2019 NEW TAMPA Dining Survey
Hey Everyone, Welcome Back To School…Feeling Cooler?
You may or may not have felt a pinch so far this year, with the new ½-cent sales tax increase to support Hillsborough County’s public schools, but the Hillsborough County School District certainly has felt the benefit.
As of July 22, the district already had received $40.4 million since the tax went into effect on January 1.
Of that money, officials say they have already spent $17,902,401.49, and some of that money has gone (and will continue to go) directly into New Tampa’s schools.
Work is well under way at Benito Middle School, where crews are installing a new air conditioning system. The A/C project is expected to be completed before the 2019-20 school year starts on Monday, August 12.
“It will be huge for the students and the faculty to not have to deal with the air going in and out,” says Sharon Hineline, who now works at the front desk at Benito and was formerly the PTSA president at the school.
She says that the response from the district has typically been good when the air has not been working, and it’s usually been limited to one area or another, but the new system should mean a more reliable system throughout the entire school at all times.
“It certainly will help to minimize the disruption of moving classrooms or having doors open,” Sharon says.
“Not having air in Florida makes people not be able to think straight,” she continues, “and we need kids to be able to think straight.”
Hillsborough County Schools spokesperson Tanya Arja says work also is under way this summer to install a new air conditioning system replacement at Clark Elementary.
Wharton High’s air conditioning system also is being overhauled.
“Work this summer is to install two new chillers of the school’s three, because the third one is only a couple of years old,” says principal Mike Rowan, who adds that there also has been pipework done at Wharton over the summer.
“Next summer, they will be replacing a couple of other things that are needed, including ductwork,” he says. “That should help a lot to balance out the air flow into the classrooms.”
The air conditioning has been an issue at the school, for both teachers and students, for many years. Rowan says he hopes the improvements will eliminate those problems.
Arja says Wharton will be getting a new roof, too, as will Hunter’s Green Elementary. Work on those projects is expected to start soon — construction on Hunter’s Green’s new roof is expected to begin sometime this month.
“With the roofs, they work on them at night and on weekends,” Arja explains. “It’s cooler for the crews that way and it doesn’t disturb activity at the schools.”
Playgrounds, Tracks & More
Tampa Palms Elementary (TPE) already has received separate new playgrounds for grades kindergarten through second, and grades 3-5. While the students saw the installation happening towards the end of the last school year, when school starts this fall, it will be the first time TPE students have gotten to play on the new equipment.
Arja also says that by the end of this school year, funds from the half-penny sales tax will be used to replace 50 playgrounds, tracks and athletic courts countywide, as well as complete 31 painting and carpeting projects, and invest more than $1 million in school security improvements.
Over the next 10 years, the district also plans to overhaul or replace air conditioning systems at 203 schools. Each summer, school officials expect to complete about 20 major school air conditioning projects as the funds are generated by sales across the county.
More than 1,700 total projects are planned over the next 10 years, including 63 aging roof replacements, $23 million in safety and security improvements, $25 million in classroom technology upgrades, and four new schools will be built to relieve overcrowding, although none are slated to be built in New Tampa.
More than 1.3 billion will be invested into schools over the next 10 years, with at least $500,000 invested in each school.
“This is all thanks to Hillsborough County taxpayers who supported the education referendum back in November of 2018,” Arja says.
Benito & Liberty Middle Schools Will Have Crossing Guards For 2019-20
Parents have long complained that despite traffic lights and clearly marked walkways, children attending Benito Middle School faced very real dangers having to cross busy Cross Creek Blvd. every weekday morning without the aid of a crossing guard.
Well, their complaints definitely have been heard.
The Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) approved in April a plan to spend roughly $1 million to employ Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) deputies as crossing guards at all 43 Hillsborough middle schools, the first county in Florida to do so.
Following the BOCC approval, a study was implemented to determine the countywide needs and so far, 78 crossing guard positions have been earmarked by HCSO for 37 schools, including Benito and Liberty Middle School in Tampa Palms.
According to the list released last month, Benito will have two crossing guards stationed at the two corners of Kinnan St. and Cross Creek Blvd.
Liberty will have one crossing guard stationed at Commerce Park Blvd. and New Tampa Blvd.
Other middle schools stationed in high-traffic areas will have as many as six crossing guards, such as Ben Hill Middle School near Ehrlich Rd., and Adams and Farnell middle schools, which will have five crossing guards.
“Those numbers were determined by a ratio of how many students are traveling to school (via walking or biking) and how much traffic is in the area,” says HCSO spokesperson Amanda Granit.
The push for crossing guards at middle schools was spearheaded by parents across the county who protested the elimination of courtesy busing for students who live within a two-mile radius of their school.
That left students living north of Cross Creek Blvd. who walked or biked to Benito to have to cross the very busy road to get to school in the morning.
USF’s New Tampa Business Climate Study Begins With Packed Meeting
In order to begin a study by students in Master’s degree programs at the University of South Florida as to why so many businesses have exited New Tampa the last few years, USF helped organize a unique meeting on July 16, featuring a panel of elected officials and local business owners.
The meeting was Phase 1 of the USF group’s efforts to study New Tampa’s faltering business climate as the students endeavor to figure out what, if anything, can be done to stem the business red tide.
A panel that consisted of the director of the USF School of Public Affairs (where the Master’s degree candidates are studying) Ron Sanders, Rotary Cub of New Tampa past president Karen Frashier, Oliver’s Cycle Sports owner Randy Myhre and three local elected officials (see below) was greeted by a packed house of spectators (who were mainly New Tampa residents; see photo on next page) at the meeting, which was held at Compton Park in Tampa Palms.
Hillsborough County District 2 commissioner Ken Hagan, District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera and newly elected District 63 State Rep. Fentrice Driskell agreed to be on the panel because all of them share concerns about why major companies and mom-and-pop businesses alike are having so much trouble surviving, much less thriving, in zip code 33647.
Sanders said that the study is being conducted by USF students seeking their Master of Public Administration (MPA) degrees in either Urban & Regional Planning or Public Affairs, after then-mayoral candidate (now Tampa Mayor) Jane Castor campaigned in New Tampa.
Castor said many local residents asked her why the business climate in zip code 33647 seemed so poor, especially when compared with the booming economy in Wesley Chapel, just to New Tampa’s north, on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. and S.R. 56.
One of those Castor was talking to just happened to be Sam Becker, a graduate assistant in the School of Public Affairs, and she asked Becker to look into what, if anything, USF could do to help her figure out what could be done to help New Tampa’s businesses. By the time Castor was elected in March, the wheels were already in motion.
“This meeting is the kickoff to Phase 1 of the study — to meet with the community,” Sanders said at the meeting. “Phase 2 will be individual interviews with community staples — elected officials, business owners and residents — such as those in this room. In Phase 3, the students will look at the literature (facts and figures) and the (business) practices going on in the area. For example, is (New Tampa’s situation) just part of a national phenomenon or are there local factors” causing our area’s economic gloom (or both)?
Although Hagan, Viera and Driskell all agreed that the meeting was important, there didn’t seem to be too much help for the USF students coming out of this first get-together.
Among the factors pointed to as to why so many businesses have closed in New Tampa were the high rents, the lack of tax incentives to open major businesses, and even some things brought up by Frashier and Myhre.
Frashier, who also is the co-chair of the Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel, mentioned that New Tampa doesn’t have a large enough gathering place for major events, such as the Wiregrass Wobble 5K road race her club hosts (at the Shops at Wiregrass) every year on Thanksgiving morning, or the Taste (held at AdventHealth CenterIce), “So, we have no choice but to put on these events in Wesley Chapel.”
Hagan and Viera both touted the new Village at Hunter’s Lake development that will be home to a 20,000-sq.-ft. New Tampa Cultural Center, as well as several unique restaurants and retailers (as we reported last issue), but that those are all coming online in 2020 or even 2021.
Myhre said he thinks that bicycle paths connecting the subdivisions in New Tampa would make getting to and from local businesses easier, without having to drive a car, but Hagan said, “Connecting communities is great, but have you seen how hard it is to get even one road connected between communities?” — an obvious jab at the whole Kinnan St.-Mansfield Blvd. flap between Hillsborough and Pasco counties.
Residents at the meeting also brought up how long the widening of BBD in New Tampa took, which affected local businesses, while one noted that S.R. 56, where so much of Wesley Chapel’s growth is taking place, currently has very few residences directly off of it. No one came up with any reason why this helped or how it has affected the economy in the Wesley Chapel.
For New Tampa’s businesses, the hope is that more answers will come out of Phases 2 & 3 of the study.
Freedom Sophomore Qualifies For Olympic Trials!
Michelle Morgan started swimming competitively when she was 7.
By the time she was 8, she knew she wanted to go to the Olympics.
Now, at the age of 14, the Freedom sophomore will get her chance.
Morgan, one of the top distance swimmers in Florida and a member of the Pipeline Swimming Club that trains at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club, last month became the first swimmer in the Tampa Bay area to qualify for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials, making the cut in her marquee event, the 400-meter Individual Medley.
At a meet in Orlando, the New Tampa resident swam the 400 IM in 4 minutes, 51.42 seconds, just under the Trials cutoff of 4:51.79.
“It was pretty exciting,” said Morgan, who will be one of the youngest competitors at next year’s Olympic Trials, which will be held in June in Omaha, NE. Only the top two finishers in each event at the trials make the U.S. Olympic team.
Morgan, the top-rated mile swimmer in the country in her age group, said she expected to make the cut at some point this year, but still didn’t believe it when she touched the wall and looked up at her time. Swimmers from a number of other clubs were there to congratulate her as she exited the pool.
“When she hit the time, my wife went crazy and a whole bunch of families around us went crazy,” said Glynn Morgan, Michelle’s father. “It was exciting for her. We knew at some point this was coming, but it’s nice that she won’t have to chase it from meet to meet frantically trying to qualify.”
She is not done yet, however. Morgan missed the trials cut in the 800m freestyle at the same event in Orlando by less than half a second, swimming her race in 8:48.50; the cut is 8:48.08, a time Morgan seems poised to better.
Pipeline coach Rene Piper thinks Morgan also has a chance to make the Olympic Trials cut in the 200 IM, the 400 and 1,500 freestyle and the 200 butterfly, although the coach admits the last event is not Morgan’s favorite.
Morgan could eventually have some local company at the trials — Piper says fellow Pipeline member Carly Joerin, also a sophomore at Freedom, has an outside chance of posting a qualifying time between now and June 2020.
Setting aside the long odds of making any Olympic team, just making it to the trials is an impressive milestone.
There are roughly 400,000 swimmers registered with USA Swimming. At the 2016 trials, there was an average of 120 swimmers per event.
In the 400 IM qualifying races, there were 125 swimmers. Morgan’s time would put her in the top 30 of that group.
A daunting challenge, to be sure, but Morgan is the complete package, Piper says. She’ll have her choice of colleges next year when coaches are allowed to begin recruiting her, and her ceiling appears to be unlimited.
“She’s super smart academically, a super great student, and has a high swimming IQ, too,” Piper says. “Her focus is just incredible, and she is determined.”
Piper also says that Morgan’s work ethic is unmatched, and she never misses a practice. The one time she was late, everyone was so surprised and worried they couldn’t start the practice until she got there. Piper jokes that they have a saying at the club: “If Michelle isn’t at practice, she’s dead.”
Morgan, who finished third at the Florida Class 3A State championships last year as a freshman in the 200 IM and the 500 free, is currently chasing more Olympic trial cuts — particularly in the 800 free — at the 2019 Speedo Junior National Championships in Stanford, CA — her first big national meet.
“I’m just trying to see how good I can do in my other events,” Morgan says. “I’m trying not to jump ahead too far.”
That could be tough, with the Olympic Trials on the schedule. While the 2024 games in Paris, when Morgan will be 19, may be a more realistic goal, the experience next year will be a big boost to the promising young swimmer.
“It’s so tough to make the Olympic team,” Piper said. “But, we have already made the hotel reservations, and I am so excited for her to go and experience this. It will be great.”