Tampa Mayor Jane Castor has presented her annual budget proposal to the Tampa City Council — via a socially distant video conference, naturally — and the news was mostly good for New Tampa.
The Fiscal Year 2021 budget didn’t raise property taxes, or cut any essential services, and there were no layoffs.
But, the $1.254 billion plan included a big surprise: Money for the New Tampa Sensory & Autism Friendly Park, or Inclusive Park, which Tampa City Council member Luis Viera had all but given up on a few months ago, due to the city’s anticipated financial shortfall due to Covid-19.
“I knew due to the economy there would be a scaling back of priorities, and there has been,” says Viera, whose District 7 includes most of New Tampa. “But I was pleasantly surprised to see it in there.”
The budget, Tampa’s biggest ever, includes $1.7 million to build the Inclusive Park just behind the New Tampa Recreation Center (see story on pg. 6). While Tampa has made a number of improvements in recent years, with playground equipment that makes the parks more accessible to children with autism, including the NTRC’s Community Park, this full-fledged autism/sensory park will be the first of its kind in the city.
Roughly $90,000, from the 2018 budget, was used to design the park, originally planned for the area behind BJ’s Wholesale Club, also in Tampa Palms.
“It’s a huge win for New Tampa kids with disabilities, as well for the city of Tampa,” says Viera, who made the autism park one of his first goals when he was elected in 2016. “I’m thrilled they didn’t put the brakes on the project. Under Mayor Castor’s administration, you can see they are trying to take a positive stand in regards to persons with special needs. It’s great to see.”
Castor says the pandemic has cost the city $24 million in revenues. She also says she has no plans to cut from the police budget, which is roughly $175 Castor, Tampa’s Police Chief from 2009-15, said her plan was to invest, not divest, even in the wake of nationwide demands that police spending is reevaluated and reduced following the death of George Floyd and the ensuing protests. Castor’s budget must be approved by the City Council by Oct. 1. — JCC
Taravat Tarahom didn’t get to bask in the glory of being Freedom High School’s Class of 2020 valedictorian, thanks to the outbreak of Covid-19 cutting short her senior year. Nor did she get to give her speech in front of a throng of her classmates in an arena, instead settling for a safe and socially distant recorded message.
What Taravat says she did get out of being Freedom’s valedictorian, however, was a life-altering accomplishment at the end of what, at times, was an extremely difficult journey.
“This has taught me to look at one goal, but not make (that goal) my entire life,” the 18-year-old says.
She was able to balance a huge school load, deal with the divorce of her parents and the death of her dog, as well as a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, all while unexpectedly rising to the top of her class.
Taravat walked away from Freedom with a greater appreciation of her relationships and health and with the piece of mind that comes from learning how to stay prioritized.
“The experience definitely changed me,” says Taravat, who finished with a 7.64 weighted grade-point-average.
Leyla Mohebbi, her mother, says she couldn’t be more proud. She says academics have always been a priority in her home, where bringing home a B meant you would be asked, “Why not an A?”
“I feel like Tara put the expectation onto herself that she did not want to be anything less than a valedictorian,” Leyla says. “I’m very happy. I knew that was her dream, and she made it happen.”
Taravat has followed in the footsteps of her sister Targol, who was Freedom’s valedictorian in 2015 and is now in medical school at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Lauderdale. Taravat says she felt the bar was “set impossibly high” before she even started high school. She faced a steady climb up the academic ladder, ranking only around No. 25 in her class after her sophomore year.
She remembers moving up in the class rankings after the first semester of her junior year, somewhere into the teens, and her determination to become the second valedictorian in the family was growing.
She mentioned to some of her classmates and her teacher in AP Biology that she was going to go for it, and they laughed, because she still had more than a dozen students to pass.
“That set something off in me,” Taravat admits.
A former cheerleader, she started her senior year ranked No. 7 in the class, but once her summer grades were input into the system — “I had a crazy workload that summer” — she had quietly risen to No. 3. But, she stayed under the radar, and continued to take a heavy load.
Taravat, who was co-president of the school’s Sierra Club, says a typical day in the fall of her senior year would entail waking up at 7 a.m. for six hours of school at Freedom, then coming home around lunchtime to eat and pack herself a dinner, and working for three hours as an online tutor, driving to the Hillsborough Community College (HCC) Ybor City campus for a three-hour English class and then heading over to the HCC campus on N. Dale Mabry Hwy. for physics lab.
In February, she found out it was official — she had quietly risen to the top of her class. She called Leyla. They cried.
Even More Challenges
The hard work did not come without a cost, however.
In December, she had lost 15 pounds and spent two days in the hospital, where she was diagnosed with Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes. “I was so wrapped up in school I didn’t even pay attention to my health,” Taravat says. “I was kind of mad at myself for not noticing.”
Her diagnosis has triggered an interest in endocrinology, which she hopes to study at the University of Florida. She plans on majoring in microbiology and cell sciences.
And while her valedictorian speech wasn’t delivered to a crowd of her classmates, it did come from the heart. Without the trials and tribulations of her senior year, it might have been a completely different speech.
Matt May’s photography will be one of the highlights of the New Tampa Recreation Center’s expansion, which currently is under construction in Tampa Palms. (Photo: Charmaine George)
When the New Tampa Recreation Center (NTRC) was built in 2007, Tampa’s Matt May was commissioned to photograph some of the area gymnasts to adorn the windows at the new facility.
Now, 12 years later, the NTRC is just about finished with its $3-million expansion, and once again, it is May’s photography that will be among the highlights of the new structure.
The 7,300-sq.-ft. expansion will help the NTRC accommodate more of those gymnasts, as well as those in the city’s popular dance programs. The two programs served a combined 1,200 students (pre-Covid), and the additional space will allow those numbers to increase by roughly 25 percent when full capacity is again allowed.
Five panels of May’s photography will line a wall in the lobby of the new expansion, and will look like something you would typically see entering a professional sports complex or Hall of Fame. The images show gymnasts, ranging in age from 7 to 17, performing flips and other maneuvers. The large glass panels were put into place at the rec center July 29, as May watched like a nervous and proud parent.
However, these aren’t your ordinary images. May’s photos have been transformed with the use of ceramic inks that are printed onto inch-thick glass, which is then tempered so the inks become a permanent part of the glass.
“This is a new medium for me,” May admits. “The technology has gotten to a point where we could pull this off. Over time, you won’t have to worry about Florida’s heat or UV rays fading that image. To be able to put something in a window in Florida and have it last the test of time, at this level of detail, is really something that has only just become possible over the last year or so.”
May is a local sports photographer, who also shot the first studio pictures of new Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ quarterback Tom Brady in the team’s new uniforms. He also shot new tight end Rob Gronkowski after he joined the Bucs.
May also shot ad campaigns for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in 2019 and, back in 2017, produced the art for the Bucs’ “Siege the Day” campaign.
He says he approached shooting the new pictures for the New Tampa Rec Center the same way, employing the same studio-lit pro action style.
“About a year ago, we set up here in the gym, using a black backdrop, and I photographed some of the young gymnasts just like I would Tom Brady or other pro athletes or sports teams,” May says. “I was not only showcasing their personalities, hard work and athletic ability, but also their confidence.”
The NTRC expansion is expected to be completed this fall. Prior to the pandemic, the facility boasted a waiting list of 1,400 kids — 960 waiting to get into gymnastics, the rest waiting to get into the center’s dance programs.
The expansion will add a 50’ x 40’ room specifically for children ages 5 and under, who currently have to share space with older kids in the existing 12,500-sq.-ft. gymnastics area.
Another 50’ x 40’ all-purpose room for dance also is being added, and the expansion also will include a 1,760-sq.-ft. “training box,” which will offer a wealth of possible training exercises for a variety of sports, like retractable batting cages and small group fitness classes.
District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who helped lead the charge to get the expansion funded after years of budget disappointments as New Tampa’s representative on the Council, was on hand as the panels were fitted into place and found them to be a fitting touch for the new building.
“I think it’s amazing,” Viera said. “It really improves the existing location, and is consistent with what I think the community wanted to see.”
These are more than words to non-partisan judicial candidate Ashley Willis Ivanov, who is running to become the next Group 19 judge of Florida’s 13th Circuit Court.
To her, they hold value when they are lived out. Professionally and personally, Ivanov says she lives out these ideals.
Ivanov, an attorney who lives in Lithia, has handled a diverse range of cases, including litigated and non-litigated matters, representing both plaintiffs and defendants. She presently focuses her practice on probate and estate planning.
“Integrity in the practice of law is important for the rule of law to be effectively carried out,” she says.
Born in Charleston, SC, Ivanov graduated magna cum laude with honors from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and cum laude from Vermont Law School in South Royalton.
She previously clerked for the federal government, interned at the U.S. Department of Justice and later worked for large, mid-size and small law firms in Washington D.C., Maryland and Hillsborough County, where she started her own law firm in early 2018.
A member of the Hillsborough County Bar Association, Ivanov zealously advocates for her clients, giving them straightforward feedback. Sometimes, this may mean informing a prospective client that he or she does not have much of a case or that the legal fees in the matter could be higher than what the client may have initially anticipated. “Transparency is part of being ethical,” she says.
The public testimonies of Ivanov’s clients attest to her professionalism.
Reading to children in the Head Start Program with her fellow Rotarians (above) is one of the ways Ashley Ivanov, a candidate for Circuit Court judge, gives back. (Photo: Ashley Ivanov campaign)
“My clients’ matters are more than pieces of paper filed in court with case numbers,” she says. “These are real people with real stories that matter.”
In her personal life, Ivanov says she stays busy volunteering with her church and taking her daughter to Girl Scout events.
“I try to lead by example and integrity is at the center of this,” she says, adding that impartiality is a cornerstone of a judge’s responsibilities in administering justice.
“We need more people to run for public office who are going to do what is fair and right and, for the judiciary, uphold impartiality,” Ivanov says. “It is not the judge’s role to legislate from the bench, but to apply the law as it is, as created by the legislature.”
Service also is a regular part of Ivanov’s life, and she would not have it any other way. She serves with the FishHawk-Riverview Rotary and says she enjoys reading to children in the HeadStart Program with her fellow Rotarians.
As a member of the Hillsborough County Bar Association’s Community Services Committee, Ivanov has participated in Wills for Heroes, where she prepared complimentary estate planning documents for First Responders.
For more information about Ashley Ivanov’s campaign for District 13 Circuit Court Judge, Group 19, visit VoteAshleyIvanov.com.
Judge Michael Scionti (with his arm around General) and wife Zsuzsanna (holding JoJo).
Michael Scionti has more than 20 years of experience in law, but he sounds like he is just getting started.
His first six-year term as Group 19 Circuit Judge in the 13th Judicial Court, which encompasses Hillsborough County, is about to expire, but Scionti is eager for a second term to build on his successes, particularly his work with children and the nationally-respected Veterans Treatment Court (VTC), a courtroom designed to help jailed veterans battling mental illness and substance abuse as a result of their military service.
“To be able to see the positive impact in the faces and eyes of a mother who has her child back, the eyes and tears that fall from a veteran that has his or her life back…I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” he says.
The VTC is definitely close to his heart. Scionti has had multiple combat tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, serving as a military magistrate in each.
He’s also served as a Diplomat for the U.S. State Department and has been a member of the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps for more than 20 years. His service gives Scionti a unique perspective for the struggles so many veterans face.
His work with the VTC, which he describes as a “collaborative” court, has gained national prominence, with a push to get the program implemented across the country. Scionti says Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who has endorsed him in his race against challenger Ashley Ivanov, played a key role in starting the VTC in 2014.
The court offers programs for military veterans who have been charged with crimes and/or suffer from mental illnesses, traumatic brain injuries, substance abuse and other issues related to their service.
“I try to get veterans out of jail and into treatment,” Scionti says. “There’s no punishment in my courtroom, only encouragement in trying to re-crack the code for these veterans, to help them learn how to problem-solve for themselves.”
According to a 2018 report by the U.S. Department of Justice, an estimated 79 percent of released prisoners were arrested within six years. The VTC reports that its recidivism rate is only 10 percent.
“It’s working,” Scionti says. “We’re very proud of it.”
Scionti graduated from Florida State University in 1990 with a B.S. degree in Criminal Justice and in 1996, he earned his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from South Texas College of Law in Houston.
He has held positions as an assistant Attorney General, an assistant State Attorney and an assistant statewide prosecutor.
He served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2006-10, followed by a stint in the U.S. Department of Defense.
In 2012, Scionti was chosen by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for a mission to help the U.S. transition detainee operations away from the U.S. government to the Afghanistan government. Scionti played a key role in helping create an Afghani criminal justice system.
By constructing a previously nonexistent system that focused on everything from forensics and building cases to delivering verdicts, Scionti’s efforts helped allow allowed the Afghani government to assume the prosecution of the Taliban.
“Before that, I was not even sure I was ready to be a judge,” Scionti says. “But, I thought after all of this experience, you know what, I have perspective; I have common sense solutions that I’ve applied at international, national and state levels, I think I’m going to be an effective judge. So, I came back home and ran for judge.”
He was elected to his six-year term with roughly two-thirds of the vote. While Scionti says he is guided by many principles, the strongest one may have formed on the battlefields of Iraq.
He gets choked up when recalling being in a convoy in Iraq where two soldiers, both with wives and children, were killed by an IED. Scionti was unmarried at the time and, to this day, says he would have gladly taken that hit for them.
“When I sit on this bench and I’m presiding over these veterans who are struggling, I think about those soldiers who are no longer here,” Scionti says. “I’m certainly hoping that through my service, making the life that I have worthwhile, because I had the chance to come back…I’m doing the best I can to give back. That’s all.”
Scionti, who spends his spare time taking turns with wife Zsuzsanna doting on their rescue dogs General and JoJo, has a slew of endorsements from the likes of Viera, public defender Julianne Holt, former Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and former Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink.
