it has grown to include a staff of seven, and he says he will add a new doctor at the end of this summer. He also says he currently sees an average of 150-200 patients a week in his Wesley Chapel office, while his colleague, Dr. Martin Port, sees patients in the South Tampa location at 3704 Euclid Ave.
Dr. Levin knew that Wesley Chapel would be the ideal place for his practice, as he had been keeping an eye on the projected growth of this area since moving to Florida 18 years ago. He met his wife, Diane Pellegrino Levin, when he was at the (then) University Community Hospital (now Florida Hospital Tampa) and she was an Emergency Room nurse there. The couple and their three children, David, 18; Sam, 11; and Sarah, 9, are active in the community, gymnastics and soccer.
New Tampa Foot & Ankle is open Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and is located at 26827 Foggy Creek Rd., Suite 104, off S.R. 56. For more information, call 973-3535 or visit NewTampaFootandAnkle.com.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that New Tampa resident Sergio Farina has earned some recognition for more than just his academic achievements as he graduates from Tampa Jesuit High as the outgoing President of the school’s Student Body for the 2015-16 school year.
After all, Sergio is the son of my friends Lisette and local orthodontist Dr. Mark Farina, the man responsible for the beautiful smiles of thousands of New Tampa kids, including my sons, Jared and Jake.
But, Sergio is more than just a great student from a wonderful family. Also known as “DJ Svrge,” Sergio is a DJ and music producer who, through his passion for music, “adopted” a school in the Dominican Republic and provided it with a water well and electricity — two important, basic needs the school was lacking.
Sergio was awarded a Presidential Scholarship from Boston College (BC) for the Carroll School of Management Honors Program — based on his academics, leadership and service accomplishments during his years at Jesuit. This is a full merit scholarship, with summer international experience, service and internships abroad. BC’s Presidential Scholarship was awarded to only 14 students from around the world, representing only 0.2 percent of the Early Action applicants for the incoming freshman class of 2020.
Students were selected based on superior academic achievement and promise, leadership potential and a demonstrated commitment to serving society. They will be prepared to be global leaders.
The school announced, “As Jesuit’s student body president, it’s fitting Sergio Farina would earn a collegiate Presidential Scholarship.” JesuitTampa.org also noted that Sergio won this year’s Charles J. Lashley Award, for outstanding characteristics of student body leadership, “the highest honor Jesuit confers upon a graduating senior.”
The former Jesuit linebacker says that in 2009, he helped co-found with some of his family members in the Dominican “A Smile for a Sole,” a nonprofit organization that grew out of the Farina family’s vacations in the Dominican Republic. Sergio visited schools, plantations, and fishing villages, to distribute clothing, toys, and supplies. But, after six years of “doing the same thing,” he decided to help the Escuela Hermanas Mirabal school in Cucama a little more.
“I had fond memories of seeing kids running around the remains of the basketball court — rims broken and nets long gone, clenching pencils, determined to learn. I decided I would provide the school with its two biggest needs: water and electricity” — at a price tag of $10,000.
After one year, “DJ Svrge” reached his goal. “When I arrived in Cucama, the entire student body, as well as their parents, embraced me, taking photos with me. I was overwhelmed by their gratitude. I was just a kid who felt a strong social responsibility to provide what many take for granted.”
He may be “just a kid,’ but Sergio is a young man who hopes to inspire others to “Piensa Grande” (“Think Big”)!