which our offices are located, walked
into our office one day and said he was
looking to spread the word about both
of his business endeavors. I asked him
about a cruise as the Grand Prize of
this year’s contest and...voila! We have
our biggest Dining Survey Contest
prize EVER!
We’ll be telling you a lot more
about Kirk and Ameribest/Ameriquest
in future issues, but until then, we hope
you’ll at leastt
fill out
this year’s much more user friendly (at
least, we hope you’ll think it is) entry
form and send it in to us for your
chance to win BIG! Second prize is a
$100 gift card to ANY restaurant in the
Tampa Bay area and we’ll again have at
least ten other free dining prizes worth
at least $20 you can win, too!
dent Shawn Harrison was one of those
who enjoyed strong support in his vic-
tory over Trey Stroud for the Republi-
can nomination for the District 60
state House seat that was vacated by
Dr. Ed Homan because of term limits.
While residents who are registered in
only four of New Tampa’s voting
precincts voted in that race, Harrison
easily won all four by a better-than-2-1
margin, 896 votes to Stroud’s 322.
Countywide, Harrison won by a mar-
gin of 5,150 to 3,543, and said he was
grateful for the show of support.
“If we’d have had this kind of
support three years ago, we would
have had a different story,” he said,
referring to his 2006 campaign for re-
election to the Tampa City Council,
when he was defeated after a poor
turnout from the New Tampa area.
Following the election, Harrison
said that he planned to take the Labor
Day holiday off from campaigning to
be with his family before hitting the
streets once again to continue to build
his support base for the Nov. 2 Gener-
al Election, where he will face the win-
ner of the Democratic primary, Russ
Patterson, who took more than 70
percent of the votes cast countywide in
that race to defeat Christopher Cano.
In New Tampa, Patterson had a 360-
171 advantage.
“I feel confident that we have a
good game plan,” Harrison says,
although he adds that the race will be
tougher than many people think, given
that District 60 includes a majority of
Democratic voters. Harrison says he
spent a lot of time prior to the primary
election going from door to door in
different parts of the district and plans
to do the same in the remaining weeks
leading up to the general election,
touting his business background and
selling his platform of stimulating the
state economy through “creating an
environment that will attract new busi-
ness to the area,” he says, which will,
in turn create new jobs.
Local Bank Robbery Spree Ends With
An Arrest; A Lively Debate About The
Proposed Transportation Tax, Local
Business Updates & Much More!
More Ideas For Your ‘Staycation’
Getaway; A Visit To The New Bella
Vita Restaurant (Formerly Circles), Our
OK, this year, we’re pulling out all
of the stops for our annual Reader Din-
ing Survey & Contest! All you have to
do is fill out the entry form on page 50
of this issue and you’ll have a chance to
win a spectacular 4-day, 3-night cruise
for two adults, with all meals and on-
ship entertainment included. This casi-
no cruise is courtesy of our new friends,
the new owners of what previously was
known as Flamingo Florist, but is now
actually two businesses —A
Kirk Kirkland, the new owner of
the florist and travel agency located in
the same Shoppes of Amberly plaza in
Although New Tampa historically
has not been known for having a large
percentage of its registered voters
actually go out and cast votes, especial-
ly in non-Presidential election years,
some local precincts actually exceeded
the countywide average for voter
turnout in the August 24 primary
election.
According to the official final tally
from the Hillsborough County Super-
visor of Elections office, only 124,675
of the county’s 666,642 registered
voters, or 18.7 percent, cast votes in
the primary. That includes absentee
and early voting, which officials say
more people took advantage of than
ever before. In fact, Saturday, August
21, the last day for early voting, set a
record for the highest single-day early
voting turnout in county history,
supervisor of elections Earl Lennard
said, with 3,614 voters voting on that
day alone. The previous high had been
3,374 in 2006. In all, 24,161 voters
voted at one of the 10 early voting
sites around the county, including
1,247 who did so at the New Tampa
Regional Library.
Meanwhile, the highest overall
turnout for the New Tampa area,
23.03 percent, came from Precinct
361, which also is at the library,
(where poll workers reported a steady
flow of voters on Election Day, despite
the rain that persisted throughout the
day and the fact that August 24 was
also the first day of school for Hills-
borough County students).
That turnout was followed closely
by Precinct 358 at Compton Park in
Tampa Palms, which registered a
22.17 percent voter turnout. Turnout
percentages at the rest of New
Tampa’s polling sites were lower than
the county average, but still averaged
better than 13 percent.
New Tampa voters also followed
the same general trend as voters in the
rest of the county in the candidates
that they supported during the pri-
mary election. Hunter’s Green resi-
-
-
received an anonymous
e-mail on our website asking me, “So
now, with the economy turning to
crap, how do you feel about your
endorsement of (President) Obama?”
Well actually, I feel pretty good
about it. I’ll admit 2009 was an
extremely difficult year, one which saw
my company and our publications
struggle the way so many local business
have and continue to struggle.
But, once we were rid of a few
employees who weren’t producing up
to their respective income levels and
put a few other belt-tightening meas-
ures in motion, I have to say that the
As you’ve likely noticed, if you’ve
been reading our all-direct-mail news
magazines for any period of time, the
steadily since the end of 2009 and this
summer — which is usually notoriously
slower than the fall, winter or spring
year after year — has been our biggest
and best summer everb
Our recent success is even more
impressive to me because, as you likely
know, the publishing business in gener-
al continues to shrink. Daily newspapers
across the U.S. continue to lose rev-
enue and employees at an alarming rate
and even national news magazines like
both lost millions in advertising rev-
enue and have raised their newsstand
prices in an effort to offset those losses.
The local dailies also continue to cut
employees, so you’re getting less cover-
age and fewer ads to check out while
you’re now being expected to pay 50
or 75 cents a day for what cost just a
quarter a couple of short years ago.
But, if you’ve read anything about
the publishing biz the last two years,
you probably know that “niche” publi-
cations like ours are the ones picking up
the slack. Even with everyone and their
brother trying to make a killing in
online advertising sales, the good news
for yours truly and my happy crew of
dedicated workers is that even though a
lot of local businesses have gone out of
business, there are still people moving
new ventures into many of the previ-
ously vacant office and retail spaces —
and those folks know they have to pro-
mote their businesses to make enough
money to keep their doors open.
The even better news is that when
those new businesses move into our
area, other companies in the same
plazas are telling the newcomers that
we are the best-known, best-read publi-
cation serving New Tampa and Wesley
Chapel and, for many, theo
The deadline for outside editorial submis-
sions and advertisements for Volume 18, Issue 21,
of New Tampa Neighborhood News is Friday, Sep-
tember 24, 2010.
previously non-published outside editorial submissions
if they are double spaced, typed and less than 500
words.New Tampa Neighborhood News reserves the
right to edit and/or reject all outside editorial submis-
sions and makes no guarantees regarding publication
dates. New Tampa Neighborhood News will not return
unsolicited editorial materials.
advertising beyond the actual cost of the advertising
space itself, not for the validity of any claims made by its
advertisers.© 2010 JM2 Communications, Inc.
Bank Robbery Spree Ends With Arrest
I-75 Widening Schedule Accelerated
Animal Shelters Offering Free Shots For Cats
City & County Watering Schedules Unchanged
YMCA Seeking Wesley Chapel Location
Two Sides Of The Proposed Transportation Tax........18 Palmside Barbershop Opens In Tampa Palms.............22 Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Associates................26 Avalon MedSpa Offers Unique Services.....................32 Family Wellness Center..............................................34
Freedom Wins, Wharton Loses In Football Openers
Freedom Lacrosse Player Named All-American
Derrick Brooks Hosting Charity Golf Tourney
ACT/SAT Test Dates Announced
News From Clark Elementary
IDS Kids Classic Set For Sept. 20
History Center Offering Free Admission For Teachers
The best news of all, however, is
that you, our wonderful readers, even
those who think they don’t love all of
the opinions I express in these editori-
als, very often tell these new businesses
that the Neighborhood News is theo
local publication you read cover-to-
cover every time it hits your mailboxes.
Many of you also tell me and my
employees the same thing, which we
appreciate, but the fact that you ask
new business owners why you haven;t
seen their ad in this publication is still
the strongest sales tool we have — as it
has been since the very beginning!
personally thank every reader or even
every advertiser who has not only kept
us afloat but allowed us to grow in the
face of one of the worst recessions in
U.S. history, I did want to take a
moment to thank you in these pages.
ers and advertisers alike can continue to
reap the benefits. I certainly can’t
attribute our growth directly to Presi-
dent Obama and I know there are still
tough times ahead for many of us, but I
believe we are heading in the right
direction and look forward to 2011.
