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Police say boy was pulled along SUV

By Times Staff Writer
Published October 12, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT Christina L. Adams, 27, was charged with felony child abuse.

PINELLAS PARK 

Police arrested a 27-year-old woman on a felony child abuse charge late Wednesday after they say she dangled her 5-year-old son out the window of a moving sport utility vehicle.

Witnesses told police Christina L. Adams was seen holding the boy out of the front passenger side of a black 1998 GMC Jimmy around 11:45 p.m.

Witnesses also told police Adams made the boy keep up with the slow-moving SUV by clasping his hand as the car cruised along the 6600 block of 43rd Street N.

Police said the SUV was carrying three adults - Adams, Ariane Parsons, 23, and driver Joseph West - and three children - the 5-year-old victim and two other boys, ages 4 and 10.

When police stopped the vehicle, Adams, 5875 70th Ave. N, appeared "extremely intoxicated and belligerent towards officers," according to a Pinellas Park police press release. She was booked into the Pinellas County Jail. Bail was set at $5,000.

West, 49, the SUV's driver, was tested for driving under the influence. Police spokesman Capt. Sandy Forseth said West had been drinking, but not enough to file DUI charges.

Reached by phone this morning, West denied the witnesses' version of what happened. He called it "a big misunderstanding."

"It wasn't child abuse," West said. "It was a mistake."

West said he just left the carnival at the 36th annual Fall Festival at Sacred Heart Catholic Church and was dropping of his friends.

No other charges have been filed. Forseth said a state attorney's office investigation is under way.

The 5-year-old boy was not injured. All three boys were released to a family member.

Casey Cora, Times staff writer 

NEW PORT RITCHIE

Financing wanes for plans to widen I-75

When it comes to state officials' plans to widen Interstate 75, the spirit is willing but the wallet is weak.

Design plans are on the drawing board to widen the highway to six lanes from Bruce B. Downs Boulevard to State Road 52, but only two portions of the project will see the light of day in the next three years.

One of them is a $43-million package to widen and lengthen the bridge over County Road 54, due to begin in 2009. That would allow state traffic planners to later add lanes on the bridge and accommodate Pasco County's plans to widen CR 54.

The other is a $48-million plan to add two northbound exit lanes toward SR 56, due to begin in 2010. Planners hope the lanes would untangle the weaving that happens today when northbound drivers try to switch between I-275 and I-75.

Officials from the state Department of Transportation laid out these plans at a county metropolitan planning meeting Thursday.

The rest of the $442-million interstate widening project is unfunded.

The CR 54 bridge and SR 56 ramp projects are still in the cards because Pasco committed $10-million of Penny for Pasco funds to kick-start them.

Additional Pasco County funds, extracted from the Wiregrass Ranch development project, are on the way to pay for the I-75 widening between SR 56 and the apex, which is where I-75 forks with I-275.

NEW PORT RICHEY

Pasco firefighters to get raises after all

Pasco firefighters will get raises of at least 2.5 percent after a state board found that the county improperly excluded them from pay increases last year.

The pay will be retroactive to October 2006 and will cost the county $1.1-million, personnel director Barbara DeSimone said Thursday.

The Florida Public Employees Relations Commission found that the county violated state law on labor negotiations when it withheld the raises in 2006.

DADE CITY

Lacking answers, residents bring issues

For a development that's asking to bring nearly 4,000 homes and 260,000 square feet of stores and offices to the Curley Road area, a neighborhood meeting with existing residents might seem like a good idea.

But that's one thing that the developers of 2,000-acre Epperson Ranch and Pasco officials didn't do before they brought the proposal before the county's top staff planning body Thursday.

That omission brought Wesley Chapel residents to the Development Review Committee on Thursday, armed with complaints.

[Last modified October 11, 2007, 23:35:54]