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Pasco schools brace for tough budget
By B.C. Manion bcmanion@lakerlutznews.com
Pasco County Schools is gearing up for a tough budget year. “We have been working on budget,” Pasco County Schools Superintendent Kurt Browning told school board members at a May 5 virtual school board meeting. “It’s not a so-rosy picture of a budget. We’re working with department budgets and the district budget as a whole.We know that it’s going to be tight, and we’re very cautious going into this next budget and
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school year, not knowing what the Legislature is going to do, or possibly do, as it relates to any special session. “I just wanted the board to know that we’re having some very, very, very serious discussions about the budget,” Browning said. Board member Allen Altman told his colleagues that they need to be forward-thinking about the possibility of budget cuts. He said having to make cuts during the Great Recession was “the worst experience of my elected career.”
“I can tell you that I’ve talked to a couple of directors of state agencies in the past week, who have quietly been told to look at what a 20% cut would do. And, I looked today at the sales tax figures for Florida for month of March and they were down $770 million, and April is expected to be even worse. “We don’t need to start jumping out of ships yet, but I think that it would be prudent for us to be cognizant of the situation that the state and other local governments See BUDGET, page 9A
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Signs of support and appreciation Expressions of appreciation for first responders and health care workers, and words of encouragement for the community are showing up in all sorts of ways during this coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Drive-up customer Rylee Fitzsimmons, of Land O' Lakes, received a free meal from server Emily Spedale, at Walk-On's Bistreaux and Bar, 25372 Sierra Center Blvd., in the Cypress Creek Town Center. The restaurant, off State Road 56, had a community give-back day.
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By Kathy Steele ksteele@lakerlutznews.com
Tampa Theatre. (see related story on Page 1B.) Hearing that huge sound set Cucuzza off on a quest. He just had to learn to play organ. First though, he took piano lessons. He played on an upright piano his dad had acquired from a friend. “It was a great hulking thing. And, it never was in tune much, because it was so old,” Cucuzza said. He hated playing it. It simply didn’t sound right. His wish to play the organ was finally granted when he was 13, after his family moved to Florida. He had talked about playing the organ so much, his dad went out and bought a used one, Cucuzza said. The young musician took lessons from Frances Slocum. She was a kind and generous teacher. “If she didn’t have anybody after me, she would give me extra time. “She was always positive, and she showed me the basic way that songs were written,
Small businesses are struggling to reopen amid the uncertainties wrought by the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Chambers of commerce are right there with them on the front line. They are dealing with staff layoffs in some cases. They’ve been working from home.They have fewer resources. And, even as chambers begin reopening their offices, the priority is the economic recovery of member businesses. Ribbon cuttings, for a while, are on hold. “We had to pivot,” said Hope Kennedy, president of The North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce. From Day One of the shutdown, there was an urgency to how chambers should respond.They had to rethink what it means to network and provide services that would help businesses stay solvent and resilient. To be sure, there were phone calls. Lots of them. But, the new virtual world meant rethinking social media and technology. Zoom meetings and virtual town halls blossomed. Websites became clearinghouses for grants and forgivable loans, and the latest information businesses needed to survive, and now to reopen, safely. “We’ve done a lot of individual communicating with our members,” Kennedy said. Initially, the focus was on helping business owners apply for financial aid, either locally or from the federal Payroll Protection Program. Chambers partnered with Pasco County and the Pasco Economic Development Council to coordinate efforts to deliver financial aid to distressed businesses and residents. Kennedy heard from business owners who told her,“if we had not had all this information on our website, they wouldn’t have gotten them.” As businesses reopen, she added,“We’ve turned into a repository for businesses that need to rehire.”
See MUSIC, page 9A
See CHAMBERS, page 9A
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Dave Cucuzza fell in love with organ music when he was just a little boy, and then he went on to spend decades playing the music for others to enjoy.
Sharing the beauty of organ music is this man’s quest By B.C. Manion bcmanion@lakerlutznews.com
He’s 74 now, but Dave Cucuzza recalls a moment from decades ago — as if it was yesterday. He was 8 years old at the time, living in Bradford, Pennsylvania, and his family was heading out to church. Their car was buried in snow, though, so they had to dig it out. By the time they arrived at church, it was the High Mass. “The organist was up in the balcony in the back, and it was a stone church, so the sound really reverberated — with the high ceiling. “And, at the end of the Mass, he had everything on — on the organ. He did full organ,” Cucuzza recalled. “That sound roared out there and echoed through that place,” he said. “I’d never heard it full blast. “That’s when God gave me that little gift box — wrapped up so nicely — of music, that was going to be a big part of my life,” said Cucuzza, who now lives in Land O’ Lakes, is one of the volunteer organists at