Despite a number of problems with curbside garbage service in recent months, Hillsborough County Commissioners didnโt seem to have much choice but to vote to increase trash assessments for the coming year.
On Aug. 4, commissioners voted 5-2 in favor of the 22% increase, effective Oct. 1, rather than run the risk of having no service when the current contract with Waste Connections of Florida expires.
District 2 Commissioner Ken Hagan, who represents the New Tampa area, was one of the no votes, along with fellow Republican Stacy White.
โA majority of (Waste Connectionsโ) service failures were in north Hillsborough, including my neighborhood,โ said Hagan, a Carrollwood resident. โIt was getting to the point where they were missing up to 50,000 homes a day. Residents were extremely frustrated, and I completely understand. I feel the same way.โ
The annual assessment will rise from $289.32 to $352.79, an increase of $63.47 annually, or $1.22 per week.
Solid waste assessments pay for two garbage collections per week, one recycling collection per week and one yard waste collection per week, as well as self-hauled disposals at the countyโs collection centers.
Fuel prices, truck maintenance and population growth have led to the need for higher assessments, according to the county staff.
However, because of recent performance issues with Waste Connections, the timing for a boost couldnโt be worse.
The trash service provider missed more than 250,000 pickups in June and July, while hundreds of routes werenโt completed. The poor service resulted in thousands of emails and phone calls from angry residents.
Last month, the county threatened the trash hauler with fines if it did not improve service. Hagan says Waste Connections blamed Covid-related issues as well as an employee shortage brought on by not being awarded any of the new contracts, worth $589 million, which were approved in June and will begin in February of 2022.
The new contracts went to Republic Services of Florida, Waste Management Inc., of Florida, and Fomento De Construcciones Y Contratas, Inc.
Hagan said the new contractors are working with Waste Connections of Florida to bring over some of their employees.
โI feel relatively comfortable where weโre at now,โ Hagan says. โThey say they are caught up. And, we have procedures in place to prevent this, should it happen again. I feel much better than I did a couple of weeks ago.โ
Local Realtor Jeff Miller gets ready to send his drone into the sky for his latest video of The Grove at Wesley Chapel. Miller has shot and posted more than 80 drone videos of locations around Wesley Chapel. (Photo: John C. Cotey)
Jeff Miller has seen a lot of things since moving to Wesley Chapel in 2004.
As a Realtor for Charles Rutenberg Realty, he has seen the market take off, then crash land, then take off again. He has seen the area grow and grow. He has seen neighborhoods evolve and new roads appear.
These days, however, Millerโs view has changed….to about 300 feet above the ground.
If youโve been on the web looking for all of the new developments and businesses in Wesley Chapel, you may have come across one of Millerโs many drone videos, which are focused on all of the new developments in our area.
โI really love sharing the videos with everyone,โ Miller says. โI think itโs pretty cool.โ
Miller has been posting regular old ground-level videos on his YouTube page since 2017, but kept noticing more and more drone videos.
โThey were unique and super visual,โ he says. โWhat a difference.โ
Miller bought his first drone โ a surprisingly compact gray DJI Mini 2 โ in February, and has since posted more than 80 videos, from local communities like Persimmon Park, Estancia, River Landing and Avalon Park to area favorites like the Crystal Lagoon at Epperson, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County and the Wesley Chapel District Park.
The first drone video he posted was 47 seconds of footage at the Overpass Rd. construction at I-75, followed by 99 seconds of Epperson Ranch and its lagoon. None of Millerโs first five drone videos topped 100 views, but many of his videos since then have fared much better.
A video of the future Wiregrass Ranch Blvd. has more than 600 views, a drone tour of Winding Ridge by GL Homes has more than 1,000 and an update on the Overpass Rd. construction currently is his top drone video to date with 1,300+ views.
All of his videos combined have nearly 20,000 views.
While Miller started posting his videos as a hobby, he says it hasnโt been bad for business either.
โIโve had a lot of people reach out to me because of the videos,โ he says. โEspecially the updates on the Overpass Rd. bridge, the parks and the malls. There are people interested in buying homes from out of state and I think itโs pretty cool they can see how the community has progressed.โ
Jeff Millerโs drone videos focus on new developments like Avalon Park Wesley Chapel (top) and popular places Wesley Chapel is known for, like the Crystal Lagoon at Epperson.
Miller said the wealth of aerial video opportunities is a far cry from his first decade or so in Wesley Chapel.
โBack then, there was really nothing to shoot (here),โ he says.
A 1993 graduate of Southern Connecticut State University with a degree in corporate video communications, Miller has long had an eye for photography and video. He says he started taking pictures when he was a kid and, when he moved to Wesley Chapel, he took on a role helping the former Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (now the North Tampa Bay Chamber) with social media.
โBefore Facebook, that was pretty impossible,โ he says. But, he would attend events, and send out email blasts with recaps and photos.
He says he helped start the Wesley Chapel Fall Festival and art show. In 2008, Miller even ran for the Chamberโs Honorary Mayor of Wesley Chapel. He hosted a wine tasting at the old Cork and Olive on Bruce B. Downs Blvd. hoping to attract voters, and one of his goals was to get signs up in the area that said โWe Love Wesley Chapel.โ
โI think I met everyone in Wesley Chapel that year,โ Miller says, chuckling.
A long-time promoter of the community, Miller says he tries to get out and shoot something in the area every day. Although he says he graduated from college without even having used the internet or a cell phone, he eagerly dives into new technology.
โThis technology is ridiculously easy to use,โ he says. โIt really gives me the chance to make awesome, shareable content. I hope people like it.โ
Mark Loren and his wife Susan have a strong bond with the characters in their October Fall series now available on Amazon.(Photo: Courtesy of Mark Loren)
As Mark Loren shops for groceries at the Publix on S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel near his Meadow Pointe home, his mind imagines a battle scene taking place around the grocery store. Key locations across Pasco County, like Publix, are common settings in his post-apocalyptic present-day world book series, October Fall.
The idea came to the first-time author three years ago, after reading survival and prep books. The world he created is based on true locations, real people and key moments in his life.
โItโs a thriller and an apocalypse and a love story,โ Loren said. โAnd it all takes place in Pasco County.โ
The story follows Jake as he uses his military training and knowledge of prepping from books to survive in a world after an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. Without a power grid, chaos ensues and Jake must protect himself and his family.
October Fall, the first book in the series, was released April 2, and has received 412 reviews, 83 percent of which were 4- or 5-stars.
The second book, November Feud, did even better. Of the 512 reviews, 92 percent were 4- and 5-stars.
The third book, December Battles, is expected to be released this month.
Loren took inspiration from his past to establish the life of his main character Jake, who, like Loren, is a retired Major in the U.S. Army who used to drive a tank. While Jake is a reflection of Loren, his wife Susan and children Jazlyn and Cole also are leading characters with similar personalities to their real-life selves. As Lorenโs wife and editor, Susan says the events in the story may not be real but the connections between the characters are very real, indeed.
โTheir relationship with us and their relationship with each other, those things are real,โ Susan said. โThatโs what makes the books real.โ
Loren would travel to key locations in his series, marking places on a self-made map. When reading the survivalist novel Going Home by A. American, he was inspired to take a drive through Pasco County, where the bookโs main character traveled. Taking inspiration from the series, Loren made October Fall an interactive story for readers to travel to the same places he did.
โThere is a little bridge on Morris Bridge Road that goes over Cypress Creek and, in the story, they stop there and do something,โ Loren said. โAnd then, thereโs a house that gets burned down by a good friend in the first book and we drive by and see the burned-down house.โ
October Fall is the first in a series of books centered around a character who is trying to protect his family in a post-apocalyptic Wesley Chapel.ย
Calling himself a discovery writer, Loren would keep the plot and themes in his head before transferring them onto paper, unlike his publisher, Boyd Craven, Jr., who would outline the novels. Loren currently has five books written with seven total planned out in his head. He says it took him six months to finish writing book one and three months to complete each book in the series, which enabled them to be published as rapid releases only a month apart.
Loren is a big fan of J.R.R Tolkienโs Lord of the Rings series, especially when the main characters break up into smaller missions before uniting to complete the overall goal. Taking inspiration from Tolkien, Loren says he saw the vision he wanted to create for the October Fall series.
Loren met Craven online through the Facebook group DD12 The Post Apoc Army of Readers. After Loren told him he had written four books, Craven decided to edit and publish them through his publishing company Raventhorne Books.
โWriting the book is only half the battle, possibly less than half the battle,โ Craven says. โRefining the book and getting it in front of the right audience at the right time and presenting it the right way is the other half of the game.โ
Loren says the series begins to wrap-up in book 5, which is half written, but books 6 and 7 take the story in a stunning, new direction and even elicited a โHoly Cowโ from Craven.
The story is forever evolving. Loren says he would often find himself getting out of bed after having a good idea for his novel. Not wanting to forget a certain theme to incorporate into his stories, he would begin writing down the ideas at night.
โI was concentrating on one, and going back and tying things up or making changes in another,โ Loren says.
Although October Fall is Lorenโs first published work, he has been writing stories for years. When his wife was deployed during Operation Desert Storm, he would write to her of his last few days, accumulating more than 80 pages of writing and 13 chapters. He says their love story started more than 30 years ago.
Pasco County Building Construction Services is stepping up to help customers burned by Olympus Pools, offering new tools and financial relief for those whose pool projects are in limbo due to open permits.
They have launched a dedicated webpage to help customers navigate the permitting process, as well as providing answers to any additional questions in this FAQ. Best of all, the county is waiving all fees associated with Olympus Pools permits through Dec. 31, 2021, a move expected to help hundreds of customers left with unfinished pools.
โWe hope this action will help ease the financial burden on our customers who choose to seek other permitting options,โ said Assistant County Administrator Sally Sherman.
Olympus Pools customers have three options for open pool permits:
Oversee the project yourself.
Hire a new, licensed pool contractor.
Cancel your pool permit.
To choose an option, just fill out the form found HERE and e-mail to BCS@MyPasco.net.
The county says over the past two years, Olympus Pools has pulled hundreds of permits for pool projects in Pasco County, and most remain unfinished. For more information on your options, please visit the county’s new webpage: bit.ly/OlympusPermits.
One month after being kicked off the Diverging Diamond Interchange project at S.R. 56 and I-75, D.A.B. Constructors has informed the Florida Department of Transportation it is voluntarily defaulting on the S.R. 54 widening project as well.
On July 28, “FDOT received letters from DAB informing us that they are financially unable to perform or complete the performance of the work as prime contractor, which constitutes a voluntary default…,” FDOT spokesperson Kris Carson wrote in an email.
But it isn’t just the S.R. 54 widening project, which was supposed to be completed by the end of the year, that D.A.B. Constructors is walking away from. There are five other projects in Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties:
C.R. 580 Sam Allen Rd. from S.R. 39 to Park Rd.
US 19 Widening from Green Acres to W. Jump Ct
US 19 Widening from W. Jump Court to W. Fort Island Trail
US 19 Resurfacing from Hernando County Line to Green Acres
SR 52 Widening from Suncoast Parkway to US 41
“FDOT will be working with the Surety Companies to take over and complete the projects,” Carson says.
D.A.B. Contractors issued a statement, signed by president Doborah Bachschmidt and executive vice president Bill Bachschmidt, earlier this week, published in the Citrus County Chronicle, saying that “After over 33 years as a small heavy civil construction firm based in Inglis, Florida, D.A.B. is winding down all operations and putting the completion of ongoing projects in the hands of our bonding companies.”
D.A.B. essentially says the DDI project led to it pulling out of its other projects due to financial strain.
FDOT’s actions in regards to D.A.B. being behind schedule on the DDI which was made public last fall, were a “deathblow” to the company. D.A.B. says it accelerated construction without payment from FDOT to meet milestone dates.
“When D.A.B. achieved the milestones to the extent feasible under the FDOT-furnished defective plans”, the company wrote, “FDOT moved the goalposts. We suffered a classic domino-effect, as our acceleration efforts had diverted resources from other ongoing projects and drained the company of millions of dollars such that operations cannot be sustained.”
It wrote it has been in a 15-month tug-of-war with FDOT due to errors in the design.
“Despite the existence of a significant errors in the project design provided by FDOT and the recommendation of an independent Disputes Review Board that upheld D.A.B.โs contentions regarding the existence of the design errors and the resulting impact to the project schedule and costs to complete, FDOT has declared D.A.B. in default.”
Last month, in a letter dated June 25, D.A.B. Constructors told FDOT they were “demobilizing” from the DDI project, two days before it was defaulted on the project by FDOT.
D.A.B., which says it is the only remaining woman-owned prime contractor in the state, says it cannot continue to self-finance FDOT projects while it waits on the outcome of court action.
Carson says D.A.B. Constructors filed a lawsuit against FDOT on July 1.
“We very much regret the inevitable inconveniences to the traveling public as D.A.B.โs ongoing jobs are transitioned to others for completion,” the Bachschmidts wrote.” We are working cooperatively with our sureties to expedite take over and completion work. Likewise, despite what weโve encountered with FDOT, we intend to continue to cooperate with the department.”
That is disappointing news for Wesley Chapel residents, who just a few months ago were expecting the DDI and 54 widening to be completed before 2022. That now appears unlikely.
The 54 widening is a $42.5-million project to transform S.R. 54 from two to four lanes east of Curley Rd to east of Morris Bridge Rd., a 4.5-mile stretch. A sidewalk will be built on the north side of the road and a 10-foot wide multi-use trail will be built on the south side.
