If you’re looking for the best place to buy a home, Niche.com says you should look no further than Easton Park.
According to the website, Easton Park, which is part of K-Bar Ranch and located just north of Cross Creek Blvd. off Morris Bridge Rd., is the best place to buy a house in America.
Easton Park is No. 1 on the Niche.com list, but not the only New Tampa neighborhood to be highly ranked, as Grand Hampton came in at No. 4.
Niche.com is a Pittsburgh-based website that highlights the best places to live and go to school. It claims to combine “rigorous analysis with authentic reviews” in determining its rankings. A team of data scientists, it says, evaluate countless data sets to produce its results.
To determine the best places to live, 12 data sources — crime reports, community surveys, zip code business patterns and the American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, to name a few — are listed with links.
Easton Park was given a B- grade for public schools, but A-plusses for housing and being good for families. It also received As for nightlife and diversity.
According to Niche.com, the median price for a home is $224,659, while the median household income in Easton Park is $109,293. The community is highly educated, according to the study — 25 percent of adult residents have a Master’s degree or more, compared with the national average of 11 percent, while 37 percent have Bachelor’s degrees, compared with the national average of 19 percent.
Grand Hampton, which is located west of Bruce B. Downs Blvd. on County Line Rd., received the same grades as Easton Park, with one exception — instead of an A for nightlife, it received an A-.
The median price for a home in Grand Hampton is $261,662, while the median household income is $121,245.
To check out more rankings or to search for your neighborhood or school, check out Niche.com.
When you bring your car to the dealership or an independent auto service center for service, from an oil change to a new transmission, have you ever worried about putting your costly key “fob” in the service center’s after-hours “dropbox?”
I sure have. When one of my electronic keys broke a few years back, leaving me with only one, I remember bringing my car for service at my dealership shortly after it had closed and was left wondering, “What happens if they somehow lose my one remaining key? And, how much will it cost me to replace it?”
Well, thanks to the brother of a friend of mine, worrying about leaving today’s expensive, computerized car keys will soon be a thing of the past, because of a new smartphone app and key drop terminal called “Keys with Eeeze.”
That’s the good news. The even better news is that Keys with Eeeze will one day do more for auto service centers and even rental car companies than just make it more convenient to leave your keys. With everyone in our technologically-driven world begging for speed and convenience, Keys with Eeeze will allow you to step up to a machine that looks very similar to a bank ATM, and with a few touch-screen commands, secure your valuable keys, order whatever services you need, and every time your key or your car moves — from the parking area outside the service center to onto the lift to completion, etc. — you’ll receive a Facebook Instant Message (IM).
In other words, even if it’s not after hours, Keys with Eeeze will allow you to check your car in, order the services you need and pick up your car without ever having to talk to a service writer. How’s that for convenience?
The Wesley Chapel Connection
Keys with Eeeze was invented by a Dillsburg, PA, software developer named Tony Santo. If that name sounds a little familiar to you, you may know Tony’s brother Ken — the former owner of Skinny’s Sports Bar and Santo’s Pizza & Pasta on S.R, 54.
But, Ken is more than just Tony’s brother. Ken and his friend (and former owner of the Silver Ring Café, which also was located in the same Pinebrook at The Grove plaza as Santo’s and Skinny’s) Tim Booth are Tony’s point men to roll out Keys with Eeeze here in Florida. The invention is so new that Ken, Tim and Tony are revamping their existing marketing materials for Keys with Eeeze in order to better capture the attention and imagination of Wesley Chapel’s growing list of auto dealerships, chain and local independent service centers and those rental car companies.
And, Keys with Eeeze is already operational and exceeding expectations back in Dillsburg, where HC Automotive became the first auto repair shop in the world to employ Santo’s incredible, new technology.
Santo says the idea for his invention came to him as he was dropping off his car for service and looking down at the paper envelope he had to fill out by hand, drop his key into and deposit in the box at the dealership’s door. He wondered why anyone, in today’s technologically advanced age, would still be using a system that hasn’t changed much since the 1950s?
According to hard numbers given to Santo by HC Automotive owner Jon Gustafson, who only rolled out the new system at the end of April, the software is more than paying for itself. In fact, although Santo originally estimated that it could take up to a year for a service center to generate enough additional income using Keys with Eeeze to pay for the cost of the software and kiosk, Gustafson’s two-lift service shop generated enough income to justify the expense in less than 120 days!
“We knew we had something special when Tony first told me about Keys with Eeeze,” says his proud brother. “We just didn’t know it would make such a difference so quickly.”
Tony adds, “(Gustafson) says it has revolutionized his business. He tells me that when he first rolled out the kiosk and software at HC Auto, only 10 or 15 percent of the service center’s customers were using it. Just a few months later, 49 percent of his customers are using it and he’s seen a 30-percent increase in revenue, all of which, he says, is directly attributable to Keys with Eeeze.”
Santo’s invention combines an automated software system you can download to your smartphone that will allow you manage your service appointment — from dropping off the key into the kiosk to picking it up after hours. The new technology also allows your key to be coded to your phone and be delivered back to you at the kiosk any time of the day or night.
“Our Keys with Eeeze system puts you in the driver’s seat by giving you the ability to do business on your own time constraints, not the service shop’s,” Santo says. The software alone gives you carte blanche to pick a service date, order various items from a menu, communicate the issues you may be having with your vehicle electronically — concise, legible and in print — and receive instant feedback, updates and digital reports about your vehicle’s condition, all in Facebook Instant Messages to your phone.”
He adds that if necessary, customers also can receive uploaded photos and recall notices about their vehicles, receive an electronic message when their vehicle is ready for pickup and even access easy payment options, “so you can literally bypass the service desk most of the time and only talk to a service rep if there is a problem with your car that needs to be addressed.”
HC Auto has the prototype kiosk for Santo’s system, which only allowed 12 keys to be stored in the kiosk at once, but the newer model shown on the previous page allows up to 30 cars at once to be entered into the system.
“That will be perfect for these dealerships here in Wesley Chapel, some of which have ten or more lifts,” says Ken. “I can’t imagine that a more efficient system than this one for keeping track of all those keys and service orders is going to be invented anytime soon.”
Tony has a patent pending on his invention and is in the process of rolling it out to dealerships and service centers nationwide. Ken and Tim only recently began handling all of Florida for him and say that even though they are still working on the re-tooled Keys with Eeeze website and marketing materials, they’ve already had some great interest.
“Keys with Eeeze is perfect for anyone with a busy lifestyle and millennials are eating it up,” Tony says. “I’m confident that I’ve hit on the right idea at the right time. And, why are there three “eeeze” in Keys With Eeeze? Eeeze of checking in, Eeeze of doing business, Eeeze of checking out!”
For details, pricing and leasing information, please contact Ken Santo at (813) 727-5794 or visit KeysWithEeeze.com
For Lisa Acierno, coping with the loss of her daughter is still a daily struggle.
“I’m trying every day to get through the day,” she says.
Hailey, who was a 17-year-old student at Wharton High, went missing from her Arbor Greene home on March 28.
A Facebook page was launched, called “Find Hailey Acierno,” and hundreds of people joined. They shared encouragement, ideas and tips. They offered love and support to Hailey’s family in a time of uncertainty.
They also shared information about when searches for Hailey were being organized. Many even showed up to comb Flatwoods Park to look for her.
On April 7, Lisa’s worst fears came true. After those volunteers, law enforcement and other agencies had spent days searching, Hailey’s body was found.
The Facebook group’s name was changed to “In Memory of Hailey Acierno,” and those same members again offered encouragement, support and love.
They also asked, “What can we do?”
The number of people joining the page, reaching out to the family and offering to help continued to grow.
The family of Hailey Acierno has launched a nonprofit foundation, Hailey’s Voice of Hope, online at HaileysVoice.com, where you can support awareness and services for those who struggle with mental health by purchasing items (pictured) or volunteering your time.
In her grief, Lisa began to dream of honoring Hailey by making a difference for those people who struggle with mental illness, as her daughter did.
“Let’s get rid of the stigma,” Lisa says. “During the search for Hailey, we were afraid of people’s opinions if we said what medications she was on, but that’s got to quit. People who are mentally ill didn’t do anything to choose this any more than someone with cancer or diabetes chooses those illnesses. They don’t want it.”
Lisa decided to start a foundation. She, her husband Chris, and adult sons Ryan and Josh make up the foundation’s board. They’ve applied for 501c3 status to be recognized as a registered nonprofit organization.
They reached out to the Facebook group to name the foundation, and they have changed the name once more. It’s now “Hailey’s Voice of Hope.”
Right now, Lisa says she doesn’t know exactly what her foundation intends to accomplish. She knows she wants to do something to act on the hundreds of offers of help that people continue to give her.
Lisa says changes are needed. For example, she says mental health services in our area aren’t available the way they should be.
“A perfect example was two years ago, when Hailey was being discharged from a residential program because insurance said she no longer needed to be there,” Lisa says. “They would pay for a partial outpatient program, but there isn’t one in Hillsborough County. She was basically kicked out of a residential facility and sent to something that didn’t exist.”
Volunteer Meeting Successful
Lisa organized a volunteer meeting, asking the supporters from her Facebook page — and the rest of the community — to show up for a town-hall type gathering on Saturday, August 12, at the Arbor Greene clubhouse off Cross Creek Blvd.,giving everyone (even those who aren’t Arbor Greene residents) an opportunity to discuss how to raise money for the foundation, and what people can do to support needed mental health services in our community.
She’s thinking of starting a letter-writing campaign to the Florida legislature. With 3,500 members on the Facebook page, maybe one of those volunteers could craft a letter. If Lisa posts a request to the Hailey’s Voice of Hope Facebook page, she hopes that maybe 500 or 1,000 people would copy that letter and send it, and get some attention for the cause.
Or, maybe the foundation could organize something she calls “Hailey’s Ride,” to help families get their children to available services, which is sometimes impossible for working parents who would need to take hours off from work to leave, pick up their kids, take them where they need to go, drop them off back at home or school, and go back to work.
Lisa is thinking even bigger, too.
“My ultimate dream is ‘Hailey’s House,’” Lisa says. “Somewhere kids could go after school, not to focus on their problems, but how to help them — maybe through art or music therapy — so they are learning coping skills.”
While she knows it’s a really big goal and that it ultimately might not happen, she’s not afraid to dream it.
“I keep saying that MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) was one started by one mad mother, the Susan G. Komen Foundation was started by one mad sister, and I’m a mad mom right now,” Lisa says. “It’s going to take a village to make this happen. It shouldn’t take something like this to get everyone’s attention. Hailey’s story was front page news because she was missing for so long, but there are so many families who are going through this who don’t get that kind of attention.”
She says that every day she wonders what more she could have done to help her daughter.
“Right now, we have a lot of support and so many people offering to volunteer,” Lisa says. “I just can’t sit back and do nothing.”
For more information about the foundation and its efforts, join the Facebook group, “Hailey’s Voice of Hope” or visit HaileysVoice.com.
New Tampa (Breakfast) Rotary president Karen Frashier, with firefighters at Station No. 20 on BBD Blvd. in Tampa Palms.
Years before I helped charter the New Tampa Noon Rotary Club — which meets every Wednesday at noon in Mulligan’s Irish Pub in the Pebble Creek Golf Club — the first Rotary Club meetings I ever attended were on Fridays at 7 a.m., in Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club (TPGCC).
I may not have been at the first meeting of the original Rotary Club of New Tampa (I may also refer to it as the NT Breakfast Rotary) which, more than 20 years later, still meets Fridays at 7 a.m. at TPGCC, but I definitely attended multiple meetings of the club that first year, when it became (and still holds the record) the largest Rotary Club ever chartered in the southeastern U.S., with more than 60 charter members.
Not only were these people tremendously energetic (e.g., they were singing songs from the Rotary Songbook, aka, “Songs From the Year of the Flood,” at 7 a.m., no less, which was not particularly appealing to me) and dedicated to Rotary’s motto of “Service Above Self,” it also brought in amazing guest speakers who provided me with many of my biggest news stories back when there was a lot less news to write about that wasn’t road- or school- or development-related.
Rotary District 6890 Governor Tom Wagner (l.) and New Tampa Noon Rotary president Vinnie Kudva.
About a dozen years ago, I helped bring together a group of like-minded people who also wanted to be Rotarians — and who were more available for a lunch-time weekly meeting — at the old Circles New Tampa Bistro in Pebble Creek. It was a much smaller group — I think we chartered with 18-20 members — but we became like a new family — and quite a few of the original club members (and several who joined within the first couple of years) are still members today.
Rotary International, the parent organization which has all but eradicated polio from the world (with only eight new cases announced in 2016, all in Pakistan and Afghanistan), is the largest service organization on Earth, with tens of thousands of clubs and more than 1.2 million members worldwide.
Those numbers give local Rotary clubs, which are grouped together in districts, a lot of ability to serve not only their local communities, but to do service projects around the world.
Sophia Contino and Pasco Sheriff’s Deputies receive a donation from Frashier and New Tampa Rotary past president Brice Wolford.
Despite their differences in size, both clubs truly embody the spirit of Rotary. The Breakfast Rotary’s sheer numbers (with around 70 members today) allow the club to take on major service projects — like building a playground at Rotary’s Camp Florida in Brandon, humanitarian trips to Costa Rica and Honduras, helping to put on the Wiregrass Wobble Turkey Trot 5K race and taking over as the host organization for the rejuvenated Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel — and donating tens of thousands of dollars per year.
Although I mentioned in our last issue that the Breakfast Rotary honored me for helping make sure the Taste was a success this year, I neglected to tell you that on June 30 (the day I got engaged), the club donated more than $44,000 to 23 different nonprofit organizations, everything from the New Tampa Relay for Life and the March of Dimes to Sophia’s Lemonade Stand to benefit the Pasco Sheriff’s Charities, Inc. As outgoing president Brice Wolford handed the gavel over to 2017-18 president and 2017 Taste event chair Karen Frashier, New Tampa’s original Rotary Club is still vibrant and will continue to be ingrained in the fabric of the New Tampa community.
For the complete list of organizations the club helped this year and more information, please visit NewTampaRotary.org.
But, before you make the assumption that small cannot be mighty, consider this: the NT Noon Rotary Club won the District 6890 Membership award by growing from fewer than 20 to26 members, and has not only hosted another successful annual bike ride through Flatwoods Park, but also been able to provide international service projects in 2017-18 club president Belvai “Vinnie” Kudva’s native India, Nepal and Kenya.
Many of our club members, myself included, couldn’t understand how we could do so much good with such a small club, but current District Governor Tom Wagner explained when he visited our Aug. 2 meeting that Vinnie, “knows more about how to access Global and Local District grant money from the Rotary Foundation in order to fund important service projects than just about anyone.” Small but mighty, indeed.
For more information about the New Tampa Noon Rotary, search “New Tampa Noon Rotary” on Facebook.
Thousands are on waiting lists for the New Tampa Recreation Center’s dance, acrobatic and sports readiness programs, like the one pictured, a problem that could be alleviated with the $1.95 million dedicated to expansion in Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn’s proposed budget for 2017-18.
Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn has proposed a $972.4 million budget for fiscal year 2018 (which begins Oct. 1) that will result in some increased taxes, but it is a budget that also had some good news for local residents.
Buckhorn’s 2018 budget proposal includes money for a new fire station located off County Line Rd. near Grand Hampton, the expansion of the New Tampa Recreation Center in Tampa Palms, design funding for a future “sensory friendly” park behind the BJ’s Wholesale Club store in Tampa Palms and funds to improve both water pressure and code enforcement in the area.
“Overall, there are some good things in there for New Tampa, so I think we did well,’’ says Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera, the Hunter’s Green resident who represents District 7, which includes New Tampa, Terrace Park, Forest Hills and the University area. “Not to say we worked hard for it…but we worked hard for it.”
Buckhorn’s budget proposes a property tax increase for the first time since 1989, as he is asking to raise the city’s millage rate 9/10ths of a percentage point from 5.7326 to 6.6326 (or $6.63 for every $1,000 of taxable property).
“The day of reckoning has come,” says Mayor Buckhorn, a self-proclaimed fiscal conservative whose last term (due to term limits) as mayor ends in 2019, said. “I don’t like it any more than you do.”
For a home assessed at $168,829, which is the average in all of District 7, the property tax increase for homeowners will be $142.55 a year.
The increase for a home assessed at $261,500, which according to Zillow.com is the median home value for New Tampa, will be $235.35 a year, or $19.61 a month.
The property tax revenues are expected to produce $40 million in additional annual revenue for the city.
However, the city faces a $14-million shortfall this year and will have to soon start making $13-million-per-year debt payments on a 20-year-old public safety bond.
“Much of what we face today is not of our making,” Buckhorn says, “but the solutions will be.”
A ballot measure approved by the Florida Legislature, however, to increase homestead exemptions from $50,000 to $75,000 would reduce a property’s taxable value, saving the homeowner money but costing the city more than $5 million a year.
“In the 30 years I have been doing this (working in government), I have never seen the attack on local governments that I have seen this (legislative) session,” Buckhorn says. “This Legislature is hell-bent on doing whatever they can to limit local government and hamstringing us.”
However, without the millage rate increase, it is unlikely that all of the projects that will benefit New Tampa could go forward.
The proposed budget has $1.9 million earmarked for expanding the New Tampa Recreation Center, which is one of only two facilities in the city that is home to the highly touted dance, acrobatics and sports readiness program (the other is the Wayne Papy Athletic Center in Seminole Heights).
But, there currently is not enough room or staff to accommodate everyone.
The program at the NT Rec Center has grown from 59 participants in 2008 to more than 1,200 today, but that’s not even half of the people who want to participate — roughly 2,200 are on a waiting list.
This is the third time a budget proposal has had money in it for Rec Center expansion.
Last year’s budget had $3 million allocated to expansion, before it was amended and the money was redirected to fixing the Cuscaden Pool in Ybor City.
But, Viera said last year’s experience — which left a sour taste in the mouths of many in New Tampa — has created a new awareness of the budget process, emboldened by town halls he has been hosting as well as the recently formed New Tampa Council, which consists of representatives from most of New Tampa’s neighborhoods.
“New Tampa has got to lobby and push it through because you know what happened last year,’’ Viera said. “You have one vote with me, but you need four (of seven Council member votes).”
An additional $1.4 million of community investment taxes will be budgeted to complete the construction of Fire Station No. 23 (above), which will be located in the Grand Hampton/Grand Colony area off County Line Rd.
It will be the fourth fire station in the New Tampa area, along with fire stations 20 (on Bruce B. Downs Blvd. in Tampa Palms), 21 (just east of BBD on Cross Creek Blvd.) and 22 (on Cross Creek Blvd. between Cory Lake Isles and Morris Bridge Rd.).
“Public safety is issue no. 1 when you look at what government’s job is,’’ Viera says. “Just look at the city’s budget expenditures, where half of it ($243.7 million of $399.3 million) goes to police and fire.”
The station will house 39 firefighters (many of whom will come from the city’s proposed 48 new Fire Rescue personnel city-wide), an engine company, a truck company and a rescue unit.
The new station also will be home to a new District Fire Chief, who will coordinate responses between the other New Tampa fire stations.
The addition of Fire Station No. 23 is seen as an important safety measure in a sprawling area that is still growing and still lacks easy emergency access to many of the communities. It also will take some of the pressure off the other locations.
A fifth Fire Station, No. 24, was announced last year for the K-Bar Ranch area, but won’t be built until at least 2021.
The proposed 2018 budge also includes $90,000 for a study and design of a “sensory-friendly” park on the land behind BJs, which will be developed in conjunction with the University of South Florida (See story, right).
The budget proposal by Buckhorn was met with approval by members of the New Tampa Council, which Viera formed to help lobby the city on the needs of the New Tampa community.
New Tampa Council members Maggie Wilson, Warren Dixon, Brian Koerber and Tracy Falkowitz, all Tampa Palms residents, attended the budget presentation with Viera.
The city will hold a pair of public hearings on the proposed budget and tax rate on Weds., Sept. 13 & 26, at 5:01 p.m., in the City Council chambers on the third floor of Old City Hall at 315 E. Kennedy Blvd.
If you’re looking for the best place to buy a home, Niche.com says you should look no further than Easton Park.
