You can have breakfast with Santa (aka Paul Bartell) tomorrow.
The Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel will host its third annual “Breakfast with Santa” tomorrow — Saturday, December 15, 8 a.m.-10 a.m., at Applebee’s (28422 S.R. 54).
Don’t tell your kids, but Santa will actually be played by one of our favorite people — Paul Bartell — and of course, the event will benefit the Wesley Chapel Noon Rotary Fund, which donates money to many local nonprofits. The cost to attend the breakfast is only $7, which includes breakfast and a picture with Santa, but due to limited seating, walk-ins will not be accepted. To purchase tickets online today, please visit https://bit.ly/2By54pg.
Bartell and his wife Jamie and their surviving son James, also hosted their third annual “Quarter Auction” to benefit the Sean Bartell Memorial Foundation, in honor of the Bartells’ younger son, who passed away suddenly from a rare illness. Around 100 people attended the auction for some great prizes, and helped the Bartells’ raise several thousand dollars for $1,000 college scholarships the foundation has donated each year for local high school seniors. To make a donation to the Foundation, please visit SeanBartell.org.
Other local holiday festivities include:
The Shops at Wiregrass “Symphony In Lights” — The always popular show, which you can catch nightly through Monday, December 31, 6 p.m.-9 p.m., features holiday lights, dazzling decor and even snow, all to the sounds of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Free! (See pg. 34)
Christmas Movies Under The Stars! — On Saturday, December 15, 5:30 p.m., catch “Jingle All The Way” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which will be shown at the Under Armour entrance to Tampa Premium Outlets (TPO). Free!
Still Time To See Santa — Santa is in town and you can still give him your Christmas list and get a photo with him at the Christmas Tree in Lagoon Court at TPO. Stop by from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. on the next two Saturdays, Dec. 15 & Dec. 22. Free!
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.
• • •
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.
• • •
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.
• • •
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.
• • •
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.Â
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.”
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?
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.
Following a few months in stagnation, the long-running debate about which, if any, roadway connections to make between the southern portion of Wesley Chapel and New Tampa’s K-Bar Ranch area will be renewed Dec. 13 when Pasco County’s Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) meets in Dade City.
At the scheduled Pasco MPO meeting, its nine Board members will be presented a scaled-down version of the findings of the Wesley Chapel Roadways Study, which was presented to roughly 75 local residents on May 29.
Ali Atefi, Pasco County’s transportation engineer, said originally the MPO was supposed to receive the report, compiled by consulting firm AECOM, in August, but a crowded agenda forced it to be postponed until next month.
Once the MPO is presented the findings of the study, a citizen survey will be scheduled, likely for early spring.
The online survey will be for Pasco County residents only, and will present the options for yes or no votes for various connections.
The study looked at four potential solutions to connecting Wesley Chapel and K-Bar Ranch:
(1) connecting Kinnan St. in New Tampa with Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe and K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. to Meadow Pointe Blvd.
(2) connecting only K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. to Meadow Pointe Blvd.
(3) doing all of the possible connections: Kinnan-Mansfield, K-Bar Ranch Pkwy.-Meadow Pointe Blvd., and Wyndfields Blvd. to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy.
All three proposed connections, which are shown with red circles on the map above, have been in the county’s Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) for many years.
There was also a fourth option — a no-build option — that would put up a gate for emergency vehicles, which was very popular among constituents on both sides of the county line, and bicycle and pedestrian accommodations at Kinnan-Mansfield, but no motor vehicle connection for general public use.
Connecting Kinnan to Mansfield — with those two streets still separated by a 30-foot-or-so patch of dirt and bushes and whose linking has been a point of great contention between the two counties — was considered an alternative, but only in conjunction with the other connections
The Roadways Study report states that Kinnan-Mansfield was not evaluated as a standalone connection.
When presented this information, members of the public had a month to weigh in with their opinions, either with forms at the workshop or online. The responses, all of which were reviewed by the Neighborhood News, don’t offer many surprises.
There were 12 forms filled out at the May presentation, with only one in favor of the Kinnan-Mansfield connection.
Of the 175 emails we reviewed, 100 of them were actually forwarded responses from a Change.org petition.
Among the remaining 75 emails, there were a number of duplicates, but 36 emails were clearly opposed to connecting Kinnan-Mansfield (though many were open to other connections) and six emails were in favor of connecting the two roads. Of course, these are the Pasco County responses only.
Since the Wesley Chapel Roadways Study was finalized, the City of Tampa approved a rezoning that will permit M/I Homes to proceed with building 700 new homes in K-Bar Ranch, which borders Meadow Pointe directly to the south.
The Pasco MPO is expected to make its recommendation in May, which would then place the final decision in the hands of the Pasco Board of County Commissioners for a potential vote in the summer.
Cypress Creek Middle High School principal Carin Hetzler-Nettles was vacationing in Europe on Nov. 4, when she got an unexpected video call from Kurt Browning, the Superintendent of Pasco County Schools.
“Hey, Carin,” Browning said, “I know you’re in the middle of vacation, but we wanted to let you know that you are Pasco’s Principal of the Year.”
Hetzler-Nettles was chosen to represent Pasco County Schools as its nominee for Florida’s Principal of the Year.
“Carin’s colleagues nominated her from among all district principals,” says Linda Cobbe, public information officer for Pasco County Schools. “The nominations were narrowed to three finalists, based on the number of votes each received, and then we had a vote among all administrators for District Principal of the Year, and she won.”
School Board chair Cynthia Armstrong and School Board member Colleen Beaudoin joined Browning on the call, which was posted on Pasco County Schools’ Facebook page, and offered their congratulations.
“We’re excited for you,” Browning said. “You’re a great principal. We’re excited about what you’ve done in the district and what you’re doing at Cypress Creek.”
“Thank you so much,” Hetzler-Nettles responded, smiling. “I appreciate it. I’m very humbled.”
Hetzler-Nettles, “embodies what a leader is,” said the nomination. “She drives the learning community forward in every way, while supporting staff growth. She always places kids first.”
“She’s an awesome teacher, mentor and friend,” says Tim Light, an assistant principal at Cypress Creek who has worked with Hetzler-Nettles since 2011. “I’m the administrator I am because of her.”
Light says that Hetzler-Nettles is deserving of the designation because of her hard work and commitment to opening Cypress Creek, which opened in the fall of 2017, and her dedication to building the community within the school and all of its stakeholders.
It was no easy task, say those who laud Hetzler-Nettles for her success. She had to find the right balance and build unity at Cypress Creek with students — not all of whom were happy to be switching schools after the rezoning process — from three high schools, three middle schools and several elementary schools.
Hetzler-Nettles was not only tasked with bringing these diverse groups together, but with it being a brand new school, also was responsible for things like figuring out furniture to coming up with a mascot for the school.
“She was charged with…creating its mission and motto, and getting a staff on board to live and breathe the mission and motto every day,” Light says. “She took a very difficult job and got the buy-in from all the stakeholders and created the culture here that is like no other. That’s why she got the award and why she deserves it.”
Hetzler-Nettles was previously the principal at Wesley Chapel High. Dee Dee Johnson succeeded her as principal when Hetzler-Nettles was chosen for Cypress Creek.
“She had a lot of work ahead of her,” Johnson says. “She started as a team of one, went in there full steam ahead, and knew she would go in and do what’s best for kids, and make the school great.”
Her focus is on making the experience of learning enjoyable for the students, Johnson and Light agree, and building a staff that can accomplish that. With any new school, developing traditions and pride — like creating a code of personal behavior called “The Coyote Way” — can go a long way towards making that school successful.
“I feel very fortunate that I was able to work for her for several years and learn from her,” Johnson says, “She’s very deserving.”
