In an election season defined by partisan vitriol and hate, Danny Burgess tries a little kissing (of his wife Courtney, of course) to woo a voter or two.Â
Despite worries nationwide about the voting process in 2020, due to taking place in the middle of a pandemic and concerns raised by President Trump about the validity of mail-in votes, Pasco’s Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley said the county’s efforts this past election were about as smooth as could be.
“Overall, it exceeded my wildest expectations,” Corley said.
Roughly 304,000 votes were cast in Pasco County, including 302,621 votes for president. President Donald Trump received 179,621 votes, or 59.4 percent, while President-elect Joe Biden received 119,073, or 39.4 percent.
Nationally, however, Biden defeated Trump by more than six million votes and in the Electoral College 306-232.
The 304,000 votes cast in Pasco represented 78 percent of the eligible voters, far exceeding 2016’s totals of 244,950 ballots cast and a 73-percent turnout.
Despite the record-setting numbers, Corley said the ability to secure six gymnasiums countywide for early voting and the influx of mail-in votes prevented some of the 3-4 hour long waits in line he feared beforehand.
In fact, only 65,000 votes (21% of all ballots cast) were cast on Nov. 3. Twice that number, 113,000, were cast during early voting, and more than 121,000 were mail-in votes, compared to 68,178 in 2016.
“The mail-in votes were a great safety valve and allowed for the in-person voting to be less crowded,” Corley said.
Corley added that mail-in voting has been growing in popularity since Florida started it in 2002, “but this year it was on steroids because of the pandemic.”
Despite President Trump’s disinformation campaign against mail-in voting (except in Florida, where he said it was okay), Corley thinks the mail-in numbers will only grow in the future.
“It got politicized, and that is very unfortunate,” he said.
Not surprisingly, Pasco County remained red, as Republican candidates went 9-0 in the vote, including Gus Bilirakis (U.S. Rep., Cong. Dist. 12), Danny Burgess (State Sen. Dist. 20), Randy Maggard (State Rep. Dist. 38), Superintendent of Schools Kurt Browning and County Commissioners Jack Mariano and Kathryn Starkey.
For complete Pasco County 2020 General Election results, visit PascoVotes.org. — JCC
The Diverging Diamond Interchange now under construction at the junction of S.R. 56 and I-75 is expected to alleviate the traffic issues at arguably Wesley Chapel’s most congested point. (Photo: Charmaine George)
Pasco County Board of County Commissioners (BCC) chairman Mike Moore has always taken great pride in his efforts to expedite the construction of the Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) at the busy junction of I-75 and S.R. 56.
With help from state legislators, what was originally scheduled for a 2024 completion was moved up and expected to be finished by the fall of 2021.
However, that date is now very much in question, which has riled Moore, who represents District 2, which includes most of Wesley Chapel.
“It’s very, very disappointing,” he says.
Armed with letters from constituents and his own daily experience driving through the congestion at the under-construction interchange, Moore is disappointed to hear that the project — originally expected to cost $18.5 million but now carrying a $33-million price tag — could now drag on until the spring of 2022 or even later.
Which is why, when Moore drives by the project now and sees workers, well, not working, it makes him seethe.
His frustration was on full display at a BCC meeting last month, when Moore delivered a blistering attack on the company, D.A.B. Constructors, Inc., in charge of the project.
Moore said he recently drove through the interchange and took pictures of the general malaise happening. He said he saw two workers standing next to a truck doing nothing, and a second group of construction workers standing on a hill.
“On a project of that magnitude, those are the only people I saw working on a Monday, a sunny Monday, at 1:30 in the afternoon,” Moore said. “I think that’s insane, that’s ridiculous, that’s embarrassing.”
More than 100,000 vehicles pass through the interchange on a daily basis. The eagerly-anticipated DDI is designed to create fewer conflict points at the interchange, and despite looking like a confusing, diamond-shaped jumble of roads in pictures, Florida’s first Diverging Diamond Interchange (at Exit 210 of I-75, in Sarasota) has been lauded for being safer and more efficient than your traditional junctions.
Businesses Are Unhappy, Too
The Wesley Chapel DDI will be Florida’s second, and Moore isn’t the only one disappointed that it is so far behind schedule.
In September, the Cypress Creek Town Center Property Owners Association (POA) — which includes the Tampa Premium Outlets, Costco and more than 20 other businesses located west of the interchange, sent a letter to Moore and District 3 Commissioner Kathryn Starkey expressing concern about the progress of the interchange.
The POA, which said it has spent $25 million over the last 15 years “reconstructing and widening miles
of highway in the State Road 54/56 corridor” to offset the additional traffic the Town Center attracts, said it reached out to the Florida Department of Transportation when it was becoming clear that the project was falling behind schedule.
It asked FDOT to accelerate the DDI during Covid-19, due to the reduction of traffic, but were told material deliveries had hindered the project and that D.A.B. Constructors “did not feel any substantial gains could be made.”
The POA wrote to Moore and Starkey that they were told the project was at least 200 days behind schedule — pushing the completion date to late summer of 2022.
“It’s very unfortunate that this is happening,” said Comm. Starkey, “but at least FDOT is doing as much as they can to push it along.”
Pasco County has no control over state road projects like the DDI, but Moore and Starkey both reached out to David Gwynn, the FDOT secretary for District 7, after receiving the letter from that group of angry businesses.
FDOT has taken efforts to remedy the situation, and could impose more penalties. Gwynn wrote back to Moore telling him if D.A.B. Constructors can’t meet the contracted end date, “liquidated damages, of $9,837 a day, will be assessed for every day that the contractor is late in completing the project.”
That means that for every month they are behind schedule, D.A.B. Constructors would incur a $300,000 fine.
Pasco’s BCC chair Mike Moore says D.A.B. Constructors “can’t handle it” when it comes to finishing the diverging diamond project on time.
The DDI construction kicked off in early 2019, and had an original schedule of 800 days, resulting in a finish date of April 2021. That did account for delays due to rain and holidays (though not for something like Covid-19, which did cause delays for materials for many area projects).
Gwynn wrote that in roughly 20 months, D.A.B. Constructors had been granted 99 days for weather, 34 days of holiday time and 30 days for unforeseen conditions. All told, that added 163 days to the contract, changing the end date to August 26, 2021.
“Ninety-nine rain days? I don’t how that is, but okay, I guess?,” Moore said. “I guess if it sprinkles outside they don’t work?”
Moore also found 34 days off for holidays “extreme.”
Moore wants to see FDOT come down hard on D.A.B. Constructors, including fines and heavy pressure. He went as far as to suggest D.A.B. “sub out every little piece of the project going forward…cut their losses, and get out.”
He doesn’t want the company used on any more projects in Pasco County, where it is currently working on 10 other projects, including the widening of State Roads 54 and 52.
“They have so many projects going on right now they can’t handle it,” Moore says.
Starkey worried that any further delays could impact the traffic for yet another holiday season in 2021, further hurting businesses in the S.R. 56 corridor.
Snowcat Ridge Alpine Snow Park in Dade City, Florida’s first snow park and only a 20-30 minute drive for many in the Wesley Chapel and New Tampa area, is officially open.
Located at 27839 St. Joe Rd., Snowcat Ridge opened Friday afternoon. The park is seasonal and will only be open through March.
Tickets are on sale at SnowCatRidge.com (you also can sign up there to get on an email notification list), and the prices range from $24.95 to $39.95, depending upon which days you choose to go. All tickets are $5 more if you buy them at the box office.
A general admission ticket includes a two-hour snow tubing session on Snowy Slopes, a 60-foot-high hill that is 400 feet long. A Magic Carpet ride (conveyor belt) will take you to the top of the hill.
It also includes all-day access to the 10,000-sq.-ft. Arctic Igloo, which will have plenty of man-made snow for making snowmen and forts, as well as a bunny slope designed for children ages 3 and under; and Alpine Village, which will feature vendors, seating and food and drink.
Dr. Karina Azank Parilo offers direct primary care at her KAP Medical Group office off BBD Blvd. in Wesley Chapel, which promises shorter wait times & fewer insurance headaches than traditional primary care medical offices. (Photos: Charmaine George)
If you’re frustrated with long wait times at your doctor’s office, not being able to get in to see your physician, or constantly being surprised with how much you pay out-of-pocket for medical expenses — even with health insurance — you might want to consider direct primary care.Â
Karina Azank Parilo, M.D., of KAP Medical Group, offers direct primary care, which changes the way patients and their doctor relate to one another by removing dealing with insurance companies altogether.
KAP Medical Group, which is open to all ages, is located in the Windfair Professional Park in Wesley Chapel, behind the retail plaza on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. that includes Dickey’s BBQ and The Hungry Greek restaurants.
Instead of collecting payment from insurance companies, patients (or “members”) pay a monthly fee, which covers unlimited office visits and virtual visits via phone or video, in-office tests, well checks, sick visits, weight management and management of chronic medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, asthma, arthritis and more.
Dr. Parilo is originally from Tampa. She earned her Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Biology from Duke University in Durham, NC, then earned her Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree from the University of South Florida in 2005. She completed a residency in family medicine at the University of Massachusetts Family Residency Program in Worcester in 2010.
After working in a large private practice in Wesley Chapel for eight years, Dr. Parilo opened KAP Medical Group in early 2018, bringing along Michelle Diaz, who is now KAP Medical Group’s Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) and office manager. The two have worked together since 2010.
Dr. Parilo and her husband Dane live in Seven Oaks and have a blended family of three grown children and three granddaughters. They met through the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Noon in 2012 and both have remained active in the club.
How Direct Primary Care Works
Dr. Parilo says the monthly fee is a transparent, controlled expense, which is affordable for most people. “It’s $54 to $66 per month for an individual,” Dr. Parilo explains, “which is a lot cheaper than most cell phone and cable bills.”
Dr. Parilo still sees patients in her office, but says that telehealth has become popular during the Covid-19 pandemic. (Photo: Charmaine George)
She recommends patients still carry health insurance because the monthly fee doesn’t cover expenses outside of routine care, including hospitalizations, surgical procedures, visits to specialists and lab work. However, some in-office procedures are included in the monthly cost, with just a small supply fee charged, and Dr. Parilo says she has negotiated prices with labs, so that you may pay much less for your lab work than you would pay out-of-pocket if you used your insurance with a high deductible.
“We recommend our patients have catastrophic insurance or a high deductible plan or something they can fall back on to cap their cost, which is how insurance was originally meant to be,” she explains. “Originally, health insurance was like car insurance. You don’t use your car insurance to get your oil changed or replace your tires.”
At KAP Medical Group, you will never be one of thousands of your doctor’s patients, which Dr. Parilo says is common at some large practices. In fact, at her previous practice, Dr. Parilo says she had 2,700 active patients, and was expected to take on even more.
But, in the direct primary care model, your monthly fee allows your doctor to limit the number of patients he or she will see.“We will close the practice when we hit a certain number of patients,” she says.
That way, you always have access to your doctor in the way that works best for you, whether it’s a same-day or next-day office visit, or a quick text, phone call or video chat.
KAP Medical Group uses an app that maintains patient privacy and connects directly with each patient’s electronic medical record.
Covid Care & Precautions
Dr. Parilo says that her direct primary care model was an advantage when the office had to shut down at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Where some practices had to close their doors altogether, KAP Medical Group had a seamless transition to virtual patient care.
While the practice has experienced a couple of positive Covid-19 tests, Dr. Parilo says everyone has recovered well, and that KAP Medical Group continues to follow strict guidelines to keep all of its patients safe.
“We have frail patients and don’t want anyone getting hurt,” she says.
Now, as the pandemic continues to play out, Dr. Parilo and Michelle are in the office three days a week, and doing telehealth the other days.
“We have a warm and fuzzy practice, with a coffee machine and a couch,” says Dr. Parilo. “We try not to have you wait, but if you have to wait, it’s a comfy place. But, no one has sat on our couch in seven months, so it’s been different.”
The Patients Love It, Too!
Connie Ceparano, who lives in New Tampa, is a long-time patient who originally began seeing Dr. Parilo when her sons, now 27 and 22, were in elementary school.
“I chose her to begin with because she saw adults and children,” Ceparano says, “so our family wouldn’t have to go to two different doctors.”
Back then, though, when Dr. Parilo was with a larger practice, Ceparano says she was often frustrated with the office staff and the way things are generally done at most other doctor’s offices. If someone in her family was sick, they would offer her an appointment several days down the road. Sometimes, she would have to sit in the waiting room an hour or more. Sometimes, there’s even more wait time to see the doctor once you actually get into a room.
“I’m not bashing the practice she was with,” says Ceparano, “because they’re all like that.”
But, the hassle was worth it, because Ceparano says Dr. Parilo is an excellent doctor who truly cares about her patients, and is extremely thorough and detailed.
She also says that when Dr. Parilo started her own practice, she would have followed the doctor anywhere, but she had no idea what to expect from the direct primary care model. As it turns out, she has been very pleased.
“I love this new way of practicing,” Ceparano says. “It really comes down to being very personal. I don’t ever have to worry about seeing a physician’s assistant instead of the doctor herself. Not only do I get in the same day, I always get to see her.”
The transition from insurance-based fees to the monthly fees has been a benefit to Ceparano’s family, too. “It’s so well worth it,” she says. “I feel like it pays for itself. If you need to, you can go in 10 times in a month and you’re not paying a $30 or $40 copay each time.”
Ceparano adds that she and her husband and her sons won’t go to any other doctor for primary care.
“My son’s job takes him out of town a lot, but he doesn’t have to worry about finding a doctor. If he’s in California, for example, he has the app on his phone and he can call, text, or video chat. It really is a great benefit.”
KAP Medical Group Direct Primary Care & Family Medicine is located at 2615 Windguard Cir., Suite 101, across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from AdventHealth Wesley Chapel. The practice is currently open by appointment only. For more information or to make an appointment, visit KAPMedicalGroup.com or call (813) 536-0050.
When you stay in business for 27 years and have had to move more than one or two times, you definitely dread having to do it again.
Well, I will be celebrating my 27th anniversary of owning and publishing the New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News in a new location (more on exactly where that is below) in February, which will be our sixth office location in all that time.
I doubt that anybody can name all five of our previous office locations, but rather than make a contest out of it, I’ll tell you all of them at the end of this editorial. (if even I can remember them).
This would definitely have been the worst and hardest move, business or residence, of my entire life, if not for the help of several of the advertisers who appear in this publication and one Rotarian I greatly admire.
I don’t consider myself to be a “hoarder,” per se, but those of us in the news business are supposed to save records for at least a certain period of time and I may have taken that to something of an extreme in my nearly three decades of serving the same distribution areas.
In addition, there was a time when we would order many hundreds (500-600 or more) of extra copies of each issue, so that we could, by leaving copies around the community, provide more people with all of the information they couldn’t get anywhere else. But, not only did that never benefit the business financially, it left us with hundreds of extra copies of hundreds of issues of the paper. Do the math. That’s literally “crap-tons” of paper!
We started ordering and saving fewer extra copies a few years ago — and we’ve always thrown out/recycled hundreds of copies each year, but all I knew was that we couldn’t (and shouldn’t) take it all with us to our slightly smaller new office, located less than a half-mile west on S.R. 54 from the office we were leaving, both of which are very close to Saddlebrook Resort.
Shred (360)Your Troubles Away!
So first, I called on Cam Caudle, a U.S. Army veteran and member of the Rotary Club of New Tampa (the club that has been meeting on Friday mornings at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club for almost as long as I’ve been in business). Cam also is a recent (2015) “Franchisee of the Year” of Shred360, an incredible mobile document destruction company.
So, whether you have years of no-longer-needed financial and other records that you want to safely dispose of, or thousands of copies of publications that you’ll never need (or both), Cam will send his mobile unit to your home or office and will shred all that paper, on-site which will then be recycled. (Note – The Neighborhood News is and always has been printed on 100% recycled paper, no matter which stock we’ve been using.)
In our case, Cam’s guy Ed (photo above) pulled the truck up to our office, and we dropped those thousands of copies into a rolling bin from our second floor stairs. The bin then got loaded into the truck (several times) and I was able to watch, on a small monitor, 27 years of my memories literally being torn to shreds…in a good way.
Got a large or small shredding job for Shred 360? Cam does some shredding events for charity throughout the year, but his prices are very fair and his people are as excellent at their jobs as Cam is funny.
Call Cam at (813) 944-2223 or visit Shred360.com and tell him I sent you (and told you to watch his stand-up comedy debut. Really funny stuff, but not suitable for kids!)
Why Is This Hauler Smiling?
Next, I definitely needed a good junk guy to get rid of…well, everything that wasn’t coming to the new office that wasn’t able to be shredded.
And believe me, that was a lot of stuff. We had several old filing cabinets filled with old advertising agreements, office furniture that wasn’t going to be needed in the new office, a safe, and a whole lot more.
And, it just so happened that our old friend Don Smith — also known as The Happy Hauler — of Smith’s Clean-Up Service (top left photo) had just started back up advertising with us again.
Don’s another hard-working man. I stuffed lots of large, contractor-sized bags of garbage and he carried those bags — and the aforementioned filing cabinets and other garbage — to his waiting trailer and loaded all of it by himself.
Don told me that when he receives items he believes will be useful to local charities — like The Children’s Home Foundation of Tampa or the Sunrise of Pasco Hospice — he’ll set those aside and drive them to the organizations. He told me our filing cabinets, the safe and some of the furniture might be useful to those charities. Best of all, he was done in less than an hour and his rates are extremely reasonable.
So, for everything from single item pick-ups to yard waste, construction debris, small building tear-downs and yes, office (or home) clean-outs, call Don at Smith’s Clean-Up Service at (813) 727-6655. Be sure to tell him that Gary from the Neighborhood News sent you!Â
Who’s Gonna Clean This Mess?
Another aspect of moving out of one office and into another is that the place you’re leaving has to be broom-clean and even though the place you’re moving to should also be broom clean, I wanted both offices to be as clean as possible.
For our “move-out” clean-up, I chose the company that’s been cleaning our office at the last three or four of our locations and the last at least 10-15 years — D Ultra Cleaning Services.
My friends Eduardo and Deborah Ferreira of D Ultra have always been reliable and although some of their cleaning folks don’t speak much English, Eduardo and Deborah are both bilingual in English and Spanish and anytime I’ve had an issue over the years, they’ve always taken care of it right away. They’re good people who also do grout/ceramic cleaning, pressure washing, carpet and window cleaning and house and light commercial cleaning.
Call D Ultra Cleaning Services at (813) 758-9710 or visit DUltraCleaningService.com.
Because both jobs were so big and I had limited time to get them both done, I decided to let my other friend Celly De Freitas of Clean-it (at right in photo above, which was not taken at our new office, by the way) take on the job of getting our new office sparkling clean before we moved into it.
Celly came with her outstanding crew and in less than two hours, made the new office ready for primetime — or at least for us moving in.
Clean-it has other excellent references, is licensed and insured and also has been cleaning homes and offices in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel for nearly 20 years. Call (813) 505-0431 for a free quote today.
What I Really Need Is A Nerd!
I don’t know about your business, but our office has to have working computers and I still don’t know the difference between a server and a network and had no idea how to make sure we were able to safely move all of our desktop computers to the new office.
I have had a service agreement with the New Tampa Nerds to Go for over a year, but I never felt as fortunate to have it as I did as we got ready to move. Mike said to me, “Gary, this is why you hired us. We’ve got you covered.” and dispatched his newest Nerd, Derik Jenkins, to our old office a few days before our move.
Derik came to see how things were connected to make sure that we could move the whole shebang safely, and when he came back, he got it disconnected, reconnected and up and running — and we literally never missed a beat.
If this kind of peace of mind is important to you, you should definitely visit Nerds To Go at 19651 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Ste C-6, or call Mike’s awesome sidekick, Maxine, at (813) 321-1700 or visit NerdsToGo.com. Also, check out the ad in our latest issue for a great Black Friday special on an Acer Aspire TC-865 Desktop PC and other deals.
So, there you have it. Our new office is in the Westbrook Professional Park at 28949 S.R. 54, Wesley Chapel 33543. As soon as we get everything put away, we’ll host an Open House/party to show off our new digs.
In the meantime, listed below are all five of our previous offices:
1. Gerry Mann Financial Building (11201 N. 56th St., Temple Terrace)
2. Palm Plaza (12108 N. 56th St., Tampa/Temple Terrace)
3. Pebble Creek Collection (19651 BBD Blvd., New Tampa)
4. Shoppes at Amberly (15345 Amberly Dr., Tampa Palms)
5. Brookside Prof. Park (29157 Chapel Park Dr., Suite B, Wesley Chapel)
Thanks again to all of our advertisers and friends who helped get us moved in quickly, cleanly and safely.
