The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

Pasco County Sheriff's Office

Weapon report put Sunlake High on lockdown

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The beginning of the holiday weekend was a stressful time for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office and administrators at Sunlake High School after a reported student carrying a weapon put the campus on lockdown Friday morning.

Sunlake principal Steve Williams worked to keep the public informed what was happening throughout the morning through Twitter, and posted on the school’s Facebook page later that while an unidentified student was taken into custody by deputies, no weapon was found on campus.

“In an abundance of caution, we began a thorough search of the campus to ensure the student did not give the weapon to another student, or attempt to hide it on the campus,” Williams wrote on Facebook. “Once we were sure that the campus was safe, we moved out of lockdown and finished the day.”

Earlier in the day, a student reported to a school staff member that another student was in possession of a weapon. That immediately put the school into lockdown, and administrators brought in the sheriff’s office, which started an investigation, Williams said.

Although safety precautions were made, Williams emphasized to parents that there was no evidence that a weapon was actually at the school, and that everyone “remained safe throughout the situation.”

“I wish to commend the students, staff and parents of the Sunlake community for their patience and professionalism during this stressful situation,” Williams wrote. “In addition, I want to thank the Pasco sheriff’s office for their efforts today. They were highly professional, and we appreciate our partnership with them.”

Classes are expected to resume as normal on Sept. 2, and no Friday night or weekend events were affected by the lockdown, Williams added.

PHSC, sheriff agree to keep Dade City academy going

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UPDATE: The Pasco-Hernando State College board of trustees approved the new agreement at its meeting Tuesday night, finalizing the deal. “While it took time to work through details, we feel this agreement is in the best interests of everyone concerned,” said PHSC board chair Len Johnson, in a release.

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office may have finally settled its months-long dispute with Pasco-Hernando State College after the two groups came to terms on a new agreement that will give Sheriff Chris Nocco more say on who will teach at the school’s Law Enforcement and Corrections Academy.

The agreement still has to be approved by the PHSC board of trustees, which is meeting Aug. 26 at 6 p.m.

“The Pasco Sheriff’s Office could not be more pleased with this contract, and more importantly, the new level of partnership we have established with PHSC,” Nocco said, in a release. “As the needs and demands for law enforcement continuously evolve, this academy and regional training center will allow us to continue to develop our members and new law enforcement officers to professionally address the challenges they will face.”

The new agreement about the academy, which is hosted at PHSC’s East Campus location in Dade City, was signed by Nocco Aug. 18. It gives Nocco the power to appoint an academy director, who will actually be a member of his department. That director will then allow Nocco to play a more direct role in selecting academy instructors, something that has been a sticking point between the sheriff’s office and the college over recent months.

“We are pleased to have forced a clear and mutually beneficial agreement with the Pasco County Sheriff,” PHSC president Katherine Johnson said, in a release. “The college and the sheriff’s office have enjoyed a positive and collaborative relationship for decades. With this agreement in place, we look forward to continuing and enhancing our relationships with the sheriff’s office and all other law enforcement agencies PHSC serves.”

Updated 8/26 at 6:13 p.m., to include voting results of PHSC board of trustees.

Sheriff’s sergeant helps send two ambulances to Guyana

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Guyana Development Mission International, an international relief organization created by Pasco County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Mike Mielke, will receive two refurbished ambulances formerly owned by TransCare Medical Transportation to help provide critical emergency medical services to the people of Guyana.

TransCare is donating two ambulances to Guyana in South America thanks to the help of efforts like, from left, Pasco County Sheriff's Office major John Corbin, Sgt. Mike Mielke, and TransCare vice president Terence Ramotar. (Courtesy of Crisis Center of Tampa Bay)
TransCare is donating two ambulances to Guyana in South America thanks to the help of efforts like, from left, Pasco County Sheriff’s Office major John Corbin, Sgt. Mike Mielke, and TransCare vice president Terence Ramotar. (Courtesy of Crisis Center of Tampa Bay)

The ambulances have been stocked with critical medical supplies and mechanical replacement parts with the help of Pasco County Fire Rescue, the sheriff’s office, Wilderness Lake Church, Crockett’s Towing and Scaife Enterprises. They will be used through two hospitals in Georgetown.

Ambulances with more than 300,000 miles can no longer be used for medical transportation in Hillsborough County, and have minimal resale value, according to a release.

This latest effort was made possible by Terence Ramotar, vice president of TransCare, whose parents immigrated to the United States from the small coastal nation. His connection to Mielke was practically coincidence for the time his organization was looking for ambulances to help the country.

“It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time,” said Ramotar, in a release. “The two vehicles had recently come to the end of their service life, and we met Sgt. Mielke at the same time. I’ve traveled to Guyana and have seen the need first-hand. These vehicles have saved lives in the Tampa Bay area. It’s great to know they’ll now be used to save lives in Guyana.

TransCare is a division of the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, a not-for-profit organization that responds to 183,000 requests for help each year.

Guyana, with a population of a little more than 750,000, is located in the northern part of South America, with Georgetown its largest city at 235,000 people. Life expectancy in Guyana is a little older than 70 years, compared to nearly 80 in the United States. That ranks it 126th in the world, with one of the leading causes of death in the country being malaria.

Pasco school buses run smoother than expected

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With hundreds of school buses on the road transporting thousands of students from home to school and back again, Pasco County Schools set up a transportation call center to help fix any issues quickly.

However, after Friday, that center will close down — a week earlier than expected. That’s thanks to the fact that the call volume to the center over the first week has dwindled down to levels where such a hotline is no longer needed, officials said.

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School buses line up for students at Denham Oaks Elementary School for the start of the school year. (Michael Hinman/Staff Photo)

The early closure of the telephone line can be attributed to the planning, training and other steps the district and schools took to make the transportation run smoothly at the start of the school year, officials said in a release. Those steps included finalizing bus stops by the end of June, developing a smartphone app that provided school bus information, provide more practice runs for bus drivers prior to the start of school, using bus labels for elementary school students, and parent cooperation.

“This is an example of how successful an operation can be when district departments work together, schools work with the district, and parents and students work together with the schools and district,” school district superintendent Kurt Browning said, in a release. “We also owe our gratitude to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office for helping with elementary school traffic issues, and supplying volunteers to help at the call center.”

Parents who still call the hotline will be forwarded to one of the transportation compounds for assistance. In addition, schools will continue to use the My Bus Loop app through Aug. 29, and could still use it throughout the school year.

Job fair kicks off Wednesday

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Looking for work? Then Land O’ Lakes High School is exactly where you need to be Wednesday for a job fair.

Pasco County Schools is partnering with county agencies and local chambers of commerce for a fair July 9 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the high school, 20324 Gator Lane, in Land O’ Lakes.

The fair will include the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, county government offices, the clerk of court and tax collector, as well as some other businesses to talk to people looking to return to the job market, or step up from their current jobs.

Some of the positions the agencies are looking for at the fair include clerical and administrative support, accounting and finance, bus drivers and assistants, information services, food services, law enforcement and corrections, maintenance and skilled trades, and instructional and child care.

For more information, click here.

Pasco tax rates expected to remain steady

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Despite pay raises across the board, adding 45 full-time equivalent positions and even providing nearly everything Sheriff Chris Nocco asked for, Pasco County commissioners are expected to receive a draft budget Tuesday morning at the same general millage rate charged to property owners last year.

The proposed $1.21 billion budget is a little more than 3 percent higher than last year, but thanks to new construction and some increase in property values generating another $6.7 million, county budget officials were able to keep ad valorem millage at 7.3441, and the Municipal Fire Service Unit millage at 1.7165.

One mill represents $1 of tax on every thousand dollars of taxable property value. So a $100,000 home with $50,000 in exemptions would pay $367.21 for the year.

But there are still a lot of decisions that need to be made before the final numbers are complete, assistant county administrator Heather Grimes told reporters in a press briefing Monday. The biggest decision is how to fund capital improvement projects for Pasco’s roads — either through a 5-cent gas tax increase, a millage increase of more than 5 percent, or a combination of the two.

There has been considerable debate among commissioners on exactly how to do just that, with no clear consensus yet on which way they will go. Last year, the commission failed to pass an additional gas tax, falling a vote short.

If the county were to raise all $8 million through property taxes, it would mean an additional $20 a year to the typical homeowner’s tax bill. Proponents of a gas tax say those additional costs may not even be passed on to the consumer, since fueling stations operate more by volume than revenue.

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office would see its budget increase more than $5 million under the proposed budget, providing everything Nocco had asked for except for $1.7 million he said he needed to switch healthcare coverage from fully insured to self-insured. Doing that could cut health insurance costs by around 2 percent, Grimes said, but the request came too late for the current budget cycle, and would likely create an additional tax increase to implement it.

To read more about Nocco’s long-range plans for the sheriff’s office, see the July 9 print edition of The Laker.

Spending on county parks will jump $571,000 to $8.9 million, but it’s still $1.1 million short of where Pasco funded them in 2008. That means park fees would remain in effect and staffing levels are still well below what they were nearly seven years ago.

Libraries also won’t get all they had hoped for. Part of the plan was to allow the libraries to once again open on Mondays, or at the very least extend hours on existing days. Even a plan to open just two libraries — including the Land O’ Lakes branch — on Mondays didn’t make the cut with its $279,000 price tag.

Pasco County is seeing an uptick in property values, which has allowed the government to fund additional programs without raising millage. However, it’s lagging behind neighboring counties in the region, which have experienced value increases of between 5.3 percent and 7.5 percent, Grimes said. The only county that didn’t fare better in value increases was Hernando, but not by much.

Some initiatives from last year already are paying off, Grimes said. The county’s conversion to a self-insured health plan saved the county nearly $1 million, or about $300 per employee annually. The current budget has made some room to implement wellness centers for county employees, which officials say could create even more cost savings in the future because of its preventive medical care.

The first public hearing for the budget is expected to take place Sept. 9 in Dade City, followed by a second one Sept. 23 in New Port Richey. Commissioners will hear details of the proposed budget for the first time during its regular meeting July 8 beginning at 10 a.m. at the Historic Pasco County Courthouse in Dade City.

Sheriff Nocco seeks 6.5% budget increase

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The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office is reducing its publicly paid staff by nearly 90 people, but Sheriff Chris Nocco says he’ll still need at least $6 million more than he got last year.

Nocco’s total budget request for 2014-15 is $96.4 million, up nearly 6.5 percent from last year’s approved budget, according to a release. Most of that increase comes from giving pay raises to long-term deputies and employees who right now are watching new hires come in at the same salary, or sometimes more, than what they are making.

The 86 positions affecting the budget are not being eliminated, but instead many have been privatized, spokesman Kevin Doll said.

Nocco wants to raise those salaries by 1 percent for every year each employee has worked, capping it at 5 percent. In order for that to happen, however, he would need to raise his budget request to the Pasco County Commission by $2.6 million.

The move, however, is necessary, to help keep veteran employees on the staff, and not leave for higher-paying jobs with other agencies, Nocco said.

Nocco also wants to get rid of “flexing,” described as sending employees home instead of paying overtime because the sheriff’s office doesn’t have enough funds to pay overtime. Doing that reduces the number of deputies patrolling the streets and investigating crime, the sheriff said. To do it, however, he would need an additional $333,000 budgeted for overtime.

The budget would have to be approved by the Pasco County Commission, who received the budget Friday. County administrator Michele Baker said in a release that her staff would “look carefully” at what the sheriff is asking for.

“We have had good discussions leading up to the sheriff’s budget submission today,” Baker said. “I am hopeful that the discussions moving forward this summer will be just as positive.”

Nocco did note that some other increases were out of his control. Retirement funding, for example, jumped $345,500 as mandated by the Florida Legislature. Another $300,000 would go toward the sheriff’s helicopter for maintenance and to purchase a $94,000 night-vision infrared camera.

The sheriff also wants to hire three additional school resource officers to address population increase in schools.

“We are in position for tremendous growth in Pasco,” Nocco said, in a release. “The time to begin planning and addressing public safety is now.”

Mourners brave rain to remember fallen officers

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It’s said that J. Edgar Hoover himself traveled from Washington, D.C., to Dade City, to remember prohibition agent John Van Waters.

Pasco County sheriff’s deputies salute during ceremonies remembering law enforcement officers who were killed in the line of duty during the last century or so. (Michael Hinman/Staff Photo)
Pasco County sheriff’s deputies salute during ceremonies remembering law enforcement officers who were killed in the line of duty during the last century or so.
(Michael Hinman/Staff Photo)

The 46-year-old U.S. Department of Justice officer was killed alongside Pasco County constable Arthur Crenshaw on Oct. 4, 1922, in an ambush soon after investigating an illegal distillery near Dade City.

They were just the second and third law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty at the time, but would eventually become a part of a list that now totals eight who paid the ultimate price in protecting the people of Pasco County.

And those same people who benefit from that protection refuse to let them be forgotten as the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies celebrated their lives during a memorial service May 2 in front of the Historic Dade City Courthouse.

“It is truly a special day for us,” Sheriff Chris Nocco told the crowd of spectators who stood in a steady downpour to honor the officers. “In a world where so many times we get wrapped up in the petty little things of life, this is a moment that we can reflect upon what is most important.”

Last year, the death toll for law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty dropped to its lowest numbers in more than 50 years. And while those are statistics that should be celebrated, Dade City Police Chief Ray Velboom warned that work to protect officers is still needed.

“While this number is gratifying somewhat, one life is still too many,” he said. “We as leaders continue to work hard to provide our officers with the awareness and training they need to confront the many dangers they are facing. We must strive to create a new culture of safety in law enforcement that addresses the elements of our job that we can control, such as driving habits.”

Two of Pasco’s deaths were from automobile accidents, including the most recent, Hernando County Sheriff’s deputy John Mecklenburg, who was killed during a high-speed chase on U.S. 41 in 2011 that crossed into Pasco County.

Pasco County Sheriff’s deputy John McCabe also died on U.S. 41, but in 1948, while responding to a call about stolen grove heaters.

“On this day, let us remember these men not by how they died, but how they walked among us, and whose lives they enriched in a thousand ways by their very existence,” said U.S. Circuit Court judge William Burgess III, after reading the roll call of the fallen officers.

Those officers honored also included Lt. Charles “Bo” Harrison, who was killed June 1, 2003, while doing surveillance near a Dade City nightclub. A sniper, whose only goal reportedly was to shoot a police officer, hid in the nearby woods, and shot Harrison in the back. Harrison, who was 56, was just 15 days away from retirement after 31 years of service.

Also remembered was a member of the Florida Highway Patrol, Trooper James Bradford-Jean Crooks, who was just 23 in May 1998 when he was slain by a man who had earlier killed two Tampa Police Department officers and a young boy. Brad Crooks, as he was known by, never had a chance to get out of his car, was shot and killed on the off-ramp of Interstate 75 into Wesley Chapel.

And then there was the first officer ever killed in Pasco in the line of duty. Sheldon Nicks was working with his father, Fivay town marshal H. Robert Nicks, to serve a warrant. When the man they were serving realized he was being arrested, he pulled a gun. The younger Nicks jumped in front of the bullet, saving his father, but died on May 8, 1909.

“None of whom we honor today can be defined by their deaths,” Florida Highway Patrol Capt. Kristina Quenneville said. “But by what is forever imprinted on the lives and hearts of those they have touched.”

Published May 7, 2014

Search for missing pilot turns to Citrus County

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Aerial searches continue Wednesday by Civil Air Patrol’s Florida Wing for a Zephyrhills pilot and his single-engine plane that has been missing since Saturday.

Those efforts are now focused on the Withlacoochee State Forest for Theodore Weiss and his Sonex homebuilt airplane. It was last seen Saturday at a Sonex event in Dunellon, when Weiss took off to head back to Zephyrhills Municipal Airport. However, family members declared him missing on Monday when his car was found at the airport and no sign of him or his plane.

Florida Wing aircraft are flying different routes to try and search the dense forest. Radar, according to officials, last detected Weiss’ plane in the area.

The forest is one of the largest state forests in Florida, covering more than 157,000 acres in Pasco, Hernando, Citrus and Sumter counties.

Searches also will be conducted along the route Weiss would have flown toward Zephyrhills had he turned in that direction from his last known location, Civil Air Patrol spokesman Maj. Joseph Tomasone said in a release.

The plane is white with green and black stripes.

Anyone with information is asked to contact their local sheriff’s office. The non-emergency number for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office is (727) 844-7711.

Sheriff’s office to honor volunteers Friday

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Volunteers will be the focus of a celebration Friday by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office at the annual Volunteers in Police Service Recognition Luncheon.

More than 230 volunteers contributed to nearly 70,000 documented hours in 2013 to the sheriff’s office. That donation of time equates to a $1.3 million in-kind contribution by these volunteers who did various things from parking enforcement, finger printing, working inside courthouses, and many other assignments throughout the county.

Volunteers who have accumulated between 100 and 1,000 hours will be honored Friday with the Presidential Service Award, while those achieving more than 4,000 lifetime volunteer hours will receive the President’s Lifetime Service Award.

Five volunteers will be selected in different categories for volunteer of the year. They include John Simmons in the citizen service unit category, Ian Goalan in parking enforcement, Suzanne Baginskie in support services, Lee Pagillo and Brenda Webb in mounted unit, and Lester McMahan in citizen service.

Simmons, a field training officer and volunteer since 2005, has contributed to training, development and implementing the agency’s new dispatch system within the volunteer unit. Goalan, a volunteer with the parking enforcement unit since 2009, recently became a field training officer and has displayed a commitment to the unit, the sheriff’s office said.

Baginskie is tasked with sending out meeting reminders, informing members of special events, attending all citizen academies, and many other events in the community as a volunteer secretary. She has donated her time with the agency since 2009.

Both Pagillo and Webb have assisted in mounted rescue missions, community rides, mall parking lot patrols and several other events throughout the county on their own horses. They each accumulated more than 580 volunteer hours in 2013.

McMahan has volunteered with the sheriff’s office since 2011, and is a crew leader at Safety Town. In 2013, he contributed 1,853 hours of service — 36 hours a week — to the agency.

The event starts at 11 a.m., and takes place inside Spartan Manor, 6121 Massachusetts Ave., in New Port Richey.

Volunteers who have served for 10 years or more include:

• Donna True (18 years, Reserve)
• Angela Signoriello (18 years, Safety Town)
• Frances Creegan (17 years, Victim Advocate)
• Francis “Frank” Hunt (14 years, Parking Enforcement)
• Michael McCoy (13 years, Reserve)
• Barbara Grimes (13 years, Parking Enforcement)
• Warren Sheridan (12 years, Criminal Investigation Division)
• Joseph Seidel (12 years, Criminal Investigation Division)
• Steve Salagaras (12 years, Reserve)
• Janet Hochendoner (11 years, Safety Town)
• Gerald Hochendoner (11 years, Safety Town)
• Charles Bergevin (11 years, Crime Prevention)
• Carolyn Lodge (11 years, Crime Prevention)
• David Lodge (11 years, Crime Prevention)
• Elisabeth Kracik (11 years, Safety Town)
• Michael Pulaski (10 years, Parking Enforcement)
• Gennaro Palladino (10 years, Reserve)
• Nellie Robinson (10 years, Safety Town)
• Robert Engle (10 years, Citizens Service Unit)
• Kenneth Warzyn (10 years, Court Services)