Building a community of faith, hope, and love.

22 June 2008

My friends,

I have lots of good news to share with you. First of all, the new modular buildings have arrived on our school campus. The four units will be combined to form a science lab and classroom and will be joined to our present Angels Wing. The added classrooms will enable us to serve more children in our school and improve the quality of our education. They will also be used for our Religious Education Program and other parish ministries. The additions are being paid for by our school. If you have expertise in construction or painting and can lend a hand, please contact Tom Doyle in the parish office.

Secondly, just before I left our parish pilgrimage to Ireland, I informed Bishop Lynch of our strategic plan and all that we are doing in preparation for the construction of a new church and parish life center. I asked for his blessing to go forward with the implementation of our strategic plan. Bishop Lynch quickly replied stating "I wish to encourage you to proceed and find nothing in your letter which raises any concern on my part. I especially believe that a large worship space (permanent Church) is absolutely essential ... best wishes and prayers for a successful conclusion to the planning and development phases." God is good!

In order to begin revising our Master Plan, we had to first resolve the eminent domain issues arising from the widening of Boyette Road. Last Friday, several members of our parish and representatives from the diocese and our attorneys entered mediation with 13 Hillsborough County officials in mediation. I have to say that I was VERY impressed by the quality of representation both on behalf of the Church and the county. You should know that we have an incredibly talented and dedicated group of public servants looking out for your best interests. It quickly became apparent that we all had the same interests in mind: namely, the safety of our parishioners and all those who drive by our property.

The end result was the County will take the necessary land to widen Boyette Road. It will construct an east bound deceleration lane and an extended west bound turn lane to help avoid rear end collisions. While the County is not able to install a full traffic light at this point in time, it will install all of the conduits for future installation. They will adjust the present school warning lights and will also install very special "wig wag" lights. The first of their kind in our County, there will be two vertical yellow blinking lights for each of the four lanes. These will be activated during peak travel times upon our request. The intent is to warn the upcoming traffic so that the danger of accidents will be lessened. The County will also reimburse us for the land it will require for the additional lanes. All this must be approved by Bishop Lynch and the County Commissioners. In sum, I think we all walked away from the mediation feeling that the interests of the parish and our fellow citizens were extremely well served. I for one, also came away with a renewed respect for our County officials and our Diocesan offices. It is good to see our tax dollars and Annual Pastoral Appeal donations hard at work for us!

The next step is to actually hire an architect to help us create a new Master Site Plan (look on this page to see pictures of some of the churches we’ve been looking at). This will involve widespread parish consultation (again!) this August. We will try to have it finished as soon as possible so that we can design the actual buildings and begin our Capital Campaign.

I hope you will join me in giving thanks to God for all the blessings our parish has received. I hope you will also write to our County officials and thank them for being so responsive to concerns for the safety of all those who enter or drive by our Boyette Road campus.

Building a community of faith, hope, and love,

Fr. Bill Swengros
Pastor

Road Construction Ahead! Thank you for writing to our county commissioners regarding the widening of Boyette Road. Let them know how grateful we are for all of their support. Our County Commissioners are: Rose Ferlita, Ken Hagan, Kevin White, Al Higginbotham, Jim Norman, Brian Blair and Mark Sharpe (Hillsborough County Government, Post Office Box 1110, Tampa, FL 33601; (813) 272-5660; http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/bocc/about/contactus.cfm).

(pictures from Annunciation in Altamone Springs, St Joseph in Jacksonville, Our Lady Queen of Peace in Ocala, and St Timothy in The Villages)