New Fire Station Set To Open; Plus, A Smoother Ride For New Tampa Blvd.

New Tampa’s new fire station is ready to go.

According to Jason Penny, the public information officer for the Tampa Fire Rescue department, the newly constructed Fire Station No. 23 just south of County Line Rd. should be fully functional and staffed sometime in January, though no official date has been set for the new station’s ribbon cutting.

“For all intent and purposes, it is done,” Penny said. “We’re just putting the finishes touches on it and waiting for the certificate of occupancy.”

  Everything assigned to Fire Station 23 has already been hard at work since July. The truck, fire engine, rescue car and crew are currently working at stations in Ybor City (No. 4), on Hillsborough Ave. (No. 12) and off N. 30th St. near Busch Gardens (No. 13).

Station No. 23 will be New Tampa’s fourth fire station, but the first new station in our area since 2012.

It is expected to ease the pressure on Stations No. 21 and No. 22, which are both located on Cross Creek Blvd. Fire Station No. 23 is located right down County Line Rd. from Grand Hampton, which has roughly 900 homes, as well as other still developing communities in the area.

Station 23 also will be home to a new District Fire Chief responsible for coordinating efforts between all of New Tampa’s stations — Nos. 21, 22, 23 and No. 20 in Tampa Palms.

Tampa Now Repaving Parts Of New Tampa Blvd 

Work began right before Christmas on smoothing over some of the trouble spots on New Tampa Blvd.’s bike and pedestrian trail that runs through the West Meadows community.

The pathway has faced criticism from local residents for years due to its cracked, bumpy and uneven surface that makes bike riding and even walking potentially dangerous.

District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera was alerted to the poor condition of the path by a Hunter’s Green resident who often biked the path, and Viera says he was shocked when he went to take a look.

“I hadn’t been on it in a long time, to be honest, so I was a little struck by the disrepair,” Viera says. He adds that he called Jean Duncan at the City of Tampa Transportation and Stormwater Services Department to see if something could be done.

Originally scheduled for the spring, the project was moved up and began on Dec. 13, and was expected to be completed this month. While it doesn’t appear to be the complete renovation of the path that some had hoped for, the worst parts on the path have now been paved over by asphalt.

Annual Bike Ride Helps ‘Small, But Mighty’ Noon Rotary Club Raise $3,000!

“Small, but Mighty.” I’m almost positive my friend and former Rotary Club of New Tampa Noon president Valerie Casey first coined that phrase about the Rotary Club to which both Val and I belong.

Our club, which meets every Wednesday at noon for lunch at Mulligans Irish Pub at the Pebble Creek Golf Club, has never had as many as 30 members and currently has around 20, but somehow, thanks to the often-tremendous efforts by our small “family” of club members, we’re still able to accomplish a lot.
Although we also have partnered with other Rotary Clubs — including the New Tampa “Breakfast” Rotary (which meets at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club for breakfast on Fridays at 7 a.m.; see story on the facing page) — the fund raisers and projects our club is able to put on with just a little effort have been pretty incredible.

Case in Point: Our annual “Cycling for Vets” Bike Ride through Flatwoods Park, which has raised thousands for U.S. Military veterans organizations and our local first responders (police, fire and emergency folks).

This year, with a committee of three — local dentists Dr. Steven Dau and Dr. Greg Stepanski and commercial real estate agent Scott Hileman — doing most of the leg work and just a few other club volunteers, this year’s ride on April 13 (I missed it for another kind of ride; see page 3) attracted a record (for us) number of 80 registered riders (some of those definitely found out about the ride from the Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel less than a month earlier). The 2018 ride raised $3,000, with portions of that amount to benefit the Fisher House residence for families who have family members who are active duty and military veterans being treated at the Tampa Veterans Administration Hospital on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. and for Support the Troops, a Wesley Chapel-based nonprofit that mails out hundreds of “care packages” every week to active military stationed overseas.

Dr. Dau, who basically celebrated the birth of his first child with his wife Monika a couple of months before he started planning this event, was quick to share the credit on May 9, when our club donated $1,000 of those proceeds to Fisher House Tampa director Paula Welenc (above left, with Dr. Dau, right, and Noon Rotary president Belvai “Vinnie” Kudva).

Our committee did a great job,” said Dr. Dau. “As always, it was a true team effort.”

The club also thanks the event’s sponsors — Dau Orthodontics-Dr. Steven Dau; Children’s Dentistry-Dr. Greg Stepanski; Gentle Care Dentistry-Dr. Tom Frankfurth; AllState Insurance-Gary Lefebvre; State Farm Insurance-Joyce Coleman; Suncoast, Tax & Accounting-Angie Garrett; Kiran Indian Grocery, AAA-Novelette Johnson; Stifel Financial-Mike Wallace; Goal Commercial-Scott Hileman; The Bantner Firm-Adam Bantner; Minerva Indian Restaurant, Thai Lanna & Sushi, Little Greek New Tampa, Peabody’s Billiards & Games, Tabla Indian Restaurant ,The Gift Box Boutique, Oliver’s Cycle Sports, Neighborhood News & WCNT-tv.

New Tampa Brewfest?
Fresh off that outstanding bike ride, the New Tampa Noon Rotary Club will host its first-ever “New Tampa Brewfest” on Saturday, November 10, 4 p.m.-8 p.m. (the time may be subject to change) at the Venetian Events Center at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church on Cross Creek Blvd.
The Brewfest will be another great event featuring craft beers, a variety of food trucks and entertainment. Look for details in these pages and future episodes of WCNT-tv.

Have bike, will travel…across the country

DrNickRotary Club of Temple Terrace member, USF professor and Saddlebrook Resort Tampa director of wellness Dr. Nick Hall, Ph.D., M.D., recently completed a cross country trip from Oceanside,CA, to St. Augustine, FL, on his bicycle to raise funds and awareness for End Polio Now, a campaign focused on ending polio in the only two countries where it remains – Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since its first project in 1976, Rotary International has helped reduce polio cases by 99 percent around the world. Here are the 10 most interesting things you should know about Dr. Hall’s bike trek:

1— This wasn’t Hall’s first rodeo….err, bike ride across America. When Hall was a teen, he had a summer job in Black Hills, SD, and would take a bus home to Chicopee, MA. One summer, however, he decided to bike the 2,000+ miles home. This year, Hall decided to combine the 50th anniversary of that ride with Rotary’s fight against polio.

2 — Traveling roughly 100 miles a day, it took Hall a little over a month to complete the trip, starting July 14 and ending Aug. 15. He says he could have made it home even quicker, but he had one serious accident and a number of visits to friends along the way, including a day in Gainesville for a Rotary Club lunch.

3 — About that accident: it happened in west Texas when he ran over a 6-inch bolt that was laying in the road, jamming the front wheel of his bike. “The bike came to an abrupt stop, and I kept going,’’ Hall said. Bloodied but unbowed, he caught a ride with a truck driver — who ironically lives in Tampa — to San Antonio. Hall found the part he needed to fix his bike on eBay, and two days later was back on his way.

“My back-up plan was to leave the bike there with a Rotarian and resume the trip around Thanksgiving,’’ said Hall, who was racing to get back to USF for the start of fall classes, where he teaches anatomy & physiology and human nutrition.

DrNickBike14 — The bike, by the way, was a late 1960s vintage British-made copper-colored Raleigh Carlton. He says it was very similar to the bike he rode 50 years ago.

5 — On his original ride, Hall said he occasionally slept in jail cells and rescue missions along the route.

“I was sleeping in a park in Mobile, NE, and was roused in the middle of the night by a police office who told me it was against the law to sleep in the public park,‘’ Hall said. “He gave me a choice: get booked for vagrancy or he would book me in jail as a lodger.” So Hall spent a few nights 50 years ago on a steel cot.


6 — Hall didn’t get to spend a night in the slammer this time, instead pitching a tent wherever he could. The best places to sleep, he said, were behind churches, especially those in the bible belt. “Massive churches, unlike anything you have seen, nicely manicured lawns, secluded areas.” Hall said he also spent at least one night a week in a motel room, to re-energize.

7 — The worst place to sleep? Anywhere too dark to notice his surroundings, especially, well, railroad tracks. “One night, I slept in this beautiful green meadow, and it turns out the train track was right on the other side of the bushes,” Hall said.

8 — As for food, Hall, an expert on nutrition, says he would try to eat a good high-protein breakfast, preferably eggs and, once back on the road, he would munch on Fig Newtons and Hostess Apple Pies, the same ones he ate 50 years ago.

“I won’t normally even look at them, but they were a treat to look forward to on the ride.” Ice cream would keep him cool, and he would munch on potato chips to replace the sodium he was sweating out. Salads and fruits were regular treats.

9 — Did we mention that Hall was lugging along a 66-pound duffle bag (he weighed it at the airport when he flew to California before the trip) and two 10-liter water bladders, each weighing 15 pounds? So those artificial fruit pies were burned right off, and Hall said he weighed exactly the same – 150 pounds – at the end of the trip as he did at the beginning.

10 — Hall says the scariest things about the trip were the heat in the southwest, drivers distracted by their cell phones and, especially, roads with little or no shoulder room for bikes. Louisiana had many of these roads, including enough long bridges with no shoulders to Hall nervous. “There were lots of logging trucks, and there was nowhere for them to go, and nowhere for me to go,’’ he said. “I would just get as far over to my right as I could and hold my breath.”

Is Hall done riding bikes across America? Nope. “It was sad being over in many respects,’’ he said. “I got to where I was looking forward to meeting people.” Hall is back in the classroom and sharing his story at Rotary Club meetings, including a recent visit to Wesley Chapel Rotary Club, and still spreading the word about the fight against polio.