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Coping with grief during the holidays By B.C. Manion bcmanion@lakerlutznews.com
Picture this:Your mother has broken her arm and it’s time to make her traditional pecan pie for the holidays. It’s easy to see that it would be difficult for her to make the pie this year, so you let her know that she shouldn’t worry about bringing it. It’s easy for people to see a broken arm, said Dale Thien, a bereavement counselor for HPH Hospice. It’s not always so easy to see the effects of a heart that’s broken by the death of a loved one. The bereavement counselor said she often opens her workshops by talking about how expectations change when we can see a physical ailment that poses limitations, and the need to make similar adjustments when
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Bereavement counselor Dale Thien offers practical tips for grieving people who are expecting a difficult holiday season.
someone has suffered an emotional loss that’s equally, if not more, debilitating. HPH Hospice is offering free workshops
in November and December to help anyone who is grieving the death of a loved one during the holidays, regardless of the cause. “Your grief is like you have a broken heart,”Thien said.“The thing is, we can’t really see that.” During her workshops, she asks those who are grieving to give themselves permission to grieve.And, she asks them to let their loved ones know what they need. “Understanding can come from the rest of the family, as they adjust their expectations about the holidays and about the role that this grieving person will play,” she said. The death of a loved one often creates a sense of disorientation and a loss of equilibrium, as people adjust to life without the physical presence of their loved one. See GRIEF, page 7A
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Nearly 10 years after she retired from what was then Pasco-Hernando Community College, Pat Mulieri will hang it up once again Wednesday — this time as a Pasco County commissioner. So what will the 76-year-old do now? “Maybe I’ll become a belly dancer,” she said. Mulieri may be joking, but the 20-year commissioner has never been afraid to speak her mind, or go against the establishment in county government she more than once referred to as a “good ol’ boy club.” Whether it’s speaking out on increasing local gas taxes, or throwing her support behind a candidate from a different political party, Mulieri always has described herself as fearless, standing up for those who might not be able — or willing — to stand up for themselves. “You can’t just sit there, and you can’t be afraid to speak out,” Mulieri said.“People will try to intimidate you, they’ll try to talk over you. But you have to keep an open mind, and never waver from what you believe in.” Spending so many years in elected office would have many asking what kind of legacy a commissioner leaves when they retire. Mulieri, however, sees her legacy beginning well before she won her first election in 1994. In fact, it was her work in the late 1980s and early 1990s that pushed her into public office in the first place.
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Pat Mulieri spends some time with Rocket, one of the dogs rescued by Pasco County Animal Services. Mulieri, whose last day as a county commissioner is Nov. 5, spent 20 years as a public servant, all thanks to a proposed medical waste facility.
“I was teaching at PHCC when someone came up to me and told me that they are building an incinerator on my corner, and I started looking into it,” Mulieri said. As she does now, Mulieri lived in Gower’s Corner, the mostly rural area north of Land O’ Lakes at State Road 52 and U.S. 41. She and husband Jimmy had called it home since moving from New York in 1979, and plans were to build a plant that would dispose of up to 500 pounds of medical waste each day. Except plans didn’t stay that small for long. By 1990, the developer expanded it to
54 tons per day, and that put Mulieri and her neighbors into action. The first thing she did? Call Sylvia Young, of course, the longtime county commissioner representing much of the eastern side of Pasco. “It was the most terrible experience of my life,” Mulieri said.“’It won’t hurt you,’ she told me.‘Why do you care? It’s not going to hurt you.’” Except at 54 tons daily, that meant trucks would be going in and out constantly, bringSee MULIERI, page 7A
Developers revive Epperson Ranch with Crystal Lagoon By Michael Hinman mhinman@lakerlutznews.com
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The interchange connecting Overpass Road to Interstate 75 couldn’t come soon enough. With the housing market seemingly healed — at least as far as Pasco County is concerned — developers want to bring thousands of homes to an area known as Epperson Ranch, complete with a retail center, and America’s introduction to something known as Crystal Lagoon. “It would be the first of its kind in North America,” said Pat Gassaway, president of Heidt Design, one of the representatives behind the developer of the proposed Epperson Ranch Town Center. He shared details of the recreation area with members of the Pasco County Development Review Committee last month, and is scheduled for the Pasco County Commission Nov. 5. “They have chosen to implement it here in Pasco County, and let me pause to let that sink in,” Gassaway said.“It actually looks better in person than in the photographs, and that rarely happens.” Crystal Lagoons Corp. is a Chile-based land development company that can turn dry land into what they call the world’s largest swimming pools. They can cover acres of land, typically at a depth of at least 8 feet, and allow for both swimming and water sports, which might not already be available. The company’s first Crystal Lagoon in San Alfonso del Mar covers 20 acres, and is more than a half-mile long.The cost to build one is said by the company on its website to be “10 times less” than that of a similar-sized golf course, and consumes half the water a typical conventional park would use. The town center was part of a much
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The new Epperson Town Center Project near Overpass and Curley roads, is expected to have the first Crystal Lagoon in North America, a massive water project that creates aquatic activities in areas where water at this quality might not be available.
larger development of regional impact in the area where Overpass and Curley roads meet. Once the housing market crashed, however, the project went dormant. Now new developers have stepped in, looking to break some of the elements apart, but still stay close to some of the original development plans of bringing thousands of people into that part of Pasco County. The town center alone would be on nearly 103 acres and include 256 townhouses, 200 apartments, 209,000 square feet of commercial space, 50,000 square feet of office, and 100 hotel rooms. Two other pieces of the Epperson Ranch project also were in front of the committee on Wednesday.They include what is known
as Epco Ranch North, where 1,795 homes on 1,051 acres are planned. A third piece, known as Epperson Ranch South, would have 1,516 homes on nearly 590 acres of land. Both residential plans are smaller than originally proposed.The northern part was supposed to have 1,811 homes, while the southern portion initially had at least 120 more homes than the current plan. “Standard Pacific Homes is proposing to build a very upscale community here,” attorney Clarke Hobby told county officials of the northern plan. “The price point we’re dealing with here is substantially higher See EPPERSON, page 7A