Tennis For Fun Comes To Tampa Palms!

Tennis For Fun
Tennis For Fun

On a slightly warm but otherwise perfect Thursday evening, a dozen or so special needs adults gathered at Tampa Palms Golf & County Club to learn how to play tennis, like they do every week.

They squealed with joy when hitting a ball back over the net, and laughed when they failed. A handful of volunteers gently tossed tennis balls their way, and would swat them back with hands, or catch them and throw them back, to help teach coordination. Some were determined to complete their tasks, while others were there primarily for the fun of it all.

“It’s so great,’’ Judy Moore said. “It’s just a big social event.”

Moore runs Tennis For Fun, a free tennis clinic for athletes with special needs. Tennis For Fun is a volunteer organization that teaches basic tennis skills, and stresses socialization, specializing in working with athletes of all ages who are intellectually handicapped, especially those who have Down Syndrome.

Moore’s son, Nathan, started the program 16 years ago as a high school senior at Tampa’s Jesuit High. He wanted to create something to do for special needs athletes, no doubt inspired by his mother, who had taught special education and religion for years.

Tennis For Fun
Tennis For Fun

Since then, Tennis For Fun has grown, from a humble beginning with just a few athletes in Brandon to now including eight different locations (Fishhawk Ranch, Tampa Tennis at Hillsborough Community College, Sandra Friedman Tennis Complex on Davis Islands, and Tampa Palms in Florida), in three states (Florida, Maine and Minnesota), with more than 100 athletes competing.

At Tampa Palms, they were wearing new, bright green T-shirts donated by ALOT (A League Of Our Own Tennis), and playing with racquets donated by other players and clubs. Interbay Tennis, a large Tampa Bay women’s weekly tennis league, also has provided assistance, and Tennis For Fun also has received grants to help pay for nets and balls. Both Tampa Palms and Hunter’s Green Country Clubs are designated as Special Olympics training centers.

In 2011, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) awarded the USTA Adaptive Tennis National Community Service Award to Tennis for Fun. “We were pretty proud to get that,’’ Moore says.

More than a dozen of the 100+ athletes currently competing in Tennis For Fun are at Tampa Palms, which recently added the program under the direction of tennis player and Tampa Catholic High assistant coach Marla Adams. Adams will run the clinic through May 26, every Thursday, 4 p.m.-5 p.m., for the 18-and-over athletes; Marla’s son Clay, a freshman tennis player at Tampa Catholic, coaches the 17-under group from 5 p.m.-6 p.m.

Clay, who originally got involved because he was trying to earn service hours at school, and Marla first met Moore while volunteering at the Brandon location. Moore had received some requests to start a program in New Tampa, but until she met Marla, she had no one to run it.

“I met her and she asked where I lived, and I said Tampa Palms,’’ Marla says. “She said, I have someone who wants to start a program (out there) but doesn’t want to be the head of it.”

Tennis For Fun
Tennis For Fun

Marla and Clay accepted the challenge. For Marla, it was a personal decision. When she had been pregnant with Clay, she was told there was a chance he would be born with Down Syndrome, or a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21, which alters the course of an individual’s development.

Clay ended up not having Down Syndrome, but Marla said that moment stuck with her. So, when the chance arose to work with Down Syndrome children and adults, she says couldn’t resist.

With the Adamses working closely with Kass Pilczuk, the New Tampa YMCA Adaptive Coordinator, and Tampa Palms head pro Tom Judson, the program debuted last November.

“Kass has been very instrumental in helping us launch in New Tampa,’’ Marla said. “She has filtered a lot of her athletes at the YMCA through here.”

The response in New Tampa, says Moore, has been terrific.

While the Brandon program has more than 90 athletes, ages 8 to 58, New Tampa has seen its numbers steadily grow.

“People started talking about it, and people started coming,’’ says Dora Rattes, one of the volunteer coaches and supporters who helped bring the program to Tampa Palms.

Rattes used to take her special needs daughter Esther to Brandon to play tennis in the program. It was far from convenient, however.

“She really enjoyed it,’’ says Dora. “But I was thinking, we have Tampa Palms here (in New Tampa), and we have Hunter’s Green…”

Rattes knew there were enough special needs athletes in New Tampa to support such a program, and she knew there was a need. For many older special needs athletes, there is often little to do and few programs to participate in past high school.

“It is very important for them to stay active,’’ she said. “This is a sport they can play for life. This isn’t like soccer or basketball where you need a team to play. This is something you can do with just one other player.”

Esther is one of the program’s more advanced and experienced players. She recen

ly competed in the Special Olympics tennis at HCC March 19, and Marla says the plan for next year is to teach and send a large contingent of New Tampa special needs players to the event.

For now, the group is working on the fundamentals, growing their clinics and putting smiles on the faces of athletes learning the joy of a new sport.

For more information, call Judy Moore at 685-3923 or 417-3751, or visit TennisForFun.net.

Wesley Chapel Borders To Be Defined By April?

Pasco County planner Matt Armstrong and Wesley Chapel borders
Pasco County planner Matt Armstrong hopes to settle the debate over Wesley Chapel borders.

Following presentations last month by both the Greater Wesley Chapel (WCCC) and Central Pasco (CPCC) Chambers of Commerce, the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners (BCC) could be set Wesley Chapel borders with Lutz/Land O’Lakes that ultimately should finally settle a long-simmering dispute at the BCC’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, April 26.

The commissioners are expected to vote on a recommendation from Pasco planners on definitive borders between the two Census Designated Places (Wesley Chapel and Land O’Lakes/Lutz together are both CDPs) during the meeting at the West Pasco Government Center Board Room in New Port Richey.

Until then, county planners and administrators are poring over a stack of documents from each side — and even getting some help from the folks at Google maps —interpreting where those borders should be.

“We are looking to establish a city boundary by legislative action,’’ said Matt Armstrong, the county’s executive planner. “None of these areas that are Census Designated Places have that. That’s some of the reason people have struggled with this.”

After separate meetings with the two groups last month, Armstrong said representatives from both areas will meet with each other in the next few weeks, with the county’s planning department serving as the moderator.

“Ultimately, we will be bringing a report to the Board of County Commissioners with a recommendation on what we think the boundaries will be,’’ Armstrong says. “The Board can hear public comment, and then we will be asking them to establish the borders.”

When broken down, the primary dispute seems to be over the slice of land between Wesley Chapel Blvd. and I-75 in the Cypress Creek Town Center Development of Regional Impact (DRI), which has been exacerbated recently by the steady business development in the area.

Armstrong said he was at one recent border meeting where a representative from one of the new businesses on the east side of Wesley Chapel Blvd. said they were happy to “be here in Lutz.”

But, take a look at the web page for Culver’s, which calls its restaurant on E. Bearss Ave. in Tampa “Culver’s of Tampa,” its restaurant in Largo “Culver’s of Largo,” and its restaurant in Port Richey “Culver’s of Port Richey.” At its brand new location on S.R. 56 west of the Tampa Premium Outlets mall, however (which physically is located on Sun Vista Dr. in Lutz), it is called “Culver’s of Wesley Chapel.”

And it isn’t alone. While all of the area being debated by the WCCC and CPCC has either Land O’Lakes or Lutz addresses and zip codes, many businesses in the area identify themselves as being in Wesley Chapel.

“It’s just a mess,’’ Armstrong says.

Where Are The Wesley Chapel borders?

While the current debate is about borders, it originally began, as we detailed in our last issue, as a disagreement over the renaming of the Wesley Chapel Blvd. extension where the extension now crosses southbound over S.R. 56 and continues toward County Line Rd.

The southern portion of the extension, said CPCC member Sandy Graves at the time, needed to represent Lutz-Land O’Lakes, the area through which it cuts. A petition requesting that the name of the southern portion of the extension be changed to Circle O Ranch was presented to the BCC on Jan. 19. But, Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce CEO Hope Allen protested, saying it needed to remain Wesley Chapel Blvd., as all of the businesses in the area already call it that and have for years.

Instead of making a decision, the BCC decided to explore the issue further. The Board members decided that defining the borders between Lutz-Land O’Lakes and Wesley Chapel needed to be settled first.

That set off a fact-finding mission by each side, in an effort to buttress their respective arguments. Representatives of Lutz-Land O’Lakes believe their border extends west to I-75. The Wesley Chapel side thinks its western border extends to Wesley Chapel Blvd. So, essentially, the area between Wesley Chapel Blvd. and I-75 is at the heart of the dispute.

The Wesley Chapel Chamber met with Armstrong and his staff Feb. 19, two weeks after he met with the CPCC.

“I think the meeting went fine,’’ said Allen. “I think we got our point across and delivered the message we went to deliver.”

Allen said her group presented a 70-page document backing their claims, as well as a 2005 Vision Report that the WCCC says was approved by Pasco commissioners.

The CPCC countered that its 2003 Vision Report was adopted first, and brought noted USF political science professor Susan McManus to its meeting with Armstrong to help make their case. McManus has co-written books on the history of Lutz and Land O’Lakes.

Armstrong jokes that he is becoming an expert on the histories of the two places, thanks to all of the material that has been presented to him to help settle the dispute, including volumes of McManus’ work, a trove of newspaper articles and even local historian Madonna Jervis Wise’s book on the history of Wesley Chapel (see pg. 1). The book, entitled Images of America: Wesley Chapel, says that Wesley Chapel was founded in the 1840s, and is shown on a 1879 survey map of Pasco County, before Land O’Lakes was established in 1949.

However, the dispute is not over what town existed first. And, even in carefully-researched historical records, there are no definitive boundaries laid out because neither area was ever incorporated, or essentially created as its own city with its own governmental structure.

But, the respective “hearts” of both areas — U.S. 41 in Land O’Lakes and the area around Boyette Rd. and S.R. 54 in Wesley Chapel — are unmistakable, says Armstrong.

“The history points to early beginnings, and we know where the hearts of those communities are,’’ Armstrong said. “But, the boundary in between gets a little fuzzy.”

Pasco County currently only has six incorporated areas — the cities of Zephyrhills, Dade City, San Antonio, Port Richey and New Port Richey, and the incorporated town of Saint Leo.

The rest of the county is comprised of unincorporated Census Designated Places, like Wesley Chapel, Land O’Lakes/Lutz, Trinity and Hudson, to name a few. And, Armstrong says that 450,000 of the 490,000 people living in Pasco reside in those currently unincorporated areas.

Armstrong admits that so many areas without defined borders can create the kind of confusion we are seeing in Wesley Chapel and Lutz/Land O’Lakes, where postal zip codes have changed and there is a myriad of other “boundaries,” which can be confusing.

“Part of the frustration for the citizens who lives in any one of these places is, ‘What the heck, the zip code says this, the Census Designated Place says something else, my kids are going to school based on other boundaries and my voting precinct is somewhere else,’’’ Armstrong says. “It’s been like this for years, and now, it’s coming to a head.”

That’s actually a good thing, he says, because it is being done in the open and publicly. Much of the Lutz-Land O’Lakes anger stems from the belief that past decisions made by the BCC cut the area out of the process to accommodate Wesley Chapel’s growth and ongoing “branding.”

Wesley Chapel Blvd. is an example, according to Graves. It sprouted as a road name for the portion of S.R. 54 from S.R. 56 to Lexington Oaks when the Lutz-Land O’Lakes contingent thought it was going to be Worthington Gardens Blvd., a decision she said “happened overnight.”

The former “Wesley Chapel” placemaker sign was another example cited by Graves. It was put up a few hundred feet west of where Wesley Chapel Blvd. begins, clearly in Lutz’s 33559 zip code. Armstrong said the sign’s arrival “lit a match” in Pasco, and Graves led the fight to have the sign removed — which it was.

“The whole process hasn’t been completely transparent,’’ Armstrong says. “But, this time, it is.”

Both sides have been passionate about their arguments. The claim that the area, its residents and businesses would be much better served if the area was clearly defined as theirs. And, both claim history is on their side.

History, though, may give way to common sense.

“We will collect all of the history from both groups and look at some of the rational (potential) boundaries between the two things,’’ Armstrong says. “There may be a natural feature that divides the two, or a major road. But, it needs to make sense today, and that may be separate from history.”

Shops at Wiregrass Mall Offers Diversity With Latest Offerings

Vom Fass casks.
Vom Fass casks. Shops at Wiregrass Mall .
Vom Fass casks, coming soon to the Shops at Wiregrass Mall.

The Shops at Wiregrass mall in Wesley Chapel will welcome a handful of new stores in the coming months, and while Wiregrass officials aren’t looking to compete with bigger malls like Westfield Brandon, the latest batch of new choices for area shoppers gives the local mall a unique mix that general manager Greg Lenners thinks will continue to make it a prime destination.

Currently seeking an alcohol permit for tastings, Vom Fass is slated to open sometime this spring. Construction already has begun on the store, which will be near Macy’s and the mall’s Center Court.

Vom Fass, which takes it’s name from the German phrase “from the cask”, will offer premium culinary oils, traditional balsamic oils and vinegars, vinegar specialties, and exclusive fruit balsamic vinegars, as well as rare spirits and liqueurs and a boutique selection of wines. Many of the store’s products are cask-aged and stored in cask pyramids.

“What’s made us great for the community is the diverse mix of retailers we’ve always carried here,’’ Lenners said. “It’s kind of a unique blend of stores. We thought Vom Fass would be a perfect fit. No one in the area that has that kind of store.”

This will be the seventh Von Fass store in Florida; the closest ones are located in Sarasota and St. Petersburg.

Candy, 3D And More On Tap For Shops at Wiregrass Mall

Rocket Fizz Soda Pop & Candy Shop also is coming this spring, to Suite #115, near JC Penney.

Founded in 2007 in California, Rocket Fizz has become the largest and fastest-growing soda and candy shop brand in the country, according to its website. The 74 stores nationwide all offer a massive selection of candy, soda, retro and gag gifts, concert and movie posters and tin signs.

“A pretty cool concept, in my opinion,’’ Lenners said. “It’s got a 1950s, specialty convenience store feel to it.”

3D Musketeers Printing, offering custon color-printed three-dimensional figurines, is expected to open by the end of the month.

And as we were the first to report back in January, this fall will see the Wesley Chapel debut of Irish 31. The popular restaurant is referred to as “The People’s Pub” by their customers and dubbed “Irish-plus-gourmet” by Neighborhood News publisher and foodie Gary Nager.

Irish31 in Hyde Park. Shops at Wiregrass Mall.
Irish31 in Hyde Park. Construction has begun on a location at the Shops at Wiregrass Mall.

Irish 31 is being built next to Panera Bread. Lenners said he thinks the mall has already hit a home run with its food offerings, and Irish 31 only strengthens that opinion.

Visionworks, which has roughly 700 optical retail stores in 40 states, is expected to open this fall as well. Construction has begun on the building, which will be across from Moe’s Southwest Grill on the S.R. 56 side of the mall.

Another tenant will share that property (though Lenners was unable to announce it at our press time because the lease hasn’t been signed).

A few stores that have recently opened include Lola Perfume, located in Suite #160 (next to Hollister), and Soleciety Sneaker Boutique,which sells collectible athletic shoes from around the globe, in Suite #170 (next to Zales), and has only been open a few weeks.

For more information about the Shops at Wiregrass, visit TheShopsAtWiregrass.com.

Would Incorporating Wesley Chapel As A City Be Of Interest To You?

Russ Miller. Wesley Chapel Incorporation
Russ Miller

When Ernie Monaco, the director of planning for Pasco County, tossed out the idea — during a meeting to discuss borders — to representatives from the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (WCCC) last month that they might want to revisit the idea of incorporation, he got the attention of Russ Miller.

“I was surprised to hear that from a county employee,’’ said Miller, often credited with creating the WCCC, although he says he was one of six co-founders, “just the loudest.”

The mention of incorporation took Miller, who was at the meeting to discuss Wesley Chapel’s boundaries, on a trip down memory lane.

In 2003, Miller and fellow WCCC member Jim Williams led a charge to incorporate Wesley Chapel, hoping to turn the quickly-growing Census Designated Place (CDP) into a full-fledged city, with its own government and its own rules, particularly in the areas of land use and zoning.

The incorporated municipality (which can be referred to as a city, town or village) of Wesley Chapel would have extended eight miles east and west from Cypress Creek Rd. to Morris Bridge Rd., and eight miles north and south from County Line Rd. to Elam Rd. (which is roughly three miles north of S.R. 54).

The proposed municipality would have included all of the developments in Wesley Chapel at the time — Lexington Oaks, Meadow Pointe, Northwood, Quail Hollow, New River Township, Saddlebrook and Seven Oaks.

Miller, who lived in Wesley Chapel from 1981-2009 before moving to Palatka, hired a firm to help with a feasibility study.

The effort, which at the time would have taken 11 percent of Pasco County’s land area and included 28,000 residents and 10,000 homes, didn’t get very far and ultimately failed.

Miller said the developers and local daily newspapers were against it, and time was short to get a referendum approved ahead of the 2004 elections.

Also, the idea of another layer of property taxes (to fund a potential city government) did not appeal to some residents, especially since Pasco was already requesting a 1-cent increase in the county sales tax to be on the 2004 ballot.

Even the WCCC effectively came out against incorporation.

“We were just a group of lay people who saw a benefit in incorporating Wesley Chapel,’’ Miller said. “But, we didn’t have the money to fight the developers and the people in the community who were against it, and we got negative press. I have people still say to me, ‘Why did you stop?’ Now, they’re sorry.”

Miller says he just recently threw out all of the paperwork from that failed attempt. However, he still thinks incorporation is the way to go, and doing so would surely settle the long-standing border dispute with Lutz-Land O’Lakes.

“It’s never bad to control your own destiny,’’ Miller says. “Residents get a total say on how the community’s future will look. Now, where is the power? The county government. And where are they located? West Pasco controls it.”

Could a Wesley Chapel incorporation effort succeed today?

In Pasco, 450,000 of the county’s 490,000 residents live in unincorporated areas, meaning decisions about their land, police and schools are made by the county government.

Pasco County only has six municipalities: the cities of New Port Richey, Port Richey, San Antonio, Dade City, Zephyrhills and the town of Saint Leo.

In the 2010 census, Wesley Chapel’s population was listed at 44,092, a number that has grown and at the time was already nearly three times greater than the next largest city (New Port Richey, 14,934) and more populous than all of the other cities and towns put together.

“Had we succeeded, Wesley Chapel (today) would be the biggest and most powerful city in the entire county,’’ Miller laments.

While the WCCC came out against the incorporation efforts in 2003, none of those members are among the more than 500 the Chamber claims today.

“We don’t have an official stance,’’ says WCCC CEO Hope Allen, but she said it may be revisited by the Chamber’s current Board of Directors.

Pulling off incorporation won’t necessarily be any easier today. It takes money and lawyers, a feasibility study that can take up to two years to complete and will need the support of the local State legislative delegation, who would then bring it to the full state legislature, which could then approve it through a special act and put it on a referendum on the ballot.

“I saw an awful lot of interest from the chamber leaders two weeks ago,’’ Miller says about the Feb. 19 meeting. “If they were serious, and wanted to spend the money to promote it, I’d give it a 50-50 chance. But, it’s got to be sold to the residents. And, you need a cast iron stomach and the financial wherewithal to fight the battles.

He adds, “I absolutely would like to live long enough to see the day when Wesley Chapel is incorporated!”

Owner offers up Only The Best (OTB) for local patrons

OTB Tuna SaladWhen you meet Brazilian-born-and-raised Dirson De Mesquita, the owner and chef at Only The Best (OTB) Delights Café, located in the Shoppes at Wesley Chapel plaza across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (FHWC), you are immediately impressed by any number of things.

Of course, there’s the cleanliness of his place and the way he tries to communicate with every patron, whether they’re happy (as almost all of his customers are; see below) or not. Anyone can see that the man is a tireless worker who aims to please.

And, pleasing locals is what OTB has been able to do for a little more than a year now. With OTB’s healthy menu, featuring organic and locally-grown produce, no microwaves, fryers or freezers, it’s a perfect, casual (but recently redesigned) little spot where so many who work out at the FHWC Wellness Center or work at the hospital itself have invited their friends and co-workers to sample OTB’s tasty food at very fair prices for the quality.

Dirson has made some changes to his menu, but most recently, he decided to bring back his six-item dinner menu.

OTB Owner & Decor WallFor dinner, OTB has two kinds of grass-fed, organic top sirloin (Dirson says to try it with balsamic caramelized onions and gorgonzola cheese crumbles), a Salmon Gone Wild entrée (which is a different dish than the Salmon Gone Wild salad on the next page) of wild-caught, baked North Atlantic salmon with pesto sauce, a chicken Ana Bella (free range chicken cooked in a cream sauce with spinach and tomatoes), all served with soup or salad and fresh veggie and rice sides.

The dinner menu, which is offered any time of day (just as you also can get breakfast or lunch whenever OTB is open), also has two kinds of mini-quesadillas — with cheese or chicken and cheese.

The dinner menu is so new, we don’t have pics of the new items to share, so all of the pics on this page are from OTB’s breakfast and (primarily) lunch menus. But, OTB — which Dirson says he has consistently ranked #1 or #2 of all restaurants in the Wesley Chapel area on Trip Advisor.com and has maintained a 4.5-star (out of 5) rating on Yelp.com — already has lots of fans, including everyone here at the Neighborhood News office. In fact, OTB was the #10 Favorite Restaurant in Wesley Chapel with our readers in the most recent Reader Survey & Dining Contest, and #11 on my own list of favorites (and my fourth favorite lunch place and third favorite hamburger joint in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel).

From breakfast, where I flipped for the Good Morning Ciabatta (try it with over easy fried eggs although, I warn you, it’ll get a little messy), even though I really didn’t think I loved turkey bacon, to each of our office’s favorites so far, there’s something for pretty much everyone at OTB.

OTB Egg SandwichBilling manager Jill Reilly loves the Kickin’ Chicken burrito, office assistant Celeste McLaughlin swears by the San Diego Chicken sandwich, office manager Mary Dorey really enjoyed the Salmon Gone Wild salad, assistant editor John Cotey really enjoyed the Seared Steak Delight salad, which is one of my three favorites at OTB, the others being the Asian Orange Ahi Tuna salad and the killer Artisan Burger.

I also can vouch for both the Rio Rancho and Shanghai Chicken rice bowls, which means there’s very little on the menu that I can’t recommend. I don’t eat too much vegetarian-only (and no gluten-free) fare, but OTB does have multiple salads, sandwiches and entrées catering to non-carnivores and those who prefer fresh, real food.

Dirson even recently started growing fresh herbs right in OTB’s new planters to add to the organic feel of the place.

OTB Café is open Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-9 p.m., 8 a.m.-9 p.m. on Sat. and 8 a.m.-6 p.m. on Sun. Catering also is available. For more information, call 973-8880 or visit OTBDelightCafe.com.