Local Teen Lands Role In NYC Musical For Teens With Bleeding Disorders

Natalie Rubin says she lives by a personal mantra.

“Although having an illness limits you,” she says, “for every one thing you can’t do, there are a million things you can do.”

The Freedom High senior has a blood disease called Von Willebrand disease, a genetic disorder caused by a low level of clotting proteins in the blood. It was discovered when Natalie was 12. She got really sick, and the medications prescribed to her thinned her blood, resulting in her entire body being covered with bruises and petechial, or small red or purple spots caused by bleeding into the skin.

Now 17, Natalie has lived with the disease ever since. She tries to focus on things she loves, such as music and her position as a woodwind captain in Freedom’s band, playing tenor sax in marching band and bass clarinet in concert band.

She has to be extra cautious, though, because she bruises so easily, and her disorder can mean her blood doesn’t clot.

“When they throw rifles in marching band, I always think that I have to be very careful,” she says, as a bump to the head could be catastrophic for her.

While Natalie recognizes her limitations — she can’t play lacrosse or give boxing a try, both things she says she’s wanted to do — she looks for opportunities to live out her personal mantra and focus on the things she can enjoy to the fullest.

When the opportunity to audition for a unique opportunity to be in a New York City musical focusing on teenagers affected by blood disorders such as hemophilia and Von Willebrand disease, Natalie submitted an audition video and an essay, where she shared her personal mantra.

Although she called it “a long shot,” Natalie was one of only 25 teenagers from across the U.S. who ultimately were chosen for the performance,  called “Hemophilia: The Musical.”

Their essays were the inspiration for the songs that were written for the production.

Natalie’s aforementioned personal mantra was used in the production.

On Nov. 9, Natalie and the other teenagers arrived in New York City. and the spent some time touring the city, as well as many hours in rehearsals.

They had prepared at home, where their rehearsals were spent working with a professional voice coach, choreographer and others to bring their voices together for the one performance of the musical, held just a few days later — on Nov. 12, at the New World Stages in Manhattan.

“It was such an amazing, extravagant trip,” Natalie says, explaining that it was provided to the students at no cost to them, and included a stay in NYC’s Fashion District and being shuttled around the city to tourist destinations such as Times Square, where Natalie and the other teens’ names were highlighted on one of the city’s famous huge billboards, advertising the musical.

She says her favorite thing about participating was all the people she met, and she took away from it a message of how precious life is.

As a high school senior, Natalie is looking toward her future. She says she plans to major in medical genetics.

“Growing up with a health condition, it makes you feel different,” Natalie explains. “Then, maybe you go to camp and meet people like you and feel like you fit in, but you realize you’ve bonded over a sad thing. I want to cure something so kids don’t have to feel like that.”

She volunteers as a youth ambassador for the Hemophilia Foundation of Greater Florida, which serves people with bleeding disorders such as hemophilia, Von Willebrand disease, and others. She says the foundation is a great source of support to her.

Natalie adds that her participation in “Hemophilia: The Musical”  helped her think about what it really means to be a teenager living with a bleeding disorder. She explains that she is part of the first generation to have access to blood factor products, which are lifesaving to people with conditions like hers.

“I’m not lucky that I have this illness,” Natalie says, “but I am lucky that I have a full life and I can live with it. The last line of the musical is, ‘We’re still here today.’ It’s powerful because we’re here in honor of all the people who can’t be here because of their bleeding disorders.”

To view the performance, visit BreakingThroughHemophilia.com.

How New Tampa Voted: Blue Wave Floods Longtime Local Pols Out Of Office

Victor Crist

As it turns out, there was a Blue Wave after all.

Locally, though, it was more like a Blue Tidal Wave.

While Democrats lost ground in the U.S. Senate nationally, despite picking up a slew of House seats, the local wave, by a surprisingly large margin, washed a pair of longtime New Tampa Republicans out to sea — Hillsborough County commissioner and Tampa Palms resident and Dist. 2 Hillsborough County commissioner Victor Crist, and Dist. 63 State House Representative and Hunter’s Green resident Shawn Harrison.

And, a third local Republican, county commissioner and former New Tampa resident Ken Hagan, won his election by a much narrower margin than expected.

In the race for the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) District 2 seat previously held by Crist, Hagan had a huge advantage in both name recognition (as the point man in luring the Tampa Bay Rays to Tampa) and in money — he raised more than 10 times what Democrat and political newcomer Angela Birdsong was able to raise.

But, that only translated to a narrow 52-48 percent victory for the seat Crist vacated due to term limits that represents Citrus Park, Lutz, Temple Terrace, Brandon and New Tampa.

“I would say that I expected the margin to be closer than I’ve been accustomed to, so it wasn’t completely unexpected,” said Hagan, who won his previous two elections by double digits. “The reality is, Hillsborough County has gone from a Republican county to a Democratic stronghold. That was reflected up and down the ballot. And, New Tampa also has gone from Republican to Democrat.”

Hagan, who has spearheaded a number of big projects here in New Tampa and has attended two town halls in the area the past year alone, lost New Tampa’s 18 precincts to Birdsong by a surprisingly large number: nearly 3,000 votes. Hagan won just two precincts, 357 (which includes part of Tampa Palms) and 361, which is Hunter’s Green.

Fentrice Driskell

Harrison lost his Florida House District 63 seat to another political neophyte in Democrat Fentrice Driskell, although what is typically a fairly close race wasn’t this time around.

Driskell, seen as one of the rising stars to emerge from the 2018 election, beat Harrison by more than 4,500 votes. She focused some of her campaign energy on New Tampa, and it apparently paid off, as she defeated Harrison 57-43 percent in New Tampa.

Shawn Harrison

The only precinct Harrison won was Hunter’s Green, where he is a resident, and even that was only by a 55-vote margin. In 2016, Harrison beat Lisa Montelione partly on the strength of almost 600 more votes in his home precinct.

The District 63 seat, which also represents Lutz, Carrollwood and the University of South Florida area, is back in Democratic hands for the first time since 2014.

Crist, a visible New Tampa figure who has worked diligently to bring a cultural center to the area, failed in an attempt to win Hagan’s old countywide seat in District 5. He lost handily to Democrat Mariella Smith 52-45 percent, or by nearly 39,000 votes. Crist, who had never lost an election since entering politics more than 20 years ago, had won his last two District 2 races by 38,000 and 12,000 votes.

“It’s something I saw coming,” said Crist. “I believe in scientific polling and we polled early on and saw that there was going to be trouble. I knew even before I had an opponent that I would most likely face a tough time in this election.”

Even on what is essentially his home turf, Crist could not find any footing in New Tampa, losing every precinct by sizable numbers and by a 60-40 percentage.

In the other countywide county commission face, Democrat Kim Overman defeated Republican Todd Marks by 53-45 percent in District 7.

Pebble Creek resident Karen Perez will join the Hillsborough County School Board after besting Henry “Shake” Washington 54-45 percent. Perez, who ran unsuccessfully for the Florida House in 2006, was the voter’s choice in every New Tampa precinct.

In other news, tax referendums to raise money for transportation and education passed by a greater percentage in New Tampa than in the rest of the county.

While the one-cent transportation tax passed with 57.3 percent of the vote countywide, New Tampa voters favored the measure with 60.1 percent saying yes.

The education tax, which passed all of Hillsborough with 56.3 percent of the vote, received 60.5 percent of the votes cast in New Tampa.

Finally: Bruce B. Done

Imagine being a traffic engineer for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and director of public works in Hillsborough County for 29 years, going to work, designing traffic layouts and signals to help traffic flows in 14 Florida counties.

Imagine doing your highly stressful job so well and acquiring so many admirers along the way, that when you suddenly pass away, it is so heartbreaking that they re-name a road in your honor.

Now, imagine your name is Bruce Barkley Downs.

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In New Tampa, you won’t have Bruce B. Downs to kick around much longer, as the widening of the much-maligned, and breathlessly-besmirched boulevard that bears the late Mr. Downs’ name is now — finally — complete.

But, not completely complete, mind you.

Bruce B. Downs

There is still a light to install at Trout Creek Dr., which was determined to be a need after the project began. There also are a few patches here and there that need to be smoothed out, and trees and other aesthetic elements to put into place.

As we went to press with this issue, just before Thanksgiving, there were portions of a few northbound lanes receiving their final paving layers, and some of those dreaded and all-too-familiar orange cones are lying around. But, by the time this issue hits mailboxes, we are told they will have vanished.

All eight lanes — eight! — of Bruce B. Downs, for all intents and purposes, are finally Bruce B. Done.

“It’s good to finally get the last piece done,” says Jim Hudock, Hillsborough County’s Public Works director, the same job Downs once held.

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The project was a big one, right from the start. Though construction actually began in 2010, the decade before that was filled with discussions and planning and petitions and angry residents, but for years, no money to do anything.

What was formerly N. 30th St. before being named for Bruce B. Downs in 1986, what is now New Tampa’s primary artery, used to be called the “Road To Nowhere,” a seemingly endless stretch of road that ran all the way north to S.R. 54, where it dead-ended at a stack of concrete cinder blocks in someplace called Wesley Chapel.

A light will be installed at this intersection at Trout Creek Dr.

“I remember taking friends home that lived in Pebble Creek, and it seemed like three counties north of here,”  says Ken Hagan, who was elected as the Hillsborough County District 2 commissioner representing the New Tampa area after serving in the same role in the county-wide District 5 seat the last five years.

Hagan remembers drag racing on the “Road To Nowhere,” before it was even fully paved, when he attended Chamberlain High School on Busch Blvd., as his father did before him.

But, New Tampa was exploding — and northern neighbor Wesley Chapel wasn’t too far behind — and it was obvious to everyone that lived here that our main thoroughfare was not going to be able to handle all of that growth.

“That’s why it was always No. 1 on our unfunded list,” says Hagan, adding that he has worked diligently since entering public life to secure more than $100-million for the project. “The road was not initially constructed to hold the existing capacity, much less the growth that was undoubtedly going to occur. Hopefully, we have learned from those mistakes.”

Wishful thinking, perhaps? M/I Homes was recently approved to build 400 more homes in the K-Bar Ranch community, which has only one road out of it and could face similar problems with old, outdated “country roads” like Morris Bridge Rd. in the future.

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The $131-million, 8.5-mile-long widening of BBD, the largest and most expensive of any similar project in Hillsborough County’s history, was done in four segments, and the first — Segments B and C together — was a 3.4-mile stretch from Palm Springs Blvd. in Tampa Palms north to Pebble Creek Dr.

Segments B & C were the hardest segments, with more than 60,000 daily vehicle trips and the I-75 interchange to contend with, and ended up costing $52.3 million.

This has been a familiar site for years on Bruce B. Downs. Not for long, says the county.

Segment A followed in 2015, and would cost $54.7 million to transform four and six lanes running from Palm Springs Blvd. south to E. Bearss Ave. into eight glorious lanes.

That last piece, Segment D, began construction in 2016, following a lightly attended public information meeting at Wharton High on Oct. 18.

While many of the businesses along the corridor suffered from lingering construction at their entrances and issues arose with various underground utilities, the high school was both one of the biggest obstacles — and concerns — of New Tampa residents.

“It took a little bit of coordination with the school, and the School Board was great about working with us,” Hudock said. “Anytime you do a construction project, there is going to be some challenges. This required a lot of hard work from a lot of different agencies. There was a lot of land acquisition; businesses had to work with us out there. We are excited to have it all open, and are hopeful that a lot of the lessons we learned in that corridor can be applied to future projects.”

Hudock has heard all of the complaints. He said his department tried to investigate specific issues that were reported, and worked hard at replying to customer service requests.

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Bruce Barkley Downs, after retiring from FDOT, became Hillsborough’s director of Public Works & Safety and the deputy county administrator. According to a 2007 story in the then-St. Petersburg Times, he was in charge of 2,100 miles of roads and bridges.

In 1983, a local newspaper (yes, it pre-dates the Neighborhood News) wrote a story about Downs, stating he had the most stressful job in the county. The day the story came out, Downs, who battled high blood pressure his entire life, collapsed while having lunch with co-workers. He had suffered a major heart and passed away at the age of 53.

On April 17, 1986, on his birthday, the county renamed 30th St. between E. Fowler Ave. and the county line “Bruce B. Downs Blvd.”

It is the main thoroughfare for the University of South Florida, New Tampa and Wesley Chapel. It also has been regarded as one of the most notoriously frustrating roadways in all of Tampa Bay.

Worst traffic? The #1 road to avoid? Everything that’s wrong with government planning?

Bruce B. Downs.

Known for his reputation for helping people and his love of roads and making them work, the man for whom the road is named would likely be pleased to see a project like this one finally completed. 

So surely, the completion of the widening of that road, along with the bicycle and pedestrian enhancements and intersection improvements, deserves some kind of celebration.

A ribbon cutting? A cake? A concert by BBD (the group Bell Biv DeVoe)?

“Really, it’s about thanking everybody for the hard work and moving on to the next project,” Hudock said. “But this being as big a project as it was, there may be some consideration for something more.”

Latest New Tampa Town Hall Tackles Road Safety, Local Business & More

Hillsborough County School Board member Cindy Stuart (left) and Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera at a recent New Tampa townhall.

Since taking over as the Tampa City council member representing District 7, which includes New Tampa, Luis Viera vowed to try to create a more engaged community by developing local leaders who would hold politicians’ feet to the proverbial fire.

One vehicle for doing so: town halls, which are run by the New Tampa Council, a group Viera helped organize that is comprised of leaders from various local communities.

Here’s what you missed from the latest town hall, which was held Nov. 15 at the Venetian Event Center at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church on Cross Creek Blvd.

New Tampa Safety Group’s April Ingram.

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN — April Ingram, who started the New Tampa Safety Group, continued to beat the drum at the town hall for pedestrian safety in the K-Bar Ranch and Cross Creek areas. She also argued again for more crossing guards at Pride and Hunter’s Green Elementary schools, and suggested that the dangerous Kinnan St. and Cross Creek Blvd. intersection in front of Benito Middle School would benefit from more crossing guards, too.

Cindy Stuart, the School Board member for District 3, which includes all of New Tampa’s schools, didn’t disagree. Stuart, a guest speaker at the town hall, said that crossing guards are not offered by the Hillsborough County Sheriff Office (HCSO) at middle or high schools.

“That’s not my decision,” she says, even though she added she has shared data with HCSO that says middle and high school kids are more at risk than elementary school pedestrians. Stuart says that there is no money to hire more crossing guards or increase their pay, but added that HCSO will be requesting additional funds to do so.

Stuart, who chairs Hillsborough’s School Transportation Working Group (STWG), said the only way to get a crossing guard at Benito (or Wharton) would be to petition HCSO. You could hear light bulbs popping over the heads of many of the 50 or so residents in attendance.

DRIVE, DON’T TEXT — Stuart also said she has had numerous meetings about pedestrian safety in New Tampa, and there are minor changes in the works, such as moving the Benito Middle School bike rack from the side of the school where the buses operate closer to the front of the school, and clearing some trees to remove visual hindrances.

While students need to be taught the safest places to cross streets and not to assume that a red light means a car will necessarily stop, Stuart told the audience that it’s the adults who need to start paying more attention.

“The distracted driving in this community is horrible,” she said. “We have to stop.”

SWALLOWED UP? — A few residents in attendance expressed concerns that New Tampa is getting “swallowed up” by Wesley Chapel, due to the number of businesses that have been closing south of the Pasco line lately. One even suggested starting a grass roots organization to stop spending money in Wesley Chapel, while others worried that the two new tax referendums that recently passed (and have bumped the county’s sales tax to 8.5 percent) will only make it harder on local businesses.

Brad Suder, the superintendent of planning & design at the City of Tampa’s Parks & Recreation Department.

PARK NEWS — Brad Suder, the superintendent of planning & design at the City of Tampa’s Parks & Recreation Department, also was in attendance and provided some of the most well-received news of the night.

According to Suder, the five-acre New Tampa Sensory Park (one of Viera’s pet projects), planned for the land just south of BJ’s Wholesale Club on Commerce Palms Dr. in Tampa Palms, is not only proceeding, it is, “starting to become a dynamite-looking park.”

Suder, a New Tampa resident, said the original plans left him underwhelmed, but a new approach has yielded fantastic results. The proposed design should be completed by the middle of December.

Now comes the hard part: getting the money to actually build it.

While the $90,000 for the study and design was in last year’s City of Tampa budget, construction will require another $2-million that will have to be approved in this year’s budget come October 2019. It remains to be seen how a new mayor, who will be elected this spring, will affect those plans.

MORE MORE MORE — It was suggested by Arbor Greene’s Laura Blank that perhaps a group should be formed — a “town council” — to meet more frequently about issues residents in New Tampa may want to talk about. For example, why are there so many pizza places on Cross Creek Blvd.? And how about encouraging a breakfast restaurant to set up shop in New Tampa?

Jim Davison, who lost in his bid for the District 7 seat to Viera in 2016, suggested something like CafĂ© con Tampa, a weekly neighborhood gathering in South Tampa —often hosted by an area restaurant — where people show up to listen to special guests and talk about various issues.

It wasn’t clear if Davison was suggesting that these could be supplemental to the town halls, or a replacement for them. Davison lamented that “three months later, no one remembers what the hell we talked about.”

Viera, who defeated Davison to win his city council seat, took offense to that claim, pointing out that one town hall (at the New Tampa Recreation Center, or NTRC) was the launching point for local activists to get the NTRC expansion into the budget and approved, while other meetings have sparked things like Ingram’s safety group and a current study to repave the bike/pedestrian paths on New Tampa Blvd. in West Meadows.

MORE PARK TALK — K-BAR PARK ON HOLD? — Despite Davison’s claims, it was apparent that not everyone forgets what was said at previous town halls. K-Bar Ranch’s Will Tyson asked how the plans were coming along for the 50+-acre park planned for K-Bar Ranch that was talked about at the town hall in May.

Viera said that there hasn’t been any progress on the K-Bar park, as the city is trying to pay off some of its debt.

“It was never meant to be on the imminent horizon,” Viera said, putting a timeframe of 1-3 years on getting that park project built.

Business Attorney Derek Usman Helps Clients Right Here In New Tampa

Attorney Derek Usman says he moved from Chicago to Wesley Chapel in 2015 to be closer to family, bringing his experience in litigation, employment law and business law to the Wesley Chapel and New Tampa areas.

He originally opened his local office of The Usman Law Firm, P.A., off of Bearss Ave. But recently, he moved to a new office on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. (south of County Line Rd., in the Central Bank building), to be right in the heart of the community where he lives and serves his neighbors.

From initial paperwork for business formation to settling disputes in court, Derek is both experienced and knowledgeable in all areas of employment and business law.

He can help business owners and other individuals who have legal issues that need to be resolved related to the workplace. This could be related to contracts, labor and employment, setting up a new business as a corporation LLC or partnership, or it could be related to severance agreements, sexual harassment or discrimination, disputes related to overtime, wages and commissions, non-compete agreement review and litigation, wrongful termination, and whistleblower and retaliation.

Derek earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree from Indiana University in Fort Wayne in 1997 and his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the Northern Illinois University College of Law in 2001.

He is admitted to practice before the bars of Florida, Illinois, U.S. Tax Court, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida and U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Forming Businesses &

Resolving Disputes

Derek says many attorneys who practice business and employment law specialize in either initial transactions or disputes. However, Derek isn’t limited to one area or the other.

“I know both parts and have experience in both,” he says. “I have more practical knowledge when it comes to forming agreements because I know what usually gets litigated in court.”

He says his clients benefit from the hands-on experience he has had in courtrooms, from county courts, to state, federal and even appellate courts.

“If an attorney doesn’t go to court,” he says, “it kind of becomes academic. You can read about it all you want, but it’s different when you actually litigate cases in the courtroom.”

He explains that this has an impact on the front end paperwork he creates.

“When I’m drafting an agreement, I know the pitfalls,” he says.

Derek is able to assist people starting a new business to chose the right business structure, such as an S-corporation or LLC, and help those business owners understand the implications of the different structures that are available.

His clients are both business owners and employees. Derek says that many of them come to The Usman Law Firm because of something that is increasingly popular these days, a noncompete agreement.

“Oftentimes, employers don’t want employees starting a competing business or using their customer base at their next job,” he says. “More and more, employers are creating these agreements for every little thing.”

Before someone signs such an agreement, Derek recommends a consultation with The Usman Law Firm.

“It can be negotiated,” he explains. “Just because they hand you something that says you can’t work anywhere in Florida, for example, you can usually negotiate those details.”

Specifics such as the geographic scope and the time duration of these agreements are often points that can be worked out in a more favorable way, he explains.

Cleaning Up Legal Messes

Tim Wojdan was referred to Derek last year, when he found himself in need of an employment law attorney.

“I was a senior executive with a company in St. Pete that was sold and being shut down,” Tim explains. “I wound up in a legal mess with regards to an employment contract and noncompete agreement.”

He says he had two phone consultations with Derek where he explained the situation top to bottom, and Derek immediately got to work.

“He very quickly resolved the issue in a favorable way,” says Tim. “With an entire corporation being shut down, there were many other employees in the same situation, but Derek had discovered that my particular case might infringe on a federal issue. The other side moved very quickly to settle once Derek introduced that information.”

Tim says Derek’s hard work brought the case to the forefront of many others being pursued at the same time.

He also says Derek’s expertise was valuable in the case, which was tricky because the corporate headquarters was out of state.

Tim says he highly recommends Derek, who has since worked with another member of Tim’s staff to resolve that person’s claim, as well.

“I was most impressed by his professionalism and his promptness,” Tim says. “Most of the time, I didn’t even have to call him because he was proactively reaching out to me.”

Local To New Tampa

One of the things that makes Derek’s firm unique is that not many business lawyers are physically located in or even near New Tampa. His office is much easier to get to for New Tampa and Wesley Chapel clients than firms in other parts of town. While there are many personal injury attorneys in the area, he says most business law firms are located downtown.

Derek sees his location as an asset. He regularly goes to court in both Hillsborough County and Pasco County, while some attorneys in the Tampa area won’t travel to Dade City for Pasco County cases.

He stays connected to downtown firms by being involved in the Hillsborough County Bar Association and by appearing in court. He says he is often in touch with big downtown firms and has a good relationship with many lawyers from those practices.

“I have a good rapport with attorneys from downtown firms,” Derek says. He also explains that this makes it easier to pick up the phone and discuss cases with attorneys who are representing his clients’ opposition.

Derek says his decision to move his firm away from downtown Tampa — into the heart of New Tampa and closer to Wesley Chapel — was intentional.

“I consciously decided to move my office here, in the community where I live,” Derek says.

Moving his office is not the only way that Derek connects to the New Tampa and Wesley Chapel communities. He is an active member of the North Tampa Bay (formerly Wesley Chapel) Chamber of Commerce. He also is involved in the community as a member of the New Tampa Rotary Club, where he enjoys building relationships with fellow Rotarians and the many opportunities to volunteer, like he does annually at the Wiregrass Wobble Turkey Trot 5K run.

(Note-we’ll recap this year’s Thanksgiving Day run in our next issue).

“Rotary Club leaders organize volunteer opportunities for members and make it easy for club members to participate,” Derek explains. “I don’t have to think up ways to volunteer in my community. They make it simple for me to be able to help.”

He adds that the events put on by the Rotary not only raise money for good causes, but are great family events that bring people together, too.

“Everybody likes it when you take your kid to the mall and everyone’s out and about, doing something,” he says, “like the Wiregrass Wobble.”

The Usman Law Firm is located at 20701 Bruce B. Downs Blvd. For more information, please visit UsmanFirm.com, call (813) 377-1197, or see the ad on page 41 of this issue.