A Wesley Chapel woman was arrested Tuesday night after she struck and killed a 64-year-old woman in a mobility scooter who was checking her mail.
Nicole Marie Gennarini Cresswell, 24, was arrested just before midnight. She was found sitting in her gray 2019 Nissan Sentra in the driveway of a home on Shenandoah Run in Wesley Chapel. Gennarini Cresswell was arrested by Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) troopers and taken to the Pasco County Jail during the early morning hours on Wednesday, June 16, and charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving a death.
The FHP report says troopers were able to use vehicle parts found at the crash, as well as witness accounts, to assist in locating Gennarini Cresswell.
According to the FHP, Gennarini Cresswell was traveling westbound on Robin Roost Lane where she collided with the victim, who was retrieving her mail at the roadway edge at roughly 5:45 p.m.. She told troopers she had struck a deer earlier, but did not remember where.
Following the crash which caused damage to the front right portion of the vehicle, Gennarini Cresswell fled the scene as the victim suffered fatal injuries.
Pebble Creek Golf Club opened in 1967, long before New Tampa as we know it was developed.
The letters went out last weekend, but were probably not a surprise to anyone living in Pebble Creek.
The golf course, the oldest one in the area, is shutting down for good on July 31.
Pebble Creek Golf Club (PCGC) owner Bill Place, who has been trying for years to sell the 6,436-yard golf course he bought in 2005, says he can’t continue losing money on something with no future. After a few failed attempts to finalize a deal with developers the past few years, as well as unsuccessfully trying late last year to get a brownfield designation from the county that would have helped cover almost 3/4 of the cost to decontaminate the soil, Place says he was out of options.
The club, heading into what is usually its slowest time of the year from August through October, currently has only 13 full-time members.
“Even though we had a little bit of a bump from Covid-19, I’ve already started to see it back off as people go back to work,” Place said. “We’re on a path to to repeat 2018 and 2019, when we lost money those years.”
Place also said merely maintaining the course had become financially untenable. Built in 1967, he says the course still has its original irrigation system and “it failed miserably during this recent drought.
“It was time.”
Place says he has quietly told brokers in the last six years he was looking to sell the golf course. After having his brownfield designation rejected in December 2020, Place has continued entertaining suitors.
DR Horton, one of the original interested buyers of the PCGC, had done preliminary testing two years ago and discovered contaminants on the golf course before withdrawing its interest. A brownfield site is a property that is contaminated, which hinders efforts to expand or redevelop it. But there are significant tax credits offered to help clean the property up.
Without those tax credits, Place will likely foot the bill. He has paid $150,000 to have the site tested by an environmental testing firm, and expects results this week. A preliminary estimate, he says, indicated it would then take 6-9 months to decontaminate the soil. That could cost Place $1 million.
But he has potential developers lined up — he will choose one in the next two months — and says he is including the two Pebble Creek homeowners associations, who serve roughly 1,300 homeowners, in the process. Regardless, he expects a significant number of residents to protest when rezoning the 149-acre property gets underway.
“No matter what, we are trying every which way we can to work with the HOAs,” Place says. “I know they would rather have the golf course, but we are looking for the best possible solution.”
Wesley Chapel resident Ken Moser poses with one of his stained glass pieces near the Florida Aquarium entrance. (Photos: Charmaine George)
When Ken Moser moved to Wesley Chapel from Maryland in 2017, he and his wife Becky were retired and looking for a place to volunteer.
“We went to the (Tampa) zoo (at Lowry Park) in July and it was 95 degrees,” he says, adding that they immediately decided that the zoo was most definitely not the place for them.
Ken joined a fly fishing club, and says one of the members was always talking about the Florida Aquarium, so he eventually decided to give that a try.
In March 2019, Ken and Becky began training to volunteer together.
Over the last two years, and despite the Covid-19 pandemic, their efforts have made quite an impact.
So much so, that in April, Ken was named the Florida Aquarium’s Volunteer of the Year. This title earns him an honorary spot on the Aquarium’s Board of Directors for the year.
While he was chosen for his dedication — nearly 600 volunteer hours over the past two years (similar to Outstanding Service winner Edwin Rodriguez, whom we featured last issue) — and his infectious good attitude, he also was recognized for how another of his hobbies has enhanced the aquarium itself.
Ken created eight different stained glass windows that are now located throughout the aquarium. He says creating stained glass is one of many hobbies he’s taken up to keep busy during retirement.
“About eight years ago, my wife and I took a stained glass class at the community college,” Ken says. “I’ve been self-taught from there.”
The eight windows he’s created for the aquarium started when he noticed a two-foot window in the Madagascar section of the aquarium, where he thought he could mirror the bright colors of the exhibit with a brightly colored window.
After that, he says he was inspired to make a window of leafy sea dragons for the volunteer lunch room. Ken says they were so well-received that he was asked to make windows for the front of the aquarium and the CEO’s office.
“Each one is specific to the aquarium,” he says. “The pelicans are Josh and Theo, the penguins are waddling through the wetlands exhibit, there are sea turtles, spoonbills and moon jellies (jellyfish). I tried to keep it to what people can see at the aquarium.”
Josh and Theo
Josh and Theo are brown pelicans who have been popular on the Florida Aquarium’s social media accounts, and moon jellies are jellyfish that can not only be seen, but also touched in the aquarium’s touch tank.
Ken says the more time he spends there, the more he gets to know the animals.
“If you take the time to watch each individual animal,” he says, “you’ll start to see their individual behaviors.”
When asked if he has a favorite marine animal, Ken doesn’t seem to be able to narrow it down.
“Every week seems to be a different one,” he says. “The jawfish is one of the most comical characters, and I like listening to the wood ducks talking back and forth to each other in the wetlands. And, the stingray tank has a little baby who is worth the price of admission just to see her.”
Ken and Becky both work in education, teaching guests about the aquarium’s many animals. They initially agreed to volunteer at least eight hours a month, but soon determined they had more time than that to spare.
“Once I got in the commissary,” Ken says, “I would go three times a week. It’s just a fun place to go.”
The commissary is where food is prepared for the aquarium’s 8,000 animals.
“We have menus for the various animals,” Ken explains. “Some require different fishes that have to be cut up different ways, for example, and birds have seeds and pellets.”
Ken hasn’t worked in the commissary since March 2020, before Covid-19 shut down the aquarium and no volunteers were allowed in.
When the aquarium reopened in May, a few volunteers helped in guest services and as “roaming disinfectors,” to make sure guests stayed on the pathways and wore masks.
Now, Ken says, a limited number of volunteers are back in the education department manning the touch tanks during the day.
“As soon as volunteers were allowed,” he says, “I felt responsibility to come back and keep the program alive. At one time, they had 300 volunteers, but they were down to zero. If no one comes back, there’s no program.”
He says the aquarium is always staffed to provide necessary care to the animals, but although the aquarium functions without volunteers, he says, “everyone is happier with us there.”
Ken adds that the staff treats the volunteers like family, and that he and other volunteers feel enormously appreciated and grateful to be able to be part of the aquarium.
He is impressed with how the aquarium has navigated its way through the pandemic, too.
Ken working at the stingray station.
In fact, Ken and Becky donated their first Covid stimulus checks to the aquarium.
“Being retired, we didn’t plan on that money, so we thought, ‘Who needs it more?,’” says Ken. “The aquarium lost all of its guests and still needed to feed the animals every day, so we thought the money was better used that way.”
Ken says he and Becky intend to continue volunteering at the aquarium as long as they possibly can.
“When they announced the award, there were several people who had reached the 25-year mark as volunteers at the aquarium,” Ken says. “There are some really dedicated people there. I might not get 25 years — I started a little late — but at least I left my mark there with the windows. They should be there long after I’m gone, so I will leave that behind.”
Construction of the New Tampa Performing Arts Center could begin on this barren lot in the next few months. (Photo: Charmaine George)
The New Tampa Players (NTP), a local acting troupe looking for a permanent home, recently finished a run of shows with a cast of just a handful of performers in a 2,000-sq.-ft. black box theater at the old University Mall.
It’s not exactly what the group may have envisioned when it started nearly 20 years ago with the hope of a cultural center they could call home in the heart of New Tampa, but now, they can see a spotlight at the end of the tunnel.
Thanks in part to a public outpouring of support from many NTP and New Tampa community members, the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners voted 5-2 to approve a $7.3-million construction contract to build the long-awaited New Tampa Performing Arts Center (NTPAC).
“We weren’t 100 percent it would go through, but we are super happy it did,” said Nora Paine, a long-time member and current president of the NTP.
The vote is the biggest step yet for the project, which dates back to 2001, and was initially approved in 2014. Commissioner Ken Hagan, whose District 2 includes New Tampa, says a groundbreaking for the state-of-the-art, 20,000-sq.-ft. (expandable to 30,000 square feet) NTPAC should be scheduled in the next month or two.
Hagan would like to see the project, which is located in the Village at Hunter’s Lake development across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from the entrance to the Hunter’s Green community, completed by September of 2022.
“I’m ecstatic over the results,” Hagan says. “Good things come to those who wait. It only took 17 years, but we finally got over the finish line. The end result is that next year, New Tampa is going to have a first-class facility that’s going to be a wonderful centerpiece for the entire community to enjoy.”
Ken Hagan
Hagan told the Neighborhood News that the construction contract has been awarded to Dunedin-based Bandes Construction, but that the Request for Proposals to operate the PAC hasn’t yet happened.
Hagan told the Board he had received more than 140 emails in support of the NTPAC project. The handful of emails Hagan said he received in opposition to building it primarily dealt with traffic concerns.
Prior to the vote, more than a dozen speakers, including many NTP members, asked the commissioners to keep the PAC dream alive.
“A lot of us had concerns of (the project just being) small stores and another apartment complex,” said Hunter’s Green resident Rob Larsen. “Well, to our surprise, the Performing Arts Center was going to be the heart of this new center. And without it, it basically dies.”
District 63 State Rep. Fentrice Driskell sent an email of support, and Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who represents New (and North) Tampa in District 7, weighed in as well, promising a commitment from the city to help pay some of the PAC’s operating costs.
Joining Hagan in voting to award the construction contract were commissioners Harry Cohen, Stacy White, Kimberly Overman and Gwen Myers.
They all cited the promises made to New Tampa residents over the years and, as Hagan pointed out, the money to build the PAC was approved back in 2019 and has been waiting to be spent.
“Promises made, promises kept,” said Comm. Myers. “I hope no other community would go through 17 years waiting on a decision from our county.”
The New Tampa Players, performing “Little Mermaid”, may soon have a permanent home to put on its productions. (Photo: James Cass of Picture This of Palma Ceia)
Commissioners Mariella Smith and BCC chair Pat Kemp voted against awarding the construction contract.
Smith said she didn’t believe the rights to operate the PAC once it was built should be awarded to the Manatee County-based Florida Cultural Group (FCG).
Kemp was critical of the PAC’s location. She said it was a “little teeny place carved out of a massive parking lot” and jammed between a strip mall and an apartment complex, both which financially benefited the developers and left the PAC’s actual location as an afterthought.
“It would just be a boondoggle for me to put an iconic building that you put up a lot of money for behind a strip mall and in front of a four-story apartment building,” Kemp said.
Following the construction vote, the commissioners addressed the concerns about FCG by voting unanimously for a Request for Proposals (RFP) to reopen the bidding process in order to find a group to handle the PAC operations.
Hagan says the county staff felt that FCG was the best organization to run the facility to get it to a net-zero operation, and that its extensive experience at fund raising and luring national acts would be an ideal fit.
“Unless there’s another organization that we’re unaware of, our staff feels that at the end, after going through the RFP, it will likely be FCG again,” Hagan says. “Whoever it is, I just want them to be able to be effective and able to fund raise and bring in national acts.”
Hagan said he also will champion the creation of an additional local board, comprised of New Tampa residents, to support the facility and help with any other issues.
For more information about the New Tampa Players, visit NewTampaPlayers.org. The troupe’s latest project, “Motherhood Out Loud.” runs June 11-12 at 7:30 p.m., June 13 at 3 p.m., June 18-19 at 7:30 p.m. and June 20 at 3 p.m. at the Uptown Stage at the University Mall (2200 E. Fowler Ave.).
For more than 30 years, Edwin Rodriguez has made the long commute to work in Clearwater every day from his home in Wesley Chapel.
But, for the past six years, he has been breaking up his Tuesday drive home with a stop at the Florida Aquarium in downtown Tampa.
There, he dons scuba gear and spends several hours cleaning the tanks. Rodriguez has racked up more than 640 hours of volunteering in that role, and others, at the aquarium.
For example, he says it makes him jump out of bed with a smile when there’s a special occasion.
“My favorite is Halloween,” he says. “Every year, I dress up like Spider-Man underwater, and the kids go nuts. Just imagine me crawling on the glass like a spider. The looks on the kids’ faces are just priceless.”
Edwin also volunteers to help clean Tampa Bay, especially after large events like the Gasparilla parade.
“We dive to clean the beads that end up in the water,” he says. “And not only beads. Last time we went, we got a couple of those scooters that people ride around town — all kinds of garbage that you wouldn’t even believe.”
Edwin started scuba diving in 1986 in his native Puerto Rico. He moved to Florida in 1988, and then discovered skydiving.
“At that point, I put my scuba gear away,” he says. When he suffered an injury not related to skydiving, Ruth, his wife of 21 years, told him it was time to find something different.
Edwin’s favorite time of the year is Halloween.
He agreed, on one condition. He needed to keep the adrenaline pumping, so they tried new adventures together. They started riding ATVs, and then jet skis.
“My wife said she’d like to try scuba diving,” explains Edwin, “and immediately, my passion for it came back.”
Wanting to spend more time underwater, he found out he could dive as a volunteer at the Florida Aquarium.
“Once I started, I began to understand the mission and vision of the aquarium,” he says. “When I started, my reason for volunteering was selfishly wanting to dive more, but now, I see the big picture. The aquarium’s work to restore the planet has deeply impacted me.”
“Every time I brush a coral (which you have to be properly trained to do), I realize I’m making an impact,” he says. “I’m making it more clean and safe for the animals, and helping the aquarium to be able to bring more people in, plus everything they do to help the planet that people don’t see.”
The process to become an aquarium volunteer is rigorous, and not everyone who wants to help is chosen to do so. Edwin explains that he first filled out an application, then attended a seminar to understand expectations, and completed a required medical test.
He then had to pass a swim test. He says that treading water for 10 minutes and demonstrating his scuba skills was no problem, but even after training, the now-55-year-old says it was difficult for him to swim the required number of meters in the time allotted. After that, he studied for and passed an online test, then started training, including learning how to properly dive in an aquarium.
He says it was all worth it, as he enjoys helping the aquarium, its animals and many visitors, including his six-year-old grandson. “He’s everything to me,” Edwin says. “He loves to go to the aquarium and would go every day if we would let him.”
Edwin was recently recognized at the Florida Aquarium’s annual appreciation event with its annual Outstanding Service Award.
“I don’t see me stopping anytime soon,” he says. “I want to retire from work when I turn 60 and I will have time available, so I want to use more of that time at the aquarium. If I get to the point where I can’t scuba dive, there are plenty of other things to do at the aquarium.”
