Troy Stevenson Kicks Off His County Commission Campaign

Troy Stevenson is running to replace Mike Moore as Pasco County Commissioner for District 2, which represents much of Wesley Chapel. (Photo; Charmaine George).

A harrowing experience involving his wife Iris’ health led Troy Stevenson to explore response times and the needs of Pasco’s Fire Rescue and Sheriff’s Office (PCSO), which led him to think about their needs in relation to the massive growth in Wesley Chapel, which led him to think about traffic and roads and development.

And where did all of that lead him? Right into the Pasco County District 2 Commissioner’s race to replace the Mike Moore who has announced he is not seeking re-election.

“It all got me thinking,” says Stevenson, “about how I could help.”

Stevenson, a registered Republican and Land O’Lakes resident for the last 20 years, entered the race in February and held his kickoff event April 6 at Design & Construction Innovators, the office of North Tampa Bay Chamber Board member Roberto Suarez. Roughly 75 supporters showed up.

“I know I’m the underdog,” he says of what is now a three-candidate race, “but I’ve received so much support that I’m starting to feel like I’m not the underdog anymore.”

You may not know Stevenson’s face, but you’ve almost certainly seen his ACME On The Go trucks — which are those high-definition LED mobile billboards — driving around the county.

In fact, Stevenson, an active, involved  member of both the Wesley Chapel Rotary Club and the North Tampa Bay Chamber,  has used those trucks to support a number of causes, raising tens of thousands of dollars over the years for a variety of projects and businesses. The trucks operate as a billboard, but have also shown movies at some local charity events, whether for kids with cancer or Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco’s K-9 Officer program. He also has helped build homes for Habitat for Humanity. 

That’s one of the things he says separates him from the other Dist. 2 candidates, race favorite Troy Weightman and Cynthia Zimmer. While both have political experience, Stevenson says he has been more of a boots-on-the-ground guy, literally getting his hands dirty behind the scenes with community involvement — he has been an active part of FEMA’s National Disaster Medical System group for 16 years, and has been among the first people on the scene following many major hurricanes, including Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Maria (2017). 

“Katrina changed my life,” Troy says about having being deployed to New Orleans for two weeks. “It’s when I became a Christian and made me more thankful for my family and for people who help others.”

Troy is complimentary of the current Pasco Board of Commissioners (BOC) and says they have done a “phenomenal” job. If elected, he would like to continue along much the same path that Moore has paved.

But, he also says he would like to see the BOC become more proactive when it comes to infrastructure. And, while he is a believer in development, he also thinks the Board has to provide for the police, first responders and local residents who have to get around on heavily-populated roads.

“It feels like they (the BOC) are always playing catch up,” Stevenson says. “I’m not political. I’m analytical. I see things that need to be done and I am always ready to jump in and help.”

Weightman has collected a number of big endorsements, including Moore’s, as the Republican Party has coalesced behind him.

Stevenson says he has been endorsed by former Pasco County Clerk of Court Paula O’Neill, who spoke on his behalf at the kickoff event, but adds that he doesn’t place much emphasis on endorsements.

He has already put $50,000 of his own money into his campaign coffers, and hopes that those who know him and have benefitted from his community efforts will turn out at the polls for the August 23 primary.

“I don’t need the money, I don’t need the popularity,” Stevenson says. “I just feel deep in my heart that I want to help the county, and help the people in the place I live and love.”

For more info, visit TroyforPasco.com.

Business Owner Helps Local Resident Survive Electric Bike Accident

Pete Veloz

Anne Oliver was riding her electric bike to her dentist’s office for an 8 a.m. appointment when she decided to cross S.R. 54 during a lapse in the traffic.

With plenty of time, she proceeded across the road.

“I looked and there were no cars, just one truck,” Anne says.

Anne thought she could drive right up on the median, and assumed it had an angled curb, which many do. Unfortunately, this median had a steep curb, which Anne remembers looking down and not seeing until the last second. 

It was the last thing she remembers before a violent crash.

Fortunately for her, Pete Veloz was driving that truck.

Veloz, who owns Paver World of Wesley Chapel a little east on S.R. 54 and is known as “Paver Pete,” was cruising along in his Ford F-350 work truck when he saw a woman crossing the road on her bike. He could tell she was heading to the median, but then everything happened in slow motion, he says.

“She went flying through the air, she went one way and her bike went the other way,” Pete says. “She landed face first on the grass. If that was a concrete median, it could have been really bad.”

The bike landed in the lane closest to the median. Pete swerved around it, looked in his driver’s sideview mirror, and saw Anne laying motionless, her leg sprawled out into the road. He thought she might have broken her neck, or even worse.

Anne, left, and her husband John.

“You know how sometimes someone will wreck their bike, but the adrenaline is going and they pop back up and keep going?,” Pete says. “She was knocked out.”

He backed up his truck, jumped out and dragged her all the way onto the median. He helped take off her helmet. He pulled the bike off the road. Cars were driving by, but Pete’s truck was serving as a caution and slowing them down.

Pete called 9-1-1. A woman from the Brookside Professional Park across the street ran over and called 9-1-1 as well. The police were there in moments, Pete says. Anne came to, moaning in pain, but was discombobulated and didn’t remember anything from the accident.

“I remember Pete’s voice and him trying to help me,” Anne says. “It was sunny. My face was bleeding, so he got me a rag. I still have never even seen his face.”

Anne’s husband, John, was driving back from Riverview when he got a call from the woman who had also come over to help. He doesn’t remember her name, just that she was calling from a New York area code. 

“Your wife’s been in an accident,” she told him, “but she’s okay and wants to talk to you.”

Anne tried to explain what happened, but was still struggling to sort things out. She doesn’t remember talking to John. She was loaded into an ambulance, and the woman with the New York area code called John back to tell him his wife was being transported to St. Joseph’s hospital.

John, a nurse, knew that wasn’t great because there were a number of closer options (like AdventHealth Wesley Chapel) but that St. Joseph’s has the nearest trauma center. 

As he headed in that direction, Pete called him with more details, and offered to take the bike so it wasn’t impounded.

Anne was in the hospital for nearly two weeks. The crash had been fierce. She fractured her nasal cavity, her face was scraped and bloody, she suffered tissue damage on her right hand and wrist, and worst of all, she suffered a tibia plateau fracture, which is a break of the larger lower leg bone below the knee that breaks into the knee joint itself.

Anne had Open Reduction and Internal Fixation, or ORIF, which is used to repair broken bones with hardware. In Anne’s case, it was synthetic putty, brackets and screws.

Because it is such a vital load-bearing area, it will take months for her leg to heal. Anne says she is facing three months of a non-weight-bearing existence.

But, she is alive.

If Pete wasn’t driving that truck, she’s not sure she would be.

“I am very grateful that things were not worse,” Anne says. “It could have been a lot worse. With all the cars that drive by, anything could have happened.”

Anne and John actually bought their electric bikes because John suffers from multiple sclerosis and cannot walk, so the bike offers pedaling assistance. The Seven Oaks residents typically ride their bikes around the nature trails where they live.

On the day of her dentist appointment, Anne had to take John’s heavier bike because hers was having its brakes fixed.

A Growing Trend

Electric bikes generally don’t have great suspension or shocks, and Anne thinks that — as well as the weight of the bike — contributed to the forceful accident, as the tires did not absorb the contact with the curb.

Anne and John say the doctors and nurses at St. Joseph’s said they were just one of many they had seen come in following an accident on an electric bike. 

According to a CBS News report, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission determined that injuries from electric scooters, bikes, hoverboards and other “mirco-mobility” products are up 70 percent the past four years, with 200,000 ER visits and at least 71 deaths from 2017-20.”

But, Anne and John say they hope to go back to riding their bikes — albeit in less crowded areas — when she heals.

As Anne fills in the blanks, she finds the possibilities of what could have happened to be terrifying. That’s why she wants everyone to know about Pete.

“That’s nice,” says Pete, “but I’m just glad she’s alright. It was pretty scary.”

Years ago, Pete says his youngest daughter was in a car accident, and no one stopped to help her. 

“That really broke my heart,” he says. 

So when he saw Anne collide with the curb and was laying there motionless, it was never even a decision.

“That’s what you do, right?,” Pete says. “That’s the type of guy I am. You see someone in need, you stop to help. That’s how it should be.”

Lotte Plaza Market Files Renovation Plans

The first Lotte Plaza Market in Rockville, MD. The upcoming location at the old Sweetbay Supermarket will look similar.

Lotte Plaza Market has filed plans with the City of Tampa to renovate the former Sweetbay Supermarket off Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., next to the Home Depot, as it prepares to open what will be New Tampa’s largest Asian marketplace.

The renovation project on the 49,432-sq.ft. building, roughly 11,000 square feet of which will be storage and cooler space, will transform the inside of the former grocery store into a marketplace that sells Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese food items and ingredients, a wide selection of meats and fresh fish and seafood and a huge variety of fruits and vegetables not found at American grocery stores. 

The Lotte Plaza Market also will include at least three restaurants in its food court, as well as a bakery and a tea stand.

The renovations will cost roughly $4.5 million, according to the plans. The owners of the small Maryland-based ethnic grocery store chain focusing on Asian groceries and goods purchased the old Sweetbay Market for $7 million in January of 2021.

The Sweetbay building closed in 2013 and has been unoccupied since. KNK Tampa, Ltd. bought it in 2001 and leased it to Kash n’ Karry for a 20-year term beginning in November of that year. Kash n’ Karry operated under the lease until June 14, 2006, when its Belgian parent company Delhaize America, Inc., converted it into a Sweetbay. But, despite its rebranding, Sweetbay never gained the popularity of nearby Publix or Walmart stores. 

In October of 2013, Jacksonville-based Bi-Lo Holdings bought 72 Sweetbay stores, plus the leases to 10 other underperforming Sweetbay locations that had already been closed. One of those leases belonged to the New Tampa location, which had six years remaining on it, but Bi-Lo Holdings declined to do anything with the property other than pay the rent until the deal expired in 2020.

Founded in 1976, Lotte Plaza Market is considered to be one of the premier Asian and international groceries in Maryland and Virginia, where it has 12 locations. The mini-chain also has one location in New Jersey, and opened the only other Florida location in Orlando on W. Colonial Dr. in February 2019.

Lotte Plaza Market is hoping to open 50 new locations by 2030. — JCC

Wesley Chapel Man’s Beekeeping Hobby Is As Sweet As Honey

Tucked away in Angus Valley, one of the few remaining places in Wesley Chapel that business and residential development haven’t touched, Jeff Hajari gets back to nature.

On this day, he is tending to his bees, all eight hives of them. It doesn’t take a lot of work, really, now that he has been doing this for two years, but he works to keep his hive small and strong.

In his kitchen, his countertops are filled with 16 oz. mason jars of the sweet elixir his troops have produced, roughly 400 pounds in all during his most recent harvest.

A large wedge of beeswax sits nearby on the floor, below a counter of vials filled with propolis (“bee glue”), a byproduct of the hive used by people with diabetes to heal wounds, combat allergies and even soothe toothaches.

“Bees are amazing,” Hajari says. “There are so many benefits to everything they produce.”

Which is part of the reason why Hajari is so fascinated by them. Truth is, we couldn’t live without bees, as they, along with butterflies, pollinate approximately 75 percent of the world’s flowering plants and 35 percent of the world’s food crops, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Hajari, 59, was born in Kerman, Iran, and came to the US in 1987 to start a new life. He settled in New York and began a career as a home improvement contractor, but then relocated to Florida and eventually bought a home in Angus Valley.

With an affinity for nature and being self-sustaining, Hajari started with chickens and goats in his backyard, and while his attempts to make goat’s milk failed, he did successfully manage to make some soap. 

But, he really wanted his own honey. Because he returns to Iran every year to help take care of his mother, barnyard animals required too much care. So, three years ago, he bought his first beehive from a woman in Dade City for $250. He transferred the hive in his truck, and says that setting it up was, well, a bit painful.

“I got stung like crazy,” Jeff says. “Probably 20-25 times. But, it was okay.”

Hajari continued to add more hives — at one point he had 12-15. But, they were weaker hives, and he has found by limiting the hives to eight or so, he has a stronger, healthier group able to resist attackers like ants and other pests. Two years ago, he designed a new entrance for the beehive to fight against varroa mites, who were capable of wiping out an entire colony.

Hajari says he learned how to keep bees like you would learn about anything — the internet and trial and error. He watched documentaries and YouTube videos, read articles and purchased a beekeeping suit. Handy with wood working, he constructed frames for the bees to expand their honeycombs. He has made mistakes, losing bees and entire hives. “Like anything, there is a science to it,” he says.

Every few months, his kitchen becomes a laboratory, where he extracts the honey from the combs and bottles it.

“It takes two days to get it all done and jarred and ready,” Jeff says. “It’s a labor of love. As long as I have enough for my coffee and tea, and my friends.”

He says that the taste each time is different, and that it all depends on what flowers were pollinated. One of his recent batches was particularly dark and bitter.

“I don’t know why, but my honey looks almost like coffee,” he says. “I’ve been to stores but I have never seen anything that looks that dark. It’s extremely dark. But, I read where the darker the better, as it has more antioxidants and antibodies. So I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m good with it.’”

He sells his honey and propolis on Facebook marketplace, which you can find by searching “Local Honey Wesley Chapel.”

Hajari will even come remove a colony of bees from your yard, if need be.

“It’s a hobby, and it’s fun,” he says.

But, there’s always something new to learn, and Hajari has now added mushroom hunting — “Not the crazy ones, the edible ones” — to his nature quest. He joined a group that goes hunting in places like Ocala National Forest, the Croom Wildlife Management Area in Brooksville and even Hillsborough River State Park. One trip yielded a basket of Chanterelle mushrooms, which he cooked up. “I’m addicted to them, they were so good,” Jeff said.

Because he has so many trees and logs in his backyard, he ordered a mushroom growing kit and is hoping to produce Shitaki, Golden Oyster and Lion’s Mane mushrooms in his own backyard. He said it takes a year.

And,before he left for Iran recently, he planted a banana tree, avocados, blueberries and blackberries.

“I just like to be self sufficient,” he says, “especially when it comes to nutrition. I want everything organic, and I like to produce it myself.” What’s next for Jeff? He’s not sure, but he seems to be just beginning. “I always like to try something new,” he says.

A Former (Mediocre) Male Swimmer’s Take On The Transgendered Swimmer

Gary Nager Editorial

When I saw on the news and the uproar on Facebook that transgendered swimmer Lia Thomas had won the NCAA Women’s 500-yard championship, beating out Sarasota native Emma Weyant by 1.75 seconds, I couldn’t help but think about my own mediocre career as a distance freestyle and butterfly swimmer.

I didn’t want to be a swimmer as a kid, but all of my closest friends joined the Hewlett (Long Island) High swim team in 9th grade. At that age, I wasn’t big/tall or good enough to play high school football or basketball, so I accepted that swimming was it for me.

All of my friends were better than I was as a swimmer, especially in sprint events. But, I did enjoy being part of a really good team (we always had guys advance to the State Championship meets and some of them even won their events at the County level and at least made it to the finals in their respective events at States). Two of my closest friends were even good enough to swim for the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, I worked to the best of my ability for four years, doing well enough to earn a varsity letter my junior and senior years, based on my results in dual meets during those seasons. I even made it to the County meet my senior year in the 100-yard fly and 500 free, but did not crack the top-20 in either event, despite swimming PRs (personal records) in both. I believe my 500-free time at the County meet was 5:18, but that was nowhere near my goal of breaking 5 minutes.

Even so, I was in the best shape of my life, so I continued swimming to stay in shape in my two years at SUNY Albany, and I even decided to join Albany State’s team my sophomore year. I was relegated to the events none of the other swimmers wanted to compete in — the 200 fly, 500-, 1,000- and 1,650-yard freestyle — but I only qualified for the Division III State Championship meet in the 1,650. I had put on at least 10-15 lbs. of muscle since high school and swam my P.R. in the 1,650 at State — somewhere over 18 minutes — and also recorded my fastest-ever times in the 200, 500 (5:07) and 1,000 en route to finishing 18th at that meet.

Three months or so later, I transferred to the University of Florida, a long-time swimming powerhouse, and decided to see if I could walk on the men’s team. After the first 200 yards of warmups, I realized I was completely outclassed and got out of the water cursing at myself. The famous then-Gators coach, Randy Reese, put his arm around me and said he could tell I was a competitive swimmer, and that I could stay with the team as the equipment manager and possibly even a meet-day fill-in if I could handle the thousands and thousands of yards per day and still get the kickboards and hand paddles put away at the end of each session. 

Not only did I decline, I joked that I clearly wasn’t even good enough to make the school’s women’s team — and he agreed.

Little did I know, 40+ years later, that anyone would actually attempt such a switch. The former William “Will” Thomas, who says she began feeling transgendered while still in high school, joined the University of Pennsylvania’s men’s team as a freshman in 2017 and finished in the top-seven in the same events I swam (500-, 1,000- and 1,650-yard free) at the 2018 Ivy League Championships (for the same Penn team my friends swam for), although Will Thomas did not make the finals in any of those events at the NCAA Championships that year or in 2019, the Texas native’s last year competing as a man.

At the end of 2019, Will Thomas told his coaches that he was transgendered and began undergoing hormone replacement therapy to transition to female that year.

Between Covid and transitioning to female, Lia Thomas (right in picture) didn’t swim as a woman at the 2020 or 2021 NCAA Championships, but resurfaced as one of the favorites in multiple events at this year’s NCAA Women’s meet. Lia not only won the 500-yard final (in a time 13+ second slower than Will Thomas’ PR of 4:20.5), she also finished 5th in the 200 free and 8th in the 100 free.

Now, after previously having met and written stories for the former Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner and his Better Health & Living magazine in the 1980s, I do believe it’s possible for adults to realize that the gender they were born into was somehow a mistake, and I wish Lia Thomas the best of luck in life.  

What I don’t believe is that someone who was born a man should be allowed to compete as a woman at any level of competitive sports. I’m no doctor or geneticist, but I don’t believe suppressing a male’s natural hormones is enough to not give that genetic man an unfair strength and endurance advantage when competing against genetic women.

Like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, I believe that Weyant should have won the 500-free title, although I blame the NCAA for allowing Thomas — or anyone born a man — to compete as a woman at all.