Viera Takes It To The Streets To Address Concerns

Luis Viera brought along four City of Tampa Water Department employees to Arbor Greene for a Jan. 20 meeting to discuss unusually high water bills. (Photo: John C. Cotey)

Tampa City Council member Luis Viera has always enjoyed scheduling community meetings in his District 7, which includes the City of Tampa communities in New Tampa.

Sometimes, Viera meets for a cup of coffee, or in a clubhouse meeting room or even at someone’s home. He says his favorite form has been the local townhall meeting, of which he has hosted a handful in New Tampa alone.

However, Covid-19 has changed all that, forcing Viera to, well, take it to the streets…or yard…or cul-de-sac.

His latest stop was to address the concerns of his constituents in Arbor Greene, where about a dozen residents met with Viera on a perfectly manicured patch of grass beneath strung lights behind the Community Clubhouse’s tennis courts.

Their primary complaint? Water bills they say that spike for a month for no reason and then return to normal.

Viera also remembered to bring face masks & disinfecting wipes to his meeting outside the Arbor Greene Community Clubhouse. (Photo: John C. Cotey)

As he usually does when attending this new brand of community get-together, Viera brought with him a police officer — who thankfully had no salacious crime stories to share but reminded everyone to lock their car doors because some areas in New Tampa have seen a recent rash of burglaries — as well as four employees of the city’s water department.

“I’ve been hearing a lot about the water bills in Arbor Greene for a year now,  and it’s hard to say anything without doing an analysis of the bills,’’ Viera said. “So, I brought along some people who could. This meeting was about making those connections.”

None of the residents with a water bill beef got exactly the answers they wanted to questions like this one: 

“How was my water bill $307 in December when we weren’t even home for two weeks, and then back to $69 the following month?” (Not to mention the few days in early December the city had a water boil notice that kept the spigots at home mostly turned off).

Eli Franco, a spokesman for the City of Tampa Water Department, said mistakes are sometime made, but so rarely, the chances are that the bills reflect a leak somewhere, or an issue with a running toilet or an irrigation system.

“We read 140,000 meters a month,” Franco told the Arbor Greene residents, “and our error rate is less than one half of one percent.”

Franco said anything outside a normal meter reading is read a second time, and then a third time. Then, a picture is taken and sent to billing to see if there might be an explanation.

Franco said the city does work with residents if there is a problem with a running toilet or potential leak. He says the city has one of the most generous leak adjustment policies in the country.

“We want to make sure you’re getting a fair bill,” he said.

However, residents like Frank Burke, who has lived in Arbor Greene for 23 years, said leaks or running toilets don’t explain how his bill went from $68 to $160 before going back down, without any leak or toilet repairs at his home.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

Burke is one of dozens of Arbor Greene residents who have experienced what they say are unusually high water bills. Burke says his wife has seen plenty of complaints on Facebook, while others have taken to social media sites like NextDoor to complain. 

Viera said the goal of the meeting was to put Arbor Greene residents in touch with the right people to help and, to that end, his aide Brannon Lazo took names and handed out business cards to make sure the concerns were addressed by the right people.

 â€œWe’re in the middle of a pandemic and a lot of people are frustrated,” Viera said. “As an elected official, we should be there to take the heat, catch the questions and find some answers.”

While he still prefers his townhalls, Viera started his outdoor tour in October, and the stops have included Forest Hills and the Busch Blvd. area of North Tampa, which also are in his district, a meeting in a cul-de-sac in the Tuscany community in Tampa Palms over concerns about new apartments, a meeting with residents of the Promenade Apartments in Tampa Palms about crime, and the Arbor Greene meeting.

New Tech Should Speed Up Emergency Response Times

Tampa Fire Rescue Station No. 21 on Cross Creek Blvd. is one of four TFR stations in New Tampa that should have updated technology in their trucks by the end of the year to help shorten response times in our area. (Photo: Charmaine George)  

The days of outdated equipment and using an iPad or cell phone to locate a fire or other emergency are coming to an end, interim Tampa Fire Chief Barbara Tripp told the Tampa City Council at its Jan. 14 meeting.

Tripp outlined a plan to address many of the concerns raised by the Council members in November about fire fighters at many stations, especially Station 13 in North Tampa, being overwhelmed by the combination of calls and lack of proper technology and personnel to deal with them. The plan also includes more fire stations, including one in New Tampa’s K-Bar Ranch area, which will have nearly 2,000 homes when it is built out.

That is more long range, however, as Tripp focused on easing the pressure at Station 13. Located at 2713 E. Annie St. near Busch Gardens, Station 13 handled more than 11,000 calls last year, which accounted for 1/7th of all calls made to Tampa’s 23 fire rescue stations. 

Council member Luis Viera, who represents New Tampa as part of his District 7 duties, called the situation “an abomination.”

Viera said he was glad to see Tripp tackling the problems as part one of a two-part solution to help make Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) more efficient. He said part two will come in March, when the issue of slow response times and how to shorten them will be addressed at a workshop.

A report by the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) caused a number of red flags to be raised, and one of the ones that caught Viera’s attention was how fire service in New Tampa was faring.

According to the report, four of the six TFR stations with the slowest response times are located in the 33647 zip code, despite having four stations located within a few miles of each other — Station No. 20 (located on Bruce D. Downs Blvd. in Tampa Palms); Nos. 21 and 22 located off Cross Creek Blvd.; and No. 23, which opened in 2019 on Trout Creek Ln. south of County Line Rd.

“In March, we have to start looking at long-term solutions,” Viera says. “You talk to stations 20, 21, 22 and 23, and they tell me sometimes you have wait times of 15 minutes out there.”

Much of the problem seems to center around outdated technology, according to Joe Greco, Tampa Firefighters Local 754 president. In fact, Greco says, the response times are probably not as bad as the IAFF report stated, “but there’s no way to be accurate, to give you that information, because our system is antiquated and inaccurate.”

Tripp said TFR has been using the same Computer Aided Dispatch system since 1998, and its Automated Vehicle Locator (AVL) has been out of service the past five years. Old GPS equipment was being used that depended upon antennas going back 5-10 years ago.

New systems, at a cost of $1.2 million over five years, have been purchased and should be implemented by October, provided there are no setbacks due to Covid-19. The new equipment definitely should help shorten response times in New Tampa.

“Although we all regret that the equipment funding didn’t come when we wanted it to, it is in process,” said Russell Haupert, the city’s director and chief information officer for technology and innovation. “It is on the way and we are doing everything we can to accelerate that process so we don’t have any problems out in the field from this point forward.”

While Orlando Gudes, the City Council member for District 5 and a police officer for 36 years, favors a fire rescue overhaul, he was aghast, as were other Council members, that the situation had reached this point.

“How has TFR not had computers (in its trucks)?,” Gudes asked. “That makes no sense to me.”

Making less sense, though, was the fact that all 23 stations currently still have to compete for radio time with dispatch on just one channel, Gudes added. But, the hope is that the new AVL will help rectify that. 

“Five years of not having any computer-aided dispatch other than your initial tear off from the station is absolutely ridiculous in a city the size of Tampa,” Greco said. 

Viera hopes TFR can be improved as part of a larger plan to tackle public safety in Tampa. The issue is where the money needs to come from to pay for the improvements. “This requires our attention,” Viera said. “We’ll need to look at the budget. Are we going to have the political leadership in the city to pay for it? I say hell yes we are. I know we are.”

Miss New Tampa Is Aiming Higher

Udeme Ikaiddi (Photos courtesy of Udeme Ikaiddi)

New Tampa’s Udeme Ikaiddi (pronounced Oo-DEM-ee A-Ky-dee) didn’t grow up in the world of beauty pageants. She grew up playing violin, reading books and hanging out with friends.

It wasn’t until she was in college that she ever considered entering one herself, and that was only after producing different pageants at the University of South Florida, like the Miss Africa USF event, and others.

At the age of 25, with some prodding from a friend, Udeme entered and won her first beauty pageant. A year later, she was named Miss New Tampa. In July, at the age of 26, she will vie for the title of Miss Florida in Coral Springs, although a date has not been set.

“It’s been a fun adventure,” she says.

Udeme, a Cross Creek resident and 2012 Wharton High graduate, didn’t win an actual pageant to earn the title of Miss New Tampa. While she has modeled and taken part in Tampa Bay and Orlando Fashion Week events and various bridal and wedding expos, she only had to apply to become a hometown delegate by sending in pictures and a resumĂ© to the Miss Florida USA organization. She was one of many chosen to represent their area — there also is a Miss Brandon, Miss Riverview, Miss Hillsborough, and so on. “When we all come together in July, there will be roughly 100 girls (vying to be Miss Florida),” Udeme says. 

The winner will be determined by the highest scores from three competitions: fitness (athletic wear/swimsuit), evening gown and interview. The winner will represent Florida at the Miss USA competition, and the winner there will represent the U.S. at the Miss Universe pageant.

It’s still all so new for Udeme. 

“I literally just jumped into it when I was 25,” she says. “To me, it’s a really huge deal because my No. 1 goal is to go to Miss Universe and represent the United State of America, and this is like the first step. So, instead of just being super excited, there’s a lot of nerves, but also a lot of determination.”

Although she’s no shrinking violet herself, Udeme basically honed her pageant skills while producing them. She trained and conditioned participants by making them feel good about themselves, giving them confidence, and assuring them that public speaking was not so scary. 

“I helped them find that confidence and that fire to step on the stage,” she says.

And now, she has ended up lighting her own fire.

Her first pageant was the Miss Akwibo USA pageant, which she won in 2019. Although she was born in Tallahassee, FL, Udeme is of African descent, with her parents coming to America in the 1980s from their birthplace in Akwa Ibom State, located in southern Nigeria. There is an annual convention in the U.S. for Akwa Ibom natives, which draws nearly 2,000 people. Udeme compares it to a convention of Florida natives being held in Germany.

The pageant is held during the convention. Her platform was “Live. Love. Learn.” It focused on preventing malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS and promoting healthy life choices (“Live”), documenting Akwa Ibom traditions and culture online (“Love”) and educating Akwa Ibom youth (“Learn”).

In September 2019, Udeme traveled to Akwa Ibom State as Miss Akwa Ibom USA to complete one of her pet projects — giving school supplies to children in the primary school of the villages where her mother and father are from in Nigeria.

As part of her duties as Miss Akwibo USA, Udeme visited Nigeria in 2019, met the Akwa Ibom governor and worked on projects related to her platform.

“It was such a humbling experience, I cannot stress that enough,” Udeme says. “It really made me see the good things I could do, and made me think about other ways to do even more with this platform.”

Udeme started to look into other opportunities, to see if pageants and the platform they afford might be something she’d like to spend more time pursuing. She says she was moved when she watched the 2019 Miss Universe pageant on YouTube, which was won by Zozibini Tunzi of South Africa, as well as the Miss USA 2020 event, where Asya Branch, the first ever black contestant from Mississippi, earned the crown.

“I said, ‘Yep, this is what I want to do,’” Udeme says. “I was like, ‘These beautiful black women are so smart, so intelligent, so humble and so loving, I want to try and do this.’”

While she waits for her opportunity at the Miss Florida pageant, Udeme is pursuing her passion for hospitality and tourism. She got her Bachelor’s degree in Organizational Management from USF and may apply for the Master’s program. She also is a sales coordinator at the Hilton Tampa Downtown and owns her own event-planning business, Gifted Engagements, which she says is currently on hiatus, due to Covid-19.

In her role as Miss New Tampa, Udeme already has forged a collaboration with the Hillsborough branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She hopes that relationship is just the beginning.

“I’m really excited about July,” Udeme says. “Sure, the goal at the end of the day to is to win, 100 percent, but even now, if I didn’t try, I wouldn’t have been connected with NAMI (as Miss New Tampa). Even before Miss USA, I’ve accomplished something that warms my heart, and I just want to do more.”

Helping Pasco Sports Tourism Rebound in 2021

Club volleyball has been keeping the January calendar full at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County.

If tourism is going to bounce back from the Covid-19-ravaged 2020, a series of spikes, dunks, cheers and racquet sports will have a lot to do with it.

At least that’s how it looks to Pasco County tourism director Adam Thomas, who says that after a tough year for tourism around the world, events are returning to Pasco’s “sports tourism” sites, including the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, Advent Health Center Ice and the Sarah Vande Berg (SVB) Tennis Center — all part of the county’s “Florida’s Sports Coast” branding.

Thomas says the three facilities have 14 events scheduled for the first two months of the year, with many more to come, as national governing bodies like USA Volleyball, USA Wrestling, USA Powerlifting and others look to take advantage of Florida’s open-for-business status and have eyed the Wesley Chapel-area to hold events.

“We are just now getting back to normalcy,” Thomas says, despite rising Covid numbers in Pasco, in Florida and around the nation. “We are looking at sports tourism in 2021 to really get us back to where we need to be.”

One event that won’t provide as much help as originally expected is Super Bowl LV, which is being played at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on February 7. Generally, a huge event like the Super Bowl would have a major economic impact on nearby Wesley Chapel, with visitors staying in local hotels and eating and shopping at local restaurants and stores.

But, Covid-19 protocols will limit the crowd at Raymond James Stadium, which can hold 65,890 fans, to roughly 20,000 for the Big Game.

Thomas thinks Wesley Chapel will still enjoy some benefit from the Super Bowl, but in October, Pasco backed out of plans to spend $250,000 on a Super Bowl sponsorship and instead use that money for something more likely to bring a bigger return to the county.

So, while the Big Game won’t make as much of an impact, hundreds of little ones will — and that’s fine with Richard Blalock, the CEO of RADDSports, which runs the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, thanks to a public-private partnership between Pasco and RADD Sports.

The 98,000-sq.ft. AdventHealth Sports Arena will host a variety of club sporting events in 2021, bringing hundreds of teams and players and their parents’ wallets to Wesley Chapel.

The January calendar was filled with volleyball tournaments and gymnastics meets. Volleyball and gymnastics club seasons will roll into a basketball club season in the spring, and then the camp season over the summer. The Sports Campus is already proving to be responsible for a lot of hotel room nights and money spent at Wesley Chapel restaurants, malls and shopping centers, as nearly every weekend is booked through August and even Covid-plagued 2020 proved to be a success.

“We are not one-sport-specific, and that helps us,” Blalock says. “We made that decision by design. We can run a multitude of events here. As one season ends, another is starting.”

Blalock says in August and September of 2020, the first six weeks the Sports Campus was open, its events were responsible for 1,800 hotel room nights and just over $150,000 in sales, resulting in a $1.2-million indirect impact on the local economy. 

He doesn’t have numbers yet for the rest of 2020, but Blalock says he expects to exceed those numbers in 2021. He says this while staring out his office window at construction workers laying masonry blocks on the fourth floor of the Residence Inn by Marriott hotel, which is being built adjacent to the arena on the Spots Campus site and is expected to open around the first week in August.

But, 2021 also is planned to include  an NFL-style combine for pro football hopefuls, organized by former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Yo Murphy, as well as the possibility of European soccer teams camping here prior to their fall 2021 seasons.

Hockey Tourism, Too

Thomas says the Sports Campus isn’t the only local venue to have a slew of events booked to meet pent up demand. AHCI currently is hosting a six-week United States Premier Hockey League (USPHL) camp — a college and pro showcase with hundreds of players staying at Saddlebrook Resort and playing games at AHCI — as well as in Ellenton and Brandon. 

The USPHL’s Hub City concept is designed in part to make up for the loss of games and exposure events for players last year, especially from hockey areas hit particularly hard by Covid-19, like the northeastern U.S.

Because so many events were cancelled last year and so many seasons went unfinished,  Thomas anticipates eager event organizers to be heading our way.

“Our event calendar looks pretty promising,” he says.

The SVB Tennis Center in Zephyrhills is attracting sports tourism with growing sports like padel (photo) and pickleball. 

The county won’t recover in one year, Thomas adds. He believes the Covid-19 vaccine will help make people more comfortable when it comes to travel and attending larger events, but that change will take a while. While 2021 is expected to put the Florida Sports Coast back on track, Thomas says the tourism industry is looking at 2023 before a full recovery can probably be expected.

“It’s going to take some time,” he says. “We’re still licking our wounds.”

When the pandemic hit last year, the county was coming off a record-setting February. March began the nosedive, and when the state was shut down for much of April, the county saw its tourist tax revenue drop to below $100,000 for the month, down from $430,000 in tourist tax collected in April 2019.

There is some good news, even if it is anecdotal — Thomas says the last weekend of 2020 saw 6.2 -percent growth, with almost 40 percent hotel occupancy. “We had a really good week,” he says. “Hopefully we’ll continue to see that.” 

In fact, Lisa Moore, the market director of sales for the Hilton Garden Inn Tampa-Wesley Chapel on S.R. 56 says, “We’ve been at or near 100% occupancy every weekend since the Sports Campus opened. It (2020) was a tough year, but things are looking better now.”

I-75 At Overpass Rd. The Latest To Get Under Way


The rendering above shows the planned flyover entrance to I-75 at the new Overpass Rd. interchange (Exit 282), which began construction in October and is expected to be completed by 2023. (Rendering: FDOT)

Pasco County District 2 Commissioner Mike Moore says one of the most common complaints he receives from his constituents is about the traffic, especially here in Wesley Chapel. Before too long, however, he says many of those complaints will go away.

“There’s a lot going on, and a lot of (transportation) projects are kind of coming together at once and are going to make an enormous and immediate impact,” Moore says.

Three major local road projects, totalling nearly $150 million combined, are under way right now. The projects — the diverging diamond interchange (DDI) at S.R. 56 and I-75, the widening of S.R. 54 to past Morris Bridge Rd., and a new I-75 interchange at Overpass Rd. — will provide a large measure of relief to our area.

The widening of S.R. 54 (pictured here is the intersection of SR 54 and Meadow Pointe Blvd., as of December 13, 2020) is one of three major road projects, along with Overpass Rd. and the DDI, currently under construction in Wesley Chapel. (Photo: FDOT)

The $33-million DDI (which we’ve updated for you quite a bit recently) and the $42.5-million widening project — which will widen S.R. 54 from a two-lane road to a four-lane road with medians, and include a sidewalk on the north side and a 10-foot wide multi-use trail on the south side — are both well under way.

Meanwhile, the $70-million Overpass Rd. interchange will be located approximately halfway between the S.R. 54 and S.R. 52 exits (which are six miles apart), and work began on the project in October, with local road and drainage work in the southwest corner of the planned interchange.

Instead of a traditional interchange, or even another DDI (which was considered), the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and Pasco County have settled on a flyover ramp onto southbound I-75 from westbound Overpass Rd., similar to the one in New Tampa at the Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. Exit 270 off I-75. The Overpass Rd. interchange will be Pasco County’s first flyover.

The existing Overpass Rd. bridge over I-75 is being torn down and will be replaced by two bridges, one each for eastbound and westbound traffic on Overpass Rd.

“You could say incorporating that particular design is the wave of the future,” Moore says. “We’re not going have to have to go back and fix something like what’s going on with S.R. 56 and I-75. With that interchange, it’s just going to be general maintenance.”

FDOT’s John McShaffrey says the flyover configuration was selected “primarily because this alternative provides the most capacity to handle anticipated future traffic demands for the westbound Overpass Rd. to southbound I-75 traffic movement.”

The project also will include the widening of Overpass Rd. from two lanes to four lanes between the interstate and Old Pasco Rd., and from two lanes to six lanes between the interstate and Boyette Rd.

The interchange is being constructed by the Middlesex Corporation, and is expected to have a major effect on the adjacent interchanges. It was the best choice to accommodate the traffic from future development coming to the east side of the county, primarily from the Epperson Ranch and Pasadena Hills communities.

Other benefits of the I-75/Overpass Rd.) interchange, according to FDOT:

* It will substantially reduce traffic at the adjacent interchanges (SR 54 & SR 52), thus improving the traffic flow at both of these interchanges (reducing delays and improving safety).

* It will provide a detour route for traffic on I-75, quicker access for first responders servicing this area of I-75, and another access point to I-75 for evacuees during emergency evacuations. 

* It is an integral part of the transportation network being developed in this growing area of the county, and is identified as a needed improvement to accommodate the Villages of Pasadena Hills development and the Connected Cities development. 

* Will improve access to I-75 for businesses that will be located at the approved Overpass Business Center, and will provide a direct route for businesses that are/will be located along the entire length of Overpass Rd., as it develops eastbound towards U.S. 301.

* FDOT and the county both acknowledge that the existing system, even with reasonable improvements, is incapable of satisfactorily accommodating future traffic demands. The location of this new Exit 282 Overpass Rd. interchange is ideal in terms of placement (approximately 3 miles from both Exit 285, or SR 52, and Exit 279, or SR 54). 

The estimated completion time of the Overpass Rd./I-75 interchange is summer 2023. The DDI and widening of S.R. 54 could be completed by the end of this year.

“I’m excited as a resident and as someone who has a wife and daughter that drive,” Moore says. “We see the effects the traffic has. But, also as an economic impact, too. When companies are looking to grow or relocate, they are looking for areas that have a great transportation infrastructure.”