Nearly a year after it unofficially opened following major renovations, the New River Library at 34043 S.R. 54 finally got its official Grand Opening last month.
The library was closed from October 2019 through a soft opening in April 2021, receiving a major upgrade that was extended by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The New River Library was officially rededicated with a ribbon cutting and ceremonial release of butterflies on April 21, attended by Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore, Pasco Libraries regional manager Angelo Liranzo, other library officials and the architects of the project.
Liranzo praised the efforts of landscape architect Celia Nichols, who transformed the outdoor space at the library.
“What we have now is completely different and totally transformed into something so wonderful,” he said. “Instead of just a community garden…we have 28 planter beds that can be reserved for a quarter at a time.
Liranzo added that all of the planter beds already have been checked out and that there is now a waiting list.
The library also has a larger and brighter lobby, two soundproof study rooms and a larger one for bigger groups, four new family bathrooms, a larger children’s area, a teen room and an upgraded scanning and printing area.
The new outdoor study area and community garden are highlights. The garden has four water barrels, a butterfly garden and sensory items for children who are on the autism spectrum.Â
From greens to Green, the battle over what to do with the former Pebble Creek Golf Club (PCGC) is now headed to the courts.
PCGC owner Bill Place and his company Ace Golf are suing Pebble Creek resident Leslie Green, seeking more than $30,000 in damages for defamation and tortious interference (or interfering with a contractual relationship) as well as attorney’s fees, after Green chased off potential developers, says the suit filed March 28 in Hillsborough Circuit Court.
Green, who has lived along the 10th hole at PCGC for nearly 30 years, has been a vocal critic of Place’s efforts to sell the 54-year-old golf club, which was shuttered back on July 31, 2021.
She started the “Save Pebble Creek” Facebook page in March 2019, leading the opposition against Place’s efforts to secure a so-called brownfield designation to offset the costs of removing pesticides and other chemicals from the property, a requirement before he could sell the 150-acre property for development.
The application was denied after residents banded together to fight it, leaving Place to shoulder costs that he said would be more than $1 million.
Green has posted more than 600 times on the Facebook page, according to the lawsuit.
Place declined to comment on the suit itself.
Green, in a statement released through her lawyers at Stanton I.P. Law, P.A., said, “This is not about who lives on what side of the street, this is about protecting our neighborhood’s quality of life. In my opinion, the proposals that have been presented will drastically change our neighborhood. My neighbors and I have the right to voice our concerns and advocate for the type of neighborhood we can all be proud to live in. This lawsuit does not change my resolve and will not be used to silence my disapproval with the proposed changes.”
No court date has been set, but Green has filed for an extension to respond to the suit until May 10.
The lawsuit alleges that Green’s fight against efforts to develop homes on the course were “personal and selfish motivations on the part of Green and an animosity against Ace Golf and Place,” and she also conducted a mail campaign to reach out to developers, city, county and state officials and others, established a GoFundMe page to pay legal fees for her “personal endeavors,” communicated with the press, engaged in mass mailing letter writing campaigns and contacted developers and officials through multiple phone calls.
All of these efforts are categorized in the lawsuit as the “Green Method.” According to the lawsuit, she “made things personal and pervasive through a campaign of harassment and dissemination of blatant falsehoods through multiple channels.”
Place also says Green made false statements in an effort to publicly shame him by saying he engaged in a “golf course flopping scheme” and intentionally sabotaged the course so he could sell it.
This Pebble Creek resident is opposed to development on the former golf course.
The results, says the lawsuit, were that two developers ended up withdrawing their interest.
In July of 2020, KB Homes, Pulte Homes and several other builders provided bids to redevelop Pebble Creek, and, in June 2021, Place came to terms with Pulte. Place alleges that Green used the “Green Method” to directly contact Pulte Homes and deliver “blatant falsehoods” that led to the builder pulling out in August 2021.
When a bid by KB Homes was then accepted, Green again sent “targeted communications,” according to the suit.
“It worked again,” the lawsuit alleges, as KB Homes also withdrew its bid.
Place told the Neighborhood News last week that he is currently working with another builder, and hopes the rezoning process can begin by the end of the year.
He said the builder, which he did not name, has already presented a preliminary development plan and has met with small focus groups in an effort to convince residents that the project would be a benefit to the area. There are roughly 1,400 homes in Pebble Creek, and 130 of them are on the golf course.
“I completely understand why the people who live on the course are upset,” Place says. “But, for the people that don’t live on the course, most of them are not part of this Leslie Green movement. They are just people out there living their lives who probably never play golf and don’t care about golf. That’s most of the people out there. They are not the ones trying to cause issues. In the long run, those are really the people who will decide things, whether or not we’re allowed to do any development or not.”
Place says he already has the zoning credits for 600 homes, but the plans have always been to build only 260 or so.
“I have to find a use for the property,” he says. “I pay $30,000 a year in property taxes, I pay a guy $50,000 a year just to maintain the property the best we can. I’m not looking for a fight, I’m looking for a solution, and I’m absolutely wanting to work with residents.”
Pebble Creek Golf Club (PCGC) owner Bill Place says it’s a matter of safety.
Pebble Creek resident Paul Manobianco says it feels more like retribution.
A number of cart path areas on the sprawling golf course, which has been closed since July 31, 2021, as Place has been seeking a developer to convert the fairways and greens into homes, have been fork-lifted off the ground and piled onto the remaining path. Bright orange spray paint directs people away from the mess.
Several Pebble Creek residents are complaining that Place is purposely tearing up the golf course so they will stop walking and biking on it. And, they’re not necessarily wrong.
“I received calls from residents, saying they are constantly seeing ATVs running around the property, motorcycles, bikes, people walking around the property,” Place says. “It’s a huge issue because I remain liable for that.”
So, Place says he set out to stop it. PCGC is private property, not a public park, he says. He alerted both of Pebble Creek’s Homeowners Associations in a March 26 email that he had contacted the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office about beefing up their presence at the shuttered course to keep trespassers off and was looking into “removing portions of the cart paths to discourage their use.”
On April 2, in another email, he announced that the cart path removals would begin April 5.
“Slabs of the cart paths were lifted and placed on the existing cart paths every 100-300 feet,” Place says. “We did it in such a way that if, down the road, a solution to keep the golf course or if the county wants to buy it as a park, the sections can be lifted back up and put back in place.”
But, residents like Manobianco aren’t happy. Considering the difficulty Place has had securing a brownfield designation and developers in the face of resident resistance, as well as the recent lawsuit filed against Pebble Creek resident and activist Leslie Green (see story on pg. 4), this has all the makings of a payback.
“He wants Pebble Creek residents to pay for the denial of the brownfield, for fighting the rezoning, for Leslie for speaking up and for developers walking away,” says Manobianco, who lives in one of the 130 homes located on the golf course.
Mary Lou Tucker says that even when the golf course was open, residents would enjoy leisurely walks and bike rides on the course in the early morning or after the golfers had finished for the day. For those who lived on or near the course but didn’t play, it was a nice community amenity.
“I fail to see the logic behind the recent actions undertaken on our course,” Tucker says. “I cannot understand the reasoning behind spending money to destroy one’s own property needlessly… and antagonize the residents in the process.”
Tucker says walks on the golf course have been a way of life for Pebble Creek residents for decades.
“I have lived here on the course for 20 years and cannot remember ever being prohibited from taking advantage of a safe, and silent path for walking or riding a bike,” she says. “It’s very disappointing to see this.”
Place says other than the ATVs and motorcycles, trespassers could face other hazards. The course is only being maintained to the most basic of county standards, meaning to within 200 yards of each home. The interior of the course is overgrown in many areas, meaning snakes and other wildlife could be lurking.
Manobianco says Place’s efforts could prevent the course from ever being sold as a golf course again, which some think might be the idea. “You’d have to put 2-3 million back into it just to play golf again,” he adds.
Place insists the measures taken are for the safety of the residents, and not retribution for opposition to his plans to sell the course to developers.
“I don’t like doing this,” Place says. “It’s just not safe to walk through. I’d like it to be this nice park, available to everybody, but I can’t afford to make it a park, nor have the liability for doing so.”
Tampa City Council member Luis Viera hosted roughly 50 K-Bar Ranch residents on April 13. Many had traffic and road concerns that the City of Tampa officials on hand said were being addressed. (Photo: John C. Cotey)
Residents of K-Bar Ranch, the still-developing community in the northeastern corner of New Tampa, have had their fair share of traffic growing pains — from speed limits they want reduced to traffic logjams and safety issues in front of Pride Elementary to a perceived need for additional stop signs along K-Bar Ranch Pkwy.
After months of studies and back-and-forth emails between the City of Tampa and some residents, it appears that some of their wishes may be granted.
At a community meeting hosted by District 7 Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera and attended by other city officials and about 50 K-Bar residents, a number of future changes were unveiled.
City of Tampa traffic safety coordinator William Porth and chief traffic management engineer Vik Bhide told residents that the city will begin reducing the speeds on parts of Wild Tamarind Dr. and Bassett Creek Dr. from 35 miles per hour to 30, with some reductions within the subdivisions as well.
“Bassett Creek was posted at 35 when nobody was out here,” Porth said. “Things have obviously changed.”
Porth also said the city will be putting in all-way stops at two of the busier intersections on K-Bar Ranch Pkwy., the primary east-west thoroughfare that runs through the community.
As for fixing the issues at Pride, Porth said that would require some studies but that hopefully within the next few months that could be addressed as well. Some of the residents asked that the issue be fixed prior to start of the 2022-23 school year in August.
City of Tampa Fire Chief Barbara Tripp also attended the meeting, and told residents that the City was working on improving response times to the difficult-to-reach, quickly-growing area.
The response-time goal, she said, is 90 percent of the time to be on scene in 8.5 minutes or less and, to achieve that, the City is considering stationing a mobile unit in the area, or providing a new access road off Morris Bridge Rd.
Right now, Kinnan St. is the only way into the western end of K-Bar Ranch via Cross Creek Blvd.
Not surprisingly, that led to residents complaining about the community’s lack of egress, and a few of them suggested that an old controversy be revisited.
Susan Cali, the K-Bar Ranch II clubhouse manager, said with the connection to Meadow Pointe Blvd. getting closer to opening, maybe the long-fought-over Kinnan St. connection to Mansfield Blvd., which is only available to emergency vehicles, could be opened to traffic as well.
“We think timing-wise it might be a good time to revisit,” Cali said. “With Meadow Pointe Blvd. opening, it won’t be like all the pressure is on Kinnan-Mansfield.”
Some in the crowd suggested a boycott of Wesley Chapel businesses if Pasco County wasn’t willing to revisit the issue. Others suggested building a coalition of those in favor of opening the road from both sides of the county line.
Viera told the crowd he didn’t see Pasco County agreeing to reconsider Kinnan-Mansfield. Even though one of the connection’s biggest opponents, District 2 Pasco commissioner Mike Moore, is stepping down in November, Viera said he will likely be replaced with someone holding the same views.
“We’d like to make (Kinnan-Mansfield) happen,” Viera said, “but you can’t dance without a partner.”
More than 25 years after being dedicated to our community, the New Tampa Regional Library is still the heart and one of the jewels of New Tampa. (Photo: Charmaine George)
Lisette May was so excited about a library being built near her Hunter’s Green home that she was the first one there the day the New Tampa Regional Library opened in May of 1997.
The library staff handed her a bouquet of flowers for being the library’s first-ever patron. She was accompanied by her then-5-year-old daughter Lindsey (6-year-old Lauren was in school that day), and Lisette remembers marveling at the modern design and layout, the view of the lake out back and the stuffed animals and bean bag chairs in the children’s area.
“There was a lot of anticipation,” says Lisette, who checked out a half dozen books, a movie on videotape and signed her daughters up for the summer reading programs while she was there. “It was very exciting for everyone. I remember thinking, wow, they did a really good job with this.”
On May 4, the New Tampa Regional Library (NTRL) turns 25 years old. Lisette still visits, impressed by all of the library’s new additions and offerings, and happily recollects her years taking her children to story times or just to sit and enjoy a book with them.
“I always felt like going to the library made you feel like you were part of a really great community,” Lisette says. “We would go and see our neighbors there; the kids would see their friends from school there. It was a great place to see your friends and educate your kids.”
The story of how the NTRL came to be is one of Said Iravani’s favorites. The longtime Heritage Isles resident thinks about it almost every time he drives by the library on Cross Creek Blvd. — which, of course, is almost every day.
More than three decades ago, a group of Hunter’s Green and Tampa Palms residents, headed by a retired librarian, put hundreds of hours into a grassroots movement, calling city and county officials and cajoling a local developer to donate the land, with the goal of building a 25,000-sq.-ft. state-of-the-art regional library that is arguably the heart of the New Tampa community and, while perhaps a little underappreciated, may be its greatest resource.
“It’s such a great story,” says Iravani, who has written a few of the pages himself as the former president of the Friends of the New Tampa Regional Library, a group dedicated to raising funds for programs and equipment the county’s budget does not cover.
Then-Hillsborough County Commissioner Jan Platt (left) and Friends of the New Tampa Library founding president Jeri Zelinski were on hand when the New Tampa Regional Library was dedicated. (Photo provided by Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library)
The first thing you may notice when you walk into the NTRL lobby is the Jeri Zelinski Community Room, which was dedicated to the library’s patron saint in 2004, two years after her passing.
Zelinski, the retired librarian and founding president of Friends of the Library, which was formed in 1990, is credited as being largely responsible for securing the library for New Tampa.
With help from friends like Lorraine Clewis of the Tampa Palms Ladies Club, the New Tampa Community Council (led by then-president Frank Margarella) and others, Zelinski forged partnerships and soon began attending Tampa-Hillsborough Library Advisory Board and County Commission meetings.
She developed a close alliance with then-County Commissioner Jan Platt, who helped push through a .10-mill property tax to pay for the library.
The Tampa Palms Ladies Club also played a big role in helping circulate petitions, and Zelinski did all she could to find a home for the library. It could have ended up in Tampa Palms, but its developer, Ken Good, only offered 1.6 acres of land, according to The Tampa Tribune, which was not enough for a regional library.
Clewis had to withdraw from the library effort due to family obligations, which could have been a big blow to the Friends. But, Zelinski continued to look for land, expanding her search to the Cross Creek and Pebble Creek areas.
Eventually, however, Zelinski contacted Markborough Florida, the developers of Hunter’s Green, and helped secure 3.6 acres just east of Hunter’s Green Elementary and west of the future Benito Middle School.
“Quite simply, there wouldn’t be a library without Jeri Zelinski,” says Iravani, who has fought against efforts to name the library after anyone other than Zelinski, and was active in efforts to begin an expansion project in 2008.That effort was tabled but is still under consideration.
The New Tampa Library ribbon cutting. (Photo provided by Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library)
On May 2, 1997, a black tie- optional gala was held at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club to celebrate the opening of the library. The grand prize that night: two round-trip plane tickets to Lima, Peru.
Two days later, the New Tampa Regional Library opened its doors at 9 a.m.
Wendy Prasad, administrative librarian and the NTRL branch manager since 2017, says that despite changing reading habits and the effects of technology on libraries in general, the New Tampa Library is still going strong.
Last year, more than 72,000 people visited the library, and it has consistently been one of the most popular libraries in the county’s system.
“There are so many things we provide the community,” she says, including a main reading room, a separate children’s room, Grandma Claire’s Early Learning Hive, robust summer reading programs, meeting and study rooms, free WiFi and computer use and a wealth of online services.
The library continues to be a place that can open up the world to newer and older generations.
When it first opened, this newspaper published stories about the videotapes, audio cassettes and compact discs that were available to check out. How times have changed — you can now check out a 4K video camera the size of a couple of packs of gum.
“We have definitely evolved,” Prasad says. “And I think you’ll see us continue to evolve.”
The NTRL is located at 10001 Cross Creek Blvd. The Friends of the Library are hosting a Giant Book Sale at NTRL May 6-7. For more info, email FriendsofNewTampaLibrary@gmail.com.Â
