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Week in Review

By TIMES WIRES
Published December 17, 2006

Commissioners okay private helipad in Lake Magdalene: The newly constituted Hillsborough County Commission approved an oil executive's request for a helicopter landing pad at his lakefront home.

The rezoning passed Tuesday in a 4-3 vote.

The four commissioners who favored the zoning change received a total of $15,500 in campaign contributions in the last election from the executive and his family, friends and associates.

But one of those commissioners, Mark Sharpe, said campaign contributions were not a factor in his decision.

"I don't spend any time looking at who gives me money," he said after the meeting. "But when I looked at this ... I was excited about it," Sharpe said about Tony Ferguson's helipad proposal.

Giving Ferguson the flexibility to fly, Sharpe said, is a "recruitment tool" for area economic development.

"(Executives) moving into our community are looking for mobility options ... as a growing metropolitan community, it's important to have alternative modes of travel," he said.

The commissioner who represents the north Hillsborough district was not so convinced.

"I don't think it was compatible to be in a residential neighborhood," said Ken Hagan, who lives in the Lake Magdalene area, just south of Ferguson's home.

Sentencing delayed in Lutz hit-and-run: Sentencing was postponed for Micah Azbill, a floor installer who pleaded guilty last month to leaving the scene of an accident after striking and killing a 16-year-old girl in Lutz.

The Public Defender's Office, representing Azbill, requested a delay until February. Azbill faces 15 years in prison for the March 17 accident. He was driving a car that hit and killed Devyn Burke as she crossed U.S. 41, a busy six-lane highway. Azbill drove away and was arrested shortly after the 10 p.m. accident when his car broke down. He has been in the Hillsborough County Jail ever since.

Temple Terrace man charged with defrauding his employer: Robert Todd Dollar spent 3 1/2 months stealing more than $87,000 before someone noticed, investigators said.

As a project manager for Tampa's Turner Construction, Dollar, 45, cashed checks that clients wrote to Turner and then told his boss the clients never paid, said company owner Scott Turner.

Dollar, of 630 Druid Hills Road in Temple Terrace, also double-billed construction jobs to Turner and used the extra materials for side jobs. He often did these extra jobs while being paid to work at a Turner job site, and he pulled in Turner personnel to work on them, sheriff's deputies said.

Turner said the company caught on when Dollar cashed a $7,600 check from a client. When someone investigated, the client said they had never heard of Turner Construction.

It turned out that Dollar had done the work under the name of his failed former company, American Construction Experts, authorities say.

"He got sloppy. They all do it - it's classic," said Hillsborough Sheriff's Office Detective Howard Lopez, who arrested Dollar on charges of grand theft and fraud.

[Last modified December 16, 2006, 21:01:16]