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WESLEY CHAPEL – PulteGroup’s Vida’s Way community held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 1 to celebrate the grand opening of Fudge & Rusty’s Dog Park. 

The park is named for beloved pets of the DePue family, whose ranch once occupied the land. The community itself honors Vida Barnes DePue, who ran the ranch solo for over 50 years after her husband’s death in 1954. 

The DePue family transferred 350 acres of the ranch to Pulte Homes, which developed Vida’s Way with a deliberate focus on preserving that history.

From the dog park’s name to the community’s street names and overall design, Pulte built the neighborhood to reflect the land’s ranching roots with an emphasis on nature, gathering spaces and outdoor life. 

DePue Ranch remains an active cattle operation today, and residents turned out for the celebration, which marked the start of many years of dog park visits and community gatherings to come.

Learn more about Vida’s Way at pulte.com/homes/florida/tampa/wesley-chapel/vidas-way-211210.

 

 

 

ZooTampa at Lowry Park welcomed a critically endangered Eastern bongo calf on July 3. 

The female calf, named Liberty, weighed 38 pounds and stood about 2 feet tall at birth. 

This marks the seventh Eastern bongo birth at the zoo since 2021, contributing to the conservation of a species with fewer than 100 individuals remaining in the wild due to habitat loss and poaching. 

The bongo joins two other bongo calves, two southern white rhinos, two impalas and two nyalas, all born earlier this year.

 

LAND O’LAKES – The Tunnel to Towers Let Us Do Good Village has welcomed two new heroes to its growing community.

Navy Fireman Brenda Arnaud and Industry Borough Police Officer Scott Morrison are among the 11 heroes who have moved into the village this year. Nearly 30 families call the village home.

The village will eventually feature nearly 100 homes gifted to catastrophically injured veterans, first responders and Gold Star and Fallen First Responder families. 

“Every smart home Tunnel to Towers delivers represents a new beginning,” said Frank Siller, chairman and CEO of Tunnel to Towers. “For Brenda and Scott, this means greater independence, peace of mind and the opportunity to focus on healing instead of the obstacles their injuries have created.”

 

Brenda Arnaud

Brenda Arnaud enlisted in the Navy on May 5, 2013, inspired by her husband, a Marine Corps veteran. She worked on pre-commissioning ships, getting them ready to deploy around the world. 

During one of these assignments, she suffered a devastating fall that resulted in several serious injuries, including a spinal cord injury, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and frozen shoulder, which later spread. She developed hand contractures and drop foot that progressed to osteonecrosis. 

After years of surgery, she decided to amputate her leg nearly 10 years after the original injury. Dealing with her injury while living in a two-story home in Texas made everyday tasks difficult. 

“My kid’s bedrooms were upstairs, and I couldn’t always get upstairs,” Arnaud said. “I had to force myself to wear my prosthetic to get around my house, which kept me from healing properly.”

She is looking forward to her new smart home in the Let Us Do Good Village.

“I loved the fact that everyone there understands what you are going through because they have gone through the same thing,” Arnaud said. 

Her Tunnel to Towers smart home will give her greater mobility and safety. The financial relief has allowed Arnaud and her husband to focus more fully on her recovery and their children.

 

Scott A. Morrison

Scott Morrison is a Gulf War veteran who served in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the 1990s, working as a helicopter crew chief in Germany. 

He returned home and started a career in law enforcement working as a K-9 handler and patrolman. During an encounter with a suspect, he broke his ankle, an injury that he continued to worsen over the years on the job. Eventually, the injury and pain forced him to retire. He endured multiple surgeries to repair the damage to his legs and back. His injuries have left him with limited mobility. He often relies on a scooter to get around. 

Struggling physically and financially to make ends meet, Morrison admits he was in a low place when Tunnel to Towers came into his life. 

“I was a broken shell of a man, I was fighting, I never gave up or backed down…but everything Tunnel to Towers has done just blows me away,” Morrison said. “I can’t find the words of what it means and how it feels. It’s been a blessing.”

Now he’s moving from Pennsylvania to Florida and looking forward to his next chapter in the Let Us Do Good Village.

“It’s a community where I’ll know the guy next to me has my back, as I will have his back,” Morrison said. “That’s something I haven’t felt since I was in the service.” 

 

Want to help?

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, when FDNY firefighter Stephen Siller gave his life in the line of duty. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation continues to honor his legacy by providing mortgage-free homes to injured veterans and first responders nationwide.

The foundation has delivered more than 1,700 mortgage-free homes and committed over $1 billion to its programs.

On the web: T2T.org 

In recent years, Pasco County has been exporting its greatest natural resource. Not phosphate. Not citrus. Not timber. Our people.

For decades, communities like Pasco County carried the label of a “bedroom community.” People live here because housing was affordable but every morning thousands of talented residents leave the county to build the economy of neighboring counties before making the long commute home exhausted each evening. That wasn’t economic prosperity. It was economic dependence.

Today, as our county continues to grow, I often hear concerns that “economic development” simply means more traffic, more rooftops and more congestion. Those concerns are understandable but they also highlight an important distinction that deserves greater attention.

Economic development is not the same thing as growth. 

And it is certainly not the same as unmanaged growth or urban sprawl.

Growth happens whether we plan for it or not. People move to Florida because of our climate, our quality of life and our economic opportunity. New homes are built because families need places to live. That is population growth.

Economic development, however, is intentional.

It is the deliberate effort to create quality jobs, attract investment, diversify our economy and ensure that residents can build successful careers without leaving the community they call home.

The question isn’t whether Pasco County will grow. The question is whether we will create enough opportunity to grow wisely.

For years, Pasco exported its greatest asset – its workforce. Thousands of talented teachers, engineers, healthcare professionals, manufacturers, software developers, financial professionals and entrepreneurs left our county every day to earn a living elsewhere. That meant more congestion on our highways, more time away from families and fewer opportunities for our local businesses to thrive.

Creating local jobs changes that equation.

When a company chooses to locate in Pasco County, it doesn’t simply occupy a building. It creates careers. It generates tax revenue that supports public services. It strengthens local restaurants, retailers, professional service firms and small businesses. It provides opportunities for our graduates to stay close to home instead of relocating elsewhere.

That’s economic development.

It is also important to understand what economic developers mean when we talk about creating employment centers. An employment center is a concentration of businesses that provides significant job opportunities across multiple industries, whether advanced manufacturing, life sciences, corporate headquarters, logistics, research and development, healthcare or technology. A great example of how economic development terminology is not widely understood was a recent community discussion where many of the commentators were speaking about ’employment centers’ under the assumption that they were actually ‘data centers.’ While data centers serve a role in the digital economy, they generally employ relatively few people compared to the thousands of jobs created by business parks, innovation districts, medical campuses, manufacturing facilities and mixed-use employment hubs. When economic developers advocate for employment centers, we are advocating for places where people work, not simply where computers operate.

Projects like Moffitt’s SPEROS campus (an employment center), advanced manufacturing facilities, corporate headquarters, life science companies and food manufacturers aren’t examples of sprawl. They represent the type of investment that transforms a community from a place where people simply sleep into a place where they can build a career.

Strong communities require balance.

Housing without jobs creates long commutes.

Jobs without housing create affordability challenges.

Infrastructure without planning creates congestion.

The goal of economic development is to bring those pieces together in a thoughtful way.

That also means protecting the qualities that make Pasco County special. Smart economic development isn’t about paving over every open field. It means directing investment to appropriate locations, preserving natural resources, supporting existing businesses and ensuring infrastructure keeps pace with development. Responsible planning and economic development are partners, not competitors.

It’s also important to recognize that Pasco County has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to land conservation. Through initiatives such as the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Management Program, the county has permanently preserved thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive lands, wildlife habitat, wetlands and natural corridors. Those protected lands will remain part of Pasco’s landscape for generations to come. The choice has never been between economic development or conservation; the most successful communities embrace both. By protecting our natural resources while strategically developing employment centers and infrastructure in appropriate locations, Pasco can continue to enhance both its economy and its exceptional quality of life.

Communities that fail to pursue economic development don’t avoid growth. They simply lose the ability to shape it.

The employers (and the high-paying jobs they create) go somewhere else, while residents continue commuting longer distances to support someone else’s economy.

As someone who has worked in economic development for more than three decades, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when communities invest strategically in their future. They become more resilient during economic downturns. They offer greater opportunities for young people. They attract talent, innovation and entrepreneurship. They improve quality of life not just for today’s residents, but for generations to come.

Economic development isn’t about chasing growth. It’s about creating opportunity. It’s about ensuring that the next generation can live, work and raise a family in the same community they grew up in.

For a county that spent decades as a bedroom community, that isn’t just progress. That’s transformation. And it’s a future worth building together.

The future of Pasco County is not a choice between jobs and green space. It is a commitment to both. We can preserve the places that make people want to live here while creating the opportunities that allow them to work here. That’s not sprawl. That’s smart economic development.

Bill Cronin serves as president & CEO of Pasco EDC.