Two Wesley Chapel residents were killed Wednesday afternoon in a two-car accident on S.R. 56, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
According the the FHP report, the driver of a 2017 Nissan Rogue was traveling eastbound on S.R. 56 when it turned left at the intersection of Lajuana Blvd. It was struck by a 2017 Honda Accord driven by a 17-year-old from Wesley Chapel driving westbound.
Upon impact, the Nissan Rogue overturned. A 52-year-old man — who was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the vehicle — and a 56-year-old woman (who was wearing a seatbelt and removed from the vehicle by a passersby) suffered fatal injuries and were pronounced dead at the scene.
The 17-year-old was wearing a seatbelt and is seriously injured.
According to a GoFundMe page set up by Mindy Gammage, those killed in the accident were Jody and Johnna Seifert, and they were the victims of “reckless street racing.” The GoFundMe page urges people to “please take two minutes to discuss with your children the dire importance of safe driving.”
The initial FHP report makes no mention of any speeding. The report does ask that any witnesses to this crash contact the FHP by calling 813-558-1800.
The GoFundMe page says the Seiferts are the parents of three children: a son, and two daughters that graduated from Wiregrass Ranch High. Johnna Seifert was the social media marketing manager at Fox Hollow Golf Club in Trinity and owned Johnna Seifert Photography, which specialized in golf events. Jody Seifert was the executive director of XUDE Hospitality, a property management company.
Tampa Fire Rescue Station No. 21 on Cross Creek Blvd. is one of four TFR stations in New Tampa that should have updated technology in their trucks by the end of the year to help shorten response times in our area. (Photo: Charmaine George)
The days of outdated equipment and using an iPad or cell phone to locate a fire or other emergency are coming to an end, interim Tampa Fire Chief Barbara Tripp told the Tampa City Council at its Jan. 14 meeting.
Tripp outlined a plan to address many of the concerns raised by the Council members in November about fire fighters at many stations, especially Station 13 in North Tampa, being overwhelmed by the combination of calls and lack of proper technology and personnel to deal with them. The plan also includes more fire stations, including one in New Tampa’s K-Bar Ranch area, which will have nearly 2,000 homes when it is built out.
That is more long range, however, as Tripp focused on easing the pressure at Station 13. Located at 2713 E. Annie St. near Busch Gardens, Station 13 handled more than 11,000 calls last year, which accounted for 1/7th of all calls made to Tampa’s 23 fire rescue stations.
Council member Luis Viera, who represents New Tampa as part of his District 7 duties, called the situation “an abomination.”
Viera said he was glad to see Tripp tackling the problems as part one of a two-part solution to help make Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) more efficient. He said part two will come in March, when the issue of slow response times and how to shorten them will be addressed at a workshop.
A report by the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) caused a number of red flags to be raised, and one of the ones that caught Viera’s attention was how fire service in New Tampa was faring.
According to the report, four of the six TFR stations with the slowest response times are located in the 33647 zip code, despite having four stations located within a few miles of each other — Station No. 20 (located on Bruce D. Downs Blvd. in Tampa Palms); Nos. 21 and 22 located off Cross Creek Blvd.; and No. 23, which opened in 2019 on Trout Creek Ln. south of County Line Rd.
“In March, we have to start looking at long-term solutions,” Viera says. “You talk to stations 20, 21, 22 and 23, and they tell me sometimes you have wait times of 15 minutes out there.”
Much of the problem seems to center around outdated technology, according to Joe Greco, Tampa Firefighters Local 754 president. In fact, Greco says, the response times are probably not as bad as the IAFF report stated, “but there’s no way to be accurate, to give you that information, because our system is antiquated and inaccurate.”
Tripp said TFR has been using the same Computer Aided Dispatch system since 1998, and its Automated Vehicle Locator (AVL) has been out of service the past five years. Old GPS equipment was being used that depended upon antennas going back 5-10 years ago.
New systems, at a cost of $1.2 million over five years, have been purchased and should be implemented by October, provided there are no setbacks due to Covid-19. The new equipment definitely should help shorten response times in New Tampa.
“Although we all regret that the equipment funding didn’t come when we wanted it to, it is in process,” said Russell Haupert, the city’s director and chief information officer for technology and innovation. “It is on the way and we are doing everything we can to accelerate that process so we don’t have any problems out in the field from this point forward.”
While Orlando Gudes, the City Council member for District 5 and a police officer for 36 years, favors a fire rescue overhaul, he was aghast, as were other Council members, that the situation had reached this point.
“How has TFR not had computers (in its trucks)?,” Gudes asked. “That makes no sense to me.”
Making less sense, though, was the fact that all 23 stations currently still have to compete for radio time with dispatch on just one channel, Gudes added. But, the hope is that the new AVL will help rectify that.
“Five years of not having any computer-aided dispatch other than your initial tear off from the station is absolutely ridiculous in a city the size of Tampa,” Greco said.
Viera hopes TFR can be improved as part of a larger plan to tackle public safety in Tampa. The issue is where the money needs to come from to pay for the improvements. “This requires our attention,” Viera said. “We’ll need to look at the budget. Are we going to have the political leadership in the city to pay for it? I say hell yes we are. I know we are.”
Joe Greco of the Tampa Firefighters Local 754 said that improving TFR Station No. 13 near Busch Gardens should take precedence over improving poor emergency response times in New Tampa.
Everyone seems to agree that the City of Tampa doesn’t have enough fire rescue stations, and it is now time for city officials to figure out a solution for the entire city, but especially in New Tampa.
That was the message at the Tampa City Council meeting last month, from council member Luis Viera — who represents New Tampa in District 7, a district which may be the area most at need — proposing that the city come up with a citywide master plan for all public safety needs, including police, fire rescue and EMS.
“We have a master plan for Parks & Recreation, which I’m in favor of, but we should also do it for public safety, given the many deficits we face,” Viera said at the Council meeting.
Much of the debate centered around a report by the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) that showed a number of weaknesses in Tampa’s fire rescue network.
Although it was only touched on briefly, Viera expressed concern about one troubling statistic revealed in the report — four of the six City of Tampa Fire Rescue (TFR) stations with the slowest response times are located in New Tampa.
New Tampa is home to four of TFR’s 23 stations: TFR Station No. 20 (located on Bruce D. Downs Blvd. in Tampa Palms), Nos. 21 and 22 (located off Cross Creek Blvd.), and No. 23, which opened in 2019 on Trout Creek Ln., just south of County Line Rd.
Another TFR station is planned for the K-Bar Ranch area, which will have nearly 2,000 homes when it is built out.
According to the IAFF report, the first arriving fire rescue apparatus should be on the scene within four minutes of travel for 90% of incidents that require an emergency response.
From June 1, 2017, to May 31, 2019, New Tampa’s TFR stations 20 and 21 were the two slowest, at 10 minutes of response time each, and Nos. 22 and 23 tied for the third slowest response times at 8 minutes each.
The New Tampa response times may have more to do with physical distance from the stations and our area’s congested roads, however, as all four stations rank near the bottom of all TFR stations when it comes to the number of emergencies responded to by each of their rescue, engine units and truck companies.
Viera visited all four stations on Thanksgiving Day to discuss possible solutions. “The New Tampa fire rescue people told me that K-Bar Ranch is the biggest challenge,” he says.
Even so, Fire Station 13, which also is in Viera’s district and is located at 2713 E. Annie St. near Busch Gardens, was a far greater concern at the Nov. 18 City Council meeting. It is the busiest station in Tampa by far, according to Firehouse Magazine, and the 20th busiest in the country.
Viera called it a “very very challenging station” and called for immediate relief for the station in the form of a new engine or a new facility.
Joe Greco, Tampa Firefighters Local 754 president, said that the money that was included in the latest budget to build another station in New Tampa should instead be directed to address Station 13’s needs.
“Twenty five percent of all calls for service in the city of Tampa are in Station 13’s first alarm territory,” Greco said. Greco added that nearby TFR Station Nos. 7, 11 and 18 answer as many calls in Station 13’s area as Station 13 does, due to the high volume.
The City Council will come back in January with a plan of action to bring Station No. 13 immediate relief, and passed Viera’s motion for a workshop to tackle the city’s public safety master plan in March.
The City of Tampa and Hillsborough County have resolved its dispute over usage of Tampa Fire Rescue Station No. 21 on Cross Creek Blvd. (Photo: John C. Cotey)
When roughly 5,000 residents in Pebble Creek, Live Oake, Cross Creek and other communities located in unincorporated Hillsborough County lost their City of Tampa fire rescue service in 2018, Hillsborough County turned to nearby Pasco County for service.
With a new mayor in office, they have now turned back to Tampa.
On September 18, the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) agreed by a 7-0 vote to finalize an agreement with the City of Tampa to restore its fire service to the area, which former Mayor Bob Buckhorn ended in 2017 after demanding the county pay roughly five times what it was already paying.
Under the new proposed agreement, the county will pay the city $600,000 a year for service from the four stations located in New Tampa. It also gave a 90-day notice to Pasco County which, in lieu of the City of Tampa, has been providing service for the unincorporated area since 2018.
Hillsborough County commissioner Ken Hagan
“This is great news for New Tampa,” said Hillsborough County commissioner Ken Hagan, who represents the New Tampa area in District 2. “Restoring Tampa’s fire rescue service to unincorporated New Tampa was my No. 1 priority. It was the first thing I met with (newly elected) Mayor Jane Castor about when she got elected. I’m absolutely thrilled that we’ve reached an agreement in principle.”
District 6 Commissioner Pat Kemp agreed, and offered thanks to Mayor Castor for being open to renegotiating.
“This is the most sensible and safe solution to serve the residents there,” Kemp said.
The nearest Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Station is the University Area Station No.5 on E. 139th Ave., which is more than 10 miles from most of Pebble Creek.
So while the $600,000 is nearly three times what the county was paying in its previous agreement with the City of Tampa, “it is $900,000 less than what the City previously wanted, and it is far less than what it would cost to construct and operate a fire station in the area,” Hagan said.
Hagan said he recently spoke at a Homeowners Association meeting in Cross Creek, and fire rescue service was one of the first concerns raised. He says he came to the BOCC with nine letters of support from HOAs in the unincorporated areas of New Tampa.
“The best-case scenario was to ultimately restore service, and unfortunately, that required a new Mayor,” Hagan said.
In 2017, Buckhorn said the City of Tampa would no longer provide fire rescue service to the unincorporated portion of New Tampa, which it had done since 1998 with some combination of Fire Stations No. 20 in Tampa Palms and Nos. 21(located across Cross Creek Blvd. from the Cross Creek community) and 22 on Cross Creek Blvd., In February, another station, No. 23, opened just off of County Line Rd. on Trout Creek Dr., essentially surrounding unincorporated New Tampa with fire rescue stations.
Without coverage from the city, Hillsborough turned to Pasco County for help. For $275,000 a year, Pasco — primarily Pasco County Fire Rescue Station No. 26, located in the nearby Meadow Pointe I community of Wesley Chapel — provided emergency services to unincorporated New Tampa.
“Pasco has done a good job, but the reality is the response times are longer,” Hagan said. “A few calls have taken over 20 minutes to respond. I’ve also heard horror stories from residents who have had to call 911 a second time or have taken matters into their own hands and driven loved ones to the ER themselves. As a result, New Tampa has been begging the county to contract with Tampa.”
Pebble Creek residents created a Facebook page and online petition asking the County to build a fire station closer to them.
While Tampa’s closer fire rescue stations could still respond to emergencies if the Pasco Fire Rescue Trucks were occupied — due to a mutual aid agreement between the counties — all local calls in the unincoporated areas were diverted first to Pasco Fire Rescue.
A return to the old agreement, Hagan says, is simply more convenient, and safer, for area residents.
“I can tell you, the community is absolutely delighted that Tampa Fire Rescue is once again going to be providing service to unincorporated New Tampa,” Hagan said.
The City of Tampa and Hillsborough County are in a dispute over usage of Tampa Fire Rescue Station No. 21 on Cross Creek Blvd. (Photo: John C. Cotey)
Since it opened in 2002, Tampa Fire Rescue Station No. 21 on Cross Creek Blvd. has not only serviced City of Tampa residents in New Tampa, but has also been contracted to respond to the homes in the New Tampa communities located in unincorporated Hillsborough County. That city-county agreement, however, is in peril.
While it may not be time to call 9-1-1 on the negotiations just yet, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn says that unless the county bridges the gap between what it has been paying and what the city thinks the county should be paying, Fire Station 21 — located on Cross Creek Blvd. just west of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. — will no longer respond to calls from residents in Pebble Creek, Live Oak, Cross Creek and the other communities located in unincorporated Hillsborough County.
“Effective Dec. 31, if some accomodation is not reached, the city is not going to be providing service to Pebble Creek anymore,’’ Buckhorn told the Neighborhood News on Sept. 29.
The county is paying the city $218,000 a year, plus any adjustments related to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), to service unincorporated New Tampa,
Buckhorn says that total should be closer to $1.46 million.
“We have told the county, ‘Look, we are not doing this anymore’,” Buckhorn says. “You can pay us what we think we are owed and deserve, or you can go provide the service yourself or contract with Pasco County. We don’t care (which one). We’re happy to be here for you, but we’re going to do it at a rate that compensates us appropriately.”
Without a contract with the city, Hillsborough has limited options. One, according to Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Chief Dennis Jones, would be to stand up some kind of a response unit in the area. Another would be to contract with Pasco County, whose nearest fire rescue station is No. 26 in front of the Meadow Pointe I community in Wesley Chapel, about six miles away from the easternmost part unicorporated New Tampa.
The nearest Hillsborough County fire rescue station is No. 5 on E. 139th Ave. in the University area.
The best option, according to Chief Jones, is reaching some agreement with the city. However, it is requesting that the county to pay 40 percent of the annual costs to operate Station 21, City of Tampa chief financial officer Sonya Little wrote in a letter to Hillsborough County chief financial administrator Bonnie Wise.
According to the letter, Tampa has calculated the annual operating costs of Fire Station 21 at $3,652,432, and 40 percent of that number is $1,406,973.
“In these tight budget times, we’re looking at every agreement we have and making sure we are being fairly and adequately compensated,” Buckhorn says, “and this is one that is so glaring and so out of line, we just said enough.”
Jones said the county found the $1.4 million figure “shocking.” According to numbers he says are from the city, less than two calls a day to unincorporated New Tampa are handled by Fire Station 21, or approximately 40 minutes a day (or 2.78 percent) of service.
“We thought that was a little bit of a jump without some rationale behind it,’’ Jones said. “We measured calls and amount of time, and it’s a very small number for us to pay that amount of money.”
Buckhorn doesn’t agree, however.
“The frequency of the runs have increased significantly,” Buckhorn said. “We calculated down to the man hour, down to the cost of the vehicle, to be 40 percent of our time up there out of Station 21.”
Jones says the City of Tampa is seeking money for everything from the cost of the building to vehicle depreciation to uniforms.
“Basically all the costs to run the fire station,’’ he said.
The county, however, is arguing that many of the costs the city wants to reimbursed for have nothing to do with the contracted services provided. Jones said the county is more than willing to make up for any CPIs that may have been missed in the past, and to pay its share of the operating costs of the fire vehicles used, as well as the materials and supplies associated with the calls to unincorporated New Tampa.
But the city, Jones says, built the fire station for the residents of New Tampa, not to accommodate any contract with the county. It owns the station, and the land it’s on, and Jones doesn’t think costs associated with that should be passed on to the county.
Buckhorn said the agreement between the city and county (which dates back to 1998) has long been an issue downtown, when some of the county’s players involved in negotiations worked for the city. Wise was former mayor Pam Iorio’s chief financial officer for eight years before joining the county in 2011, and Jones was the Tampa Fire Chief before retiring in 2010. He was lured out of retirement in 2015 by the county.
“The two of them well aware of the longstanding inadeuqacies of it,” Buckhorn said.
Buckhorn said Jones complained about the agreement before retiring. Jones says he doesn’t recall ever having that conversation with Buckhorn when he was mayor, or before that when Buckhorn served as a city council member.
Both sides will continue to negotiate. The interlocal agreement they renewed in 2013 states that either party can terminate the agreement upon 90 days notice, which would mean Buckhorn would have had to exercise the option on Oct. 1 to meet his Dec. 31 cutoff date.
According to Buckhorn, the county has offered to pay an additional $40,000, which he said was “pretty much insulting.”
Jones said the county has offered to pay $56,000 more, as well as an additional $32,500 yearly for expendables. Even using Jones’ numbers, the difference between the city and county is still roughly $1.3 million.
“It’s a huge gap,” Jones said. “Is there a meeting place? I would hope there is. I’m confident we’ll come up with a resolution.”
