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Improvements slated for County Road 54 By Kevin Weiss kweiss@lakerlutznews.com
A congested roadway in Zephyrhills is set to receive some long-awaited and seemingly much-needed improvements to ease traffic patterns and enhance safety overall. The City of Zephyrhills and Pasco County have come to a cost-sharing agreement for upgrades to a portion of County Road 54 which crosses both city limits and unincorporated county areas. The scope of the project calls for the following enhancements along a 1.31-mile stretch, east of U.S. 301 east to 23rd Street: • Additional signage and pavement markings • Left-hand turn lane at the Dairy Road intersection • Right-hand turn lane and new mast arms at Wire Road, turning onto 12th Street
• Signalized intersection at 23rd Street • Pedestrian signals and ADA sidewalk ramps at the intersections of Wire Road/12th Street, 20th Street and 23rd Street • A 10-foot concrete multi-use path on the south side of County Road 54 adjacent
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to Zephyrhills High School, and a 5-foot to 6foot path on the north side of the road, plus associated drainage The Zephyrhills City Council on Oct. 12 unanimously approved an interlocal agreement with the county that calls for a 50/50-split on costs for the multi-million project. An engineer’s estimate for the project’s entirety came in at $6,855,255.44, meaning the city and county each will have an estimated cost of $3,427,627.72. The entire project will be constructed in one phase. How it’s actually funded will be handled a bit differently, however. The county has agreed to fund all improvements east of 20th Street to east of 23rd Street, including a new signalized intersection. Any dollars leftover from their See IMPROVEMENTS, page 11A
Local artists paint hay bales
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People who enjoy viewing public art might want to check out six hay bales — painted by artists of various ages — that have been stationed around locations in Dade City. For more photos, see Page 3A.
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Share your wildlife pho otos If you’ve captured a photograph of an interesting bird or wild creature, we’d love to share your image with our readers.
sider If you’d like us to consider graph, publishing your photograph, please email it to us att news@lakerlutzne ew ws.c com. Please be sure to include what kind of animal it is, and where you took the picture. Also include your ur contact information, so we can get in touch with you, if we need to.
B INSIDE, PAGE 1B
COURTESY OF DADE CITY CITY FOR THE ARTS
This painting of a scarecrow’s face was done by Morgan Turgeon and Ethan Wiley, students at Pasco High School. The painted hay bale is at Price Park.
This painted bale, near the Hardy Trail, was created by Kevin Taggerty, a retired master sergeant of the U.S. Air Force, and his daughter, Ryah, a first grade teacher at Lacoochee Elementary.
Pasco County’s COVID-19 cases surpass 10,000 mark By B.C. Manion bcmanion@lakerlutznews.com
As Pasco County’s COVID-19’s positive cases surpassed the 10,000mark, local officials continue to consider their best responses to the threats. The Pasco County Commission and the Pasco County School Board were both scheduled to take up the issue during their meetings on Oct. 20, which occurred after The Laker/Lutz News’ deadline. Pasco County commissioners were expected to hear an update on local COVID-19 conditions, from the health officer for Department of Health-Pasco County, during the board’s morning session. During a September update, Mike Napier, the public health officer for Pasco County told the board he realized there was significant interest on when it would
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be appropriate to lift mask mandates and social distancing restrictions. At that time, he told them the best time would be when a vaccine was available, or medication was available to treat it. From a practical standpoint, though, he told commissioners that the positive cases would need to be lower — and he said he would report back in October. Napier also told commissioners that
he’s on regular conference calls with health officers and county officials around the region, and they were leaning toward trying to come up with a regional response to the issue of face coverings. The idea is to come up with a consensus on the numbers and benchmarks to use, and to consult with academics to determine the approach, Napier said. Presumably, the presentation at the board’s Oct. 20 meeting provided an update on those issues. Meanwhile the Pasco County School Board was set to take up the issue of masks and other personal protective equipment during its afternoon workshop on Oct. 20. Board members were expected to consider a proposed rule change that would require mask or face coverings for everyone on a school campus, through the end of the 2020-2021 school, in the interest of protecting the health and welfare of students, staff and visitors. The proposed rule also calls for observing social distancing, washing hands frequently and using other personal proSee COVID, page 11A
Upgrades coming to Zephyrhills CRA area By Kevin Weiss kweiss@lakerlutznews.com
The Zephyrhills Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Board has approved a budget of $578,244 for fiscal year 2020-2021 — and identified a number of priority projects. The project is an increase of $91,234 over last year’s $478,010 budget. The increase is primarily due to greater revenues collected from ad valorem taxes from the city and Pasco County.Those revenues came in at $426,470, compared to $319,031 last year. The remainder of the CRA budget is made up of reserves for future projects ($150,174) and miscellaneous revenue ($1,600) from interest and reimbursements from Zephyrhills Main Street Inc. The CRA board unanimously approved the budget, which then was passed through the Zephyrhills City Council. (Although it is a separate board, the CRA board is made up of members of the Zephyrhills City Council.) Funds will be allocated to projects within the city’s 500-plus acre CRA district, which generally encompasses the
center spine of the city, between Hercules Park to C Avenue, and from Zephyr Park to 17th Street. Priority projects include: • Hercules Park upgrades • Sidewalk improvement, in partnership with the city’s public works department • Lake Necessity improvements • Installation of public artwork and artistic connections, such as murals, from Fifth Avenue through downtown side streets • Incentives for development opportunities and growth in the CRA Meanwhile, the budget funds existing grant programs and incentives, such as residential grants (façade, paint, homeownership) and commercial grants (façade, signage). Zephyrhills CRA Director Gail Hamilton detailed the success of assorted grant programs, noting the agency last year distributed seven homeownership grants, which set a record for new homes purchased within the district in any given year. The homeownership grant provides $5,000 to new homeowners in the district.
COURTESY OF MAIN STREET ZEPHYRHILLS INC.
Downtown landscaping and public artwork opportunities are just some of the initiatives funded in this year’s Zephyrhills CRA budget.
It requires a homeowner to apply before purchasing and closing, and file for the homestead exemption for five years. Funding also is allocated to continue the Saturday neighborhood clean-up improvement program, which was shuttered for much of this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff expects to restart the program in 2021, Hamilton said. Elsewhere, the agency has multiple outstanding approved projects budgeted from 2019-2020 that simply will be rolled over to the new budget year. That includes installing signage posts and frames along Fifth Avenue, from See CRA, page 11A