New Tampa’s Samantha Lebron Is Now Ms. Wheelchair Florida

Ms. Wheelchair Florida Samantha Lebron is a New Tampa resident who now has a unique title that can help her advocate for others with disabilities, something she has been doing since 2018

Samantha Lebron knows it’s going to be a conversation starter.

The 33-year-old, wheelchair-bound New Tampa resident is, after all, wearing a crown and sash in public. It all comes with the territory when you are the reigning Ms. Wheelchair Florida.

“A couple days after I got crowned,” Samantha says, “I was actually asked about it and they asked me to sit with them at their table in a restaurant and tell them every detail. I thought, ‘That’s what I went into this for.’”

Ms. Wheelchair Florida, Inc., hosted the 47th annual “Be the Change
Be Empowered” Conference & Gala at the Rosen Centre in Orlando from Feb 27-March 1, and Lebron, who was born with cerebral palsy but has only  been wheelchair-bound since 2018, was crowned this year’s recipient.

And, while many think Lebron’s title is more for the pageantry or because the winner scored the best with “talent” judges, nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the mission of Ms. Wheelchair Florida, Inc., is to provide an opportunity for wheelchair-bound women to educate and advocate for all individuals with disabilities. In essence, it now gives Lebron a platform to advocate for causes near to her heart.

Lebron entered the contest with just that goal in mind. She says that when she was on stage, the words flowed out perfectly, leading to her being crowned the winner and setting off a flurry of photos and interviews.

“And, it wasn’t about the glitz and glam for me,” she says. “It’s about my message and my platform being heard. I wanted to do this year right with my crown, and have the right ears listening to me, to really hit home what my platform will be.”

Lebron’s platform is to make transportation safer and more reliable for disabled individuals across the state since it is not a standardized practice throughout Florida. Each area, city or county has different methods, some better than others.

“And I was living it,” Lebron says. “Like a lot of other people in this county or many other places. I wanted to be a spokesperson to make this better, sure, not only for myself, but for others, as well.”

Overcoming Obstacles

Lebron says she faced many difficulties while trying to find transportation to work. 

HARTPlus Paratransit has a service that offers van transportation that will pick up and drop off people at their destinations, or takes them to an accessible bus stop. But, Samantha wasn’t within Ÿ of a mile of the closest bus stop, and wasn’t eligible for the service. With the closest bus stop an 8-min car drive from her New Tampa apartment, she had to utilize Uber rides to the HART bus station on E. Fletcher Ave.

That led sometimes to waits of an hour for HARTPlus, which was then another hour-long ride to her previous job on E. Hillsborough Ave.

Those Uber rides were costing her $500-600 a month alone.

“There are so many opportunities out there for jobs for people in my position,” Lebron says, “but there are not enough options for transportation to those opportunities. This was something I felt very strongly about because…well, I was living it.”

As noted earlier, Lebron hasn’t always been wheelchair bound. Up until 2018, she relied on using a walker to move around, until she sustained a neck injury that was causing nerve issues. Her doctors recommended she start using a wheelchair part time, but the pain became too great. She was told one fall could render her a paraplegic, so she is now 100-percent chair-bound.

She does still attend physical therapy and has a healthcare provider with her most of the time. In fact, she also plans to add the importance of physical therapy to her advocacy campaign.

“People just don’t get enough of it (physical therapy),” she says.

Lebron has never let the wheelchair slow her down.

She was recently certified to be a Work Incentives Practitioner, which is a position that works with other disabled individuals, helping them get their benefits and compensation in the workforce.

She also in an ambassador and spokesperson for ABLE United, a volunteer with Best Buddies, just accepted an offer to be on the Board of Directors for Self Reliance, Inc. She also participates in wheelchair-adaptable sports like golf, tennis and kayaking.

She says that one of her goals is to be selected to the National Paralympic Table Tennis team.

Lebron also is ready to take on the duties that come with her title as Ms. Wheelchair Florida. 

She has several events and speaking engagements already planned, and even if those are postponed by the coronavirus, she says she will make sure her message is heard, either by video conference, or other telecommunications or social media.

“(I will use) this position, which is an honor I am humbled to have, to talk to businesses and policymakers to break the barriers that exist in the disability community,” Lebron says. “There were and still are a lot of barriers. Yes, (the last two years) have been great for inclusion and awareness, but we still have a long way to go.”

For more info, visit www.mswheelchairfl.org.

Wesley Chapel’s Todd Yonteck Is Hoping To Bring Filmmaking Back To Florida

Wesley Chapel’s Todd Yonteck

The motion picture industry in Florida has had its ups and downs.

For example, Florida was a boomtown in 2011 when “Dolphin Tale” was being filmed in Clearwater. 

But, more recently? Consider Ben Affleck’s 1920s gangster-era film entitled “Live By Night,” which premieres worldwide on January 13. The movie is set in Ybor City.

There’s only one problem, however — it was shot entirely in Brunswick, GA, which was able to offer the film’s producers as much as 30 percent in tax credits on expenditures. 

Cities in Florida couldn’t match that, and therefore lost a golden opportunity to bring revenue to the area and build the filmmaking industry in the region and state.

When state funds for film incentives dried up in 2012, the onus fell to local production companies to pick up the mantle. 

Guys like Wesley Chapel’s Todd Yonteck, the CEO of his production company called Digital Caviar.

The Red Carpet 

If you happened to have been promenading downtown St. Petersburg on December 7, you might have seen a red carpet rollout at the AMC Theatres Sundial on 2nd Ave. 

(l.-r.) Catrina Patti & Todd Yonteck, “Bernie the Dolphin” co-writer Marty Poole, Kristen Yonteck, and St Petersburg Film Commissioner Tony Armer.

Decked out on the carpet were acclaimed actors Dahlia Lagault (“The Walking Dead” Seasons 5 and 6) and Patrick Muldoon (“Starship Troopers”) for the premier of their new film, “Bernie the Dolphin.”

Actors, producers and writers huddled together for photos, took interviews and later filed into Theatre 1 for the film’s first theatrical screening, its world premiere. 

“Bernie the Dolphin,” which Yonteck helped produce, was shot entirely in Pinellas County and at Marineland Dolphin Adventure in St. Augustine. 

Yonteck is a Seven Oaks resident and an emergency room physician at AdventHealth Wesley Chapel. You could call film production his side hustle, although considering the amount of work involved, it’s much more than that.

“I have two jobs that are full time,” Yonteck said, after the premiere of “Bernie the Dolphin.” 

In 2010, Yonteck and a friend, Paul Prator, began dabbling in film production. Initially, they took on a lot of commercial work. In 2013, they opened a storefront in Ybor City. 

By 2015, a second office had opened and Prator stepped away from the company. 

The commercial work was steady, Yonteck says. He booked and produced commercials for Verizon and USF. 

But, something was missing. 

“You don’t get to have as much creative fun with commercials,” Yonteck says. 

His transition to more creative projects began slowly in 2013, when Digital Caviar had begun to produce some short films. 

Todd Yonteck at his Wesley Chapel studio.

Staffers like partners Michael Brown, Victor Young and Conrad De La Torres came on board. Staffers Josh Long, Brandon Hyde and Brittany Hoppe also joined the company. 

Digital Caviar’s first feature film came out in April of 2015, when “Crazy Lake,” a slasher film shot almost entirely in Brooksville, was released.

In December of 2015, the company embarked on a comedy, “Tropical Paradise 2.”

In 2017, Yonteck and Digital Caviar were hired to help on a joint production between Sarasota’s Ringling College of Art & Design and director Kevin Smith — famous for the cult film “Clerks” — called “Killroy Was Here.” 

“The project started as a short in order to help the students get hands-on experience, doing the actual jobs in a production and also deliver the film,” Yonteck said. “It went so well and Kevin (Smith) was so excited after the shooting experience that he wanted to turn it into a feature.”

Smith came back in January of 2018, and then again over the summer, to finish principal shooting. The film is currently in post-production under Smith. 

Before the chance to work on “Bernie the Dolphin” came along, Yonteck had seven producer credits — six for short films — to his name, as well as others for camera and electrical equipment, editorial, sound and production manager. 

The concept for “Bernie the Dolphin” began circulating in 2017 when Yonteck, a longtime attendee of the Cannes Film Festival in France, could not attend. 

“We either go or we send someone (to Cannes) every year,” Yonteck says. “It’s a great place to search for source material and to network. People see you, hear your name a few times and they’re more comfortable working with you.”

Yonteck wasn’t in attendance at the 2017 festival, but St. Petersburg Film Commissioner Tony Armer was. 

Yonteck says that Armer got into conversation with reps from Grindstone, a branch of Lionsgate. The Lionsgate reps were talking up a concept that involved dolphins and oceanside locations. 

Armer worked to convince them that Florida, Pinellas County in particular, had the locations they needed and the production companies to interview to make it happen. 

By May of 2017, Grindstone and Digital Caviar were in contact and a local Clearwater-based writer, Teri Emerson, was tapped to write the script.

“The project was pretty much green lit by August of 2017,” Yonteck said. “We started finding the people to put it together and we had most of it solidified by the end of the year.”

Principal shooting began in January of 2018.

Keeping It Local

Yonteck was happy to work on a project filmed in Florida. Many film projects have left the state for better incentives elsewhere, reducing the number of opportunities for local producers.

The 2012 film “Magic Mike” was made in Florida, but the 2015 sequel, which is partially set in Tampa, was shot entirely in South Carolina. And, the 2017 drama “Gifted,” which is set in St. Petersburg, was actually filmed in Savannah, GA. 

Georgia, thanks to its 30-percent tax incentive, now ranks third in the nation for film and television production and, according to an April 2017 story in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, had an economic impact of $7 billion in 2016. 

“People talk about the Ben Affleck movie a lot, how it was written for Tampa, it was a story about Tampa and Ybor City, but they ended up building Ybor City in Georgia,” Yonteck says. “They just got so much value in incentives.”

The effect a movie can have on local business and a local economy often cannot be understated.

When the first “Dolphin Tale” movie was released in 2011, after having used the Clearwater Marine Aquarium for a major location, it bolstered tourism in Florida by more than $2 billion, according to a March 2015 article in The Hollywood Reporter. 

Attendance at the aquarium spiked from 76,000 to 750,000 annually the year after the film’s release. Unfortunately for industry workers in the area, the film’s production company, Warner Brothers, isn’t based in Florida. 

“A lot of the money in incentives that we did have went to big projects like ‘Dolphin Tale,’” Yonteck said. “I think it’s better to give the incentives to companies that stay and don’t pack up and leave when they finish shooting.”

The cast and crew for “Bernie the Dolphin” was almost entirely Floridian. The same holds true for the cast and crew of “Bernie the Dolphin 2,” which will be released in 2019.

“A lot of the actors were locally cast and the entire crew was Florida-based,” Yonteck says. “People are going to where the work is. We’ve been able to keep some people here in town but it’s hard to find good talent and when you train people up, they often go elsewhere but we’re going to keep trying to shoot here.”

The production shifted back and forth between St. Petersburg, Clearwater and St. Augustine. What worked for “Bernie the Dolphin” was the production value of the ocean access in Pinellas County, as well as at the ocean park in St. Augustine. The film was shot in January, taking advantage of the mild winter in Florida. However, Yonteck says a couple of cold blasts made for some funny moments in production.

“One day of shooting it was super windy and cold on the beach,” he says. “It was kind of funny because the actors were freezing and we had to make it look like it was warm.”

With “Bernie the Dolphin 2” already in post-production, Yonteck and Digital Caviar continue to support the film industry in the region and state in their efforts to make Florida competitive and more attractive for filmmakers. 

Oh, and by the way— Yonteck provides a tip of the cap to his current hometown in “Bernie The Dolphin” as well.

An Easter egg — generally an inside joke hidden in a film or video game — in the film comes in the form of Yonteck’s boat, “Impulse Buy,” which acted as a platform and support boat, and it also was featured as the boat belonging to Kevin Sorbo’s character, Winston Mills. 

Only a local might catch “Wesley Chapel, Florida” emblazoned on the boat’s stern, during an aerial drone shot, but we sure did. 

Want To See It?

Bernie the Dolphin is currently available in On Demand options for cable/satellite  customers that include Frontier and Spectrum. It also is available through iTunes. Yonteck expects an electronic copy or Blu-Ray option to be available for purchase by February.

Primary Elections Drove Record Number Of Local Voters To The Polls

 A substantial increase in primary voting in Pasco County is expected to be a bellwether for what could be one of the most anticipated general elections in recent memory on Tuesday, November 6.

Turnout for early voting, vote by mail and on primary election day on Aug. 28 were all higher than they were in 2016 in Pasco County and overall, 24.85 percent of registered voters cast ballots, compared to 18.64 percent in 2016 and 14.93 percent in 2014.

Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley says overall numbers on Aug. 28 were up, due to the ease of voting, as well as the fact that voters seem to be more engaged this year than they have been in the past.

“There is a caveat,” he says. “While the needle is moving in the right direction and it’s a fantastic increase, that’s still only one in four people voting (in the primary election). It’s not time for confetti, but it is a step in the right direction.”

In Wesley Chapel, more than 10,000 votes were cast, or only 21.9 percent of registered voters. However, take away those not registered with either major party, of which only seven percent voted, and that number is better – 28.6 percent of registered Democrats and Republicans in Wesley Chapel’s voting precincts cast ballots in the primary.

Other than the primaries to choose gubernatorial candidates for each party, there were no hot intra-party races driving people to the polls, and Corley says that could mean a massive turnout for the general election, when the ballot will offer more choices and pit those political parties against each other.

Andrew Gillum

Those additional choices include two Pasco County Commission races that weren’t contested in the primaries, and what will be a heated U.S. Senate race between current Republican Governor Rick Scott and Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson, who has held his position since 2001.

The one race drawing national attention that is expected to drive people to the polls more than any other, however, will be the one to replace Gov. Scott as Florida Governor, between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum.

Gillum shocked almost everyone with a win in the primary to set up a showdown with the Donald Trump-endorsed DeSantis. Both candidates defeated establishment-backed candidates, setting the stage for an interesting battle that will match contenders from what many believe to be the party’s bases.

Gillum became Florida’s first-ever black gubernatorial candidate after he defeated favored Gwen Graham, the daughter of popular former Florida Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham.

Although he was fourth in many polls leading up to the primary vote and was outspent by Graham 6-to-1, there was talk of a Gillum surge in the final days, which turned out to be prescient.

Gillum captured 34.3 percent of the state-wide Democratic vote (or 517,834 votes of the 1,509,794 ballots cast). Graham finished second with 31.3 percent, while Phillip Levine (20.3 percent) and Jeff Greene (10 percent) rounded out the top candidates in the Democratic field.

Ron DeSantis

“People didn’t think we had a chance, but we did,” Gillum told CNN shortly after being declared the winner. “I think voters have had enough with the status quo.”

DeSantis, who was first elected to Congress in 2012, represents the Daytona Beach area and originally ran for the U.S. Senate in 2016, when it appeared that Marco Rubio, coming off an unsuccessful presidential campaign, was not going to run. Once Rubio re-entered the race, DeSantis exited it.

Running behind former Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam at the time, DeSantis fully embraced an endorsement from President Trump in the spring and it shot him into a lead he never relinquished.

DeSantis was the choice of 913,955 of Florida’s Republican voters out of 1,618,372 who cast ballots in the primary, or 56.4 percent. The previously favored Putnam was a distant second with 36.5 percent.

Pres. Trump congratulated DeSantis on the win the night of the primaries, and the next morning, the president attacked Gillum, calling him DeSantis’, “biggest dream
a failed Socialist Mayor who has allowed crime and & other problems to flourish in his city.”

Local Results

In Pasco County, however, Graham was the decisive winner over Gillum, garnering almost twice as many votes, beating the eventual nominee 42.7 percent to 25.1 percent.

In Wesley Chapel, though, Gillum was as clear a choice for Democrats as DeSantis was for Republicans. Both candidates were the top vote-getters in nine of Wesley Chapel’s 13 voting precincts, and both received 54 percent of the votes cast for the top two finishers.

In other races, Allen Altman won a fourth term on the Pasco County School Board with 57 percent of the vote, beating challengers Ken Mathis (23 percent) and Brian Staver (20 percent) for the District 1 seat, joining fellow incumbent Cynthia Armstrong, who retained her District 3 seat. 

Tara O’Connor and Megan Harding, who both received 37 percent of the vote for the District 5 seat, will run-off against each other on Nov. 6 because neither passed the 50-percent threshold in the primary.

A pair of Republican county commissioners did not have primary challenges and will be defending their seats on Nov. 6 – Mike Moore, who represents most of Wesley Chapel in District 2, and District 4’s Mike Wells. They will be running against Democrats Kelly Smith and Brandi Geoit, respectively.

New Tampa Spared Most Of Severe Flooding

New Tampa saw some flooding during the beginning of August, especially in Pebble Creek (above, photo courtesy of Joe Bina)
New Tampa saw some flooding during the beginning of August, especially in Pebble Creek (above, photo courtesy of Joe Bina)

By Matt Wiley

It’s no secret that it’s been a little wet out there in recent weeks. In fact, if our recent weather pattern was just a little more windy, it would have seemed like a three-week tropical storm. However, despite days of torrential downpours, the New Tampa area was spared the truly massive flooding that plagued other areas of the city and much of western Pasco County.Continue reading