CRESTVIEW — Construction has advanced enough on a new Crestview assisted living and memory care community that reservations are being made.

Eden at Crestview, to be located at 575 Redstone Ave. W. in Crestview, is going to be 45,500 square feet and provide living space to 70 residents.

Eden Executive Director Alan Woods said the community will employ 30 or more staff members. They will provide a maintenance-free lifestyle for seniors who enjoy active lifestyles, comfortable accommodations, southern hospitality and personal support services, according to Woods.

Amenities include a dining room with restaurant-style dining, a bistro with bar, salon, library, activities room, sitting areas and a card room.

Eden at Crestview will provide community updates at a local restaurant for those who have reserved an apartment, their loved ones and people interested in assisted living/memory care who would like to know more.

Email Woods at alan@livingateden.com for information on Eden at Crestview, a brochure listing its services, or to get the community updates newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Eden at Crestview to provide assisted living and memory care

CRESTVIEW — The Crestview city council held a special meeting Monday night to discuss adding proposed changes to the city’s charter to the August 28 primary election ballot. The council favored two separate ballot questions for deciding on the form of government and deciding whether the city or voters would select the city clerk.

The proposed change would replace the current “weak mayor” form of city government with a city manager form of government. Under that system, a city manager would be appointed by the city council to run the day-to-day operations of the city. All department heads would report to the city manager.

There has been some debate over whether to include a provision in the ballot question that states the city clerk would be appointed instead of elected, or to allow voters to decide that issue in a separate ballot question.

Scott Shirley, a Tallahassee attorney who is contracted by the city, urged the council to present a single ballot question that includes the city clerk provision.

The council members in attendance, however, had reservations about doing so due to previous failed attempts to change the city charter. City Council President JB Whitten referenced a previous council meeting where Supervisor of Elections Paul Lux told the council that the attempt to amend the charter in 2012 failed due to “voter fatigue and the amount of information in the referendum item.”

Council members argued that including the city clerk provision would be unfair to voters who might want to adopt a city manager form of government, but would prefer an elected city clerk over an appointed one.

“If you have these things tied together and you don’t like one thing, you’re going to vote no against the whole thing, and you just shot it down,” Whitten said.

Councilman Shannon Hayes echoed Whitten’s concerns.

“To be fair to all the citizens, we definitely need a separation between the clerk and the form of government with the manager,” Hayes said.

Shirley suggested that if the single ballot question failed, it could be brought up again as multiple questions on a future ballot.

“You can have a single ballot question that approves the entire charter,” Shirley said. “If it doesn’t pass, then you can have additional ballot questions on specific issues of importance.”

Councilman Doug Faircloth raised the issue that the questions would then be on a municipal election ballot, which he said have had low turnout in the past. The council targeted the August 28 primary ballot because of its historically higher voter turnout.

“I think this is about the fifth stab at this,” Faircloth said. “Everybody has worked long and hard on this and I sure would hate to see it fail just because they disagreed with one thing in that one question.”

Shirley also raised the concern that he would not have enough time to come up with two separate questions for the ballot. The deadline to have the questions to the supervisor of elections is June 15, making the deadline for the council to have the first reading of the ordinance May 14, just two weeks away.

Whitten said he was concerned that any delay could cause the question to not be approved in time to make it onto the August 28 ballot.

“I’m going to use every ounce of my body to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Whitten said.

Shirley talked about the difficulty involved in coming up with two questions on short notice.

“It is going to require some significant wordsmithing to make that happen, to make separate ballot questions happen,” Shirley said. “We can give it a shot to see if we can crank it out quickly enough if that’s what you want to do.”

Whitten then pointedly asked Shirley if he could get the job done within the timeframe.

“I don’t want you to give it a shot,” Whitten said. “If you think you can’t do it, then we’ll find someone that can, because we want this on the August 28 ballot. That’s what we want.”

Shirley said he could do it.

The council then voted unanimously to have Shirley come back with two separate questions by the May 14 city council meeting.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Council discusses city charter changes

CRESTVIEW — Officials from local and state agencies will convene for a workshop this week to discuss plans for a bypass around Crestview.

The workshop will take place at 10 a.m., May 3 at Warrior’s Hall with representatives from the Crestview City Council, Okaloosa County Board of Commissioners and Florida Department of Transportation in attendance

State senators and representatives from the area will also be there, including Senator George Gainer, who is expected to chair the meeting. Representatives from Eglin Air Force base were invited to attend, but have not been confirmed at the time of this writing.

The main goal of the workshop is to get all of the invited government agencies to reach a consensus on a plan to relieve traffic along state road 85 in Crestview.

A conceptual plan that shows a future bypass looping around the city will be discussed as part of the presentation. Some of the groundwork for the bypass is already approved and underway, including widening PJ Adams Parkway and building a new interchange along Interstate 10 at Antioch Road.

City Council President J.B. Whitten, who helped organize the workshop, said there is a need to get each agency on board with one plan that encompasses each project involved in the traffic plan.

“I won’t say that everything we’re trying to do is going to die if we don’t get a consensus, but I would say that we’re going to lose a lot of impact if we can’t reach an agreement on this,” Whitten said.

Whitten's hope is that by the end of the meeting, he said, each agency is focused on the same plan for future traffic improvements, which he says should help the process move faster.

“I’m not going to say that all this stuff is going to go away if we don’t do that, but I think it’s going to get dragged out,” he said. “It’s going to go through the same process it’s going through now. You look at the dates on that … it’s not going to happen in my lifetime if we keep doing it this way.”

The transportation workshop will be open to the public and officials encourage participation.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: State, local officials to talk about traffic solutions

CRESTVIEW — Turnout was strong for Crestview’s second annual Strawberry Festival on Saturday.

The event, which was held April 28 on Woodruff Avenue between Main Street and Wilson Street in downtown Crestview, saw a steady flow of people throughout the morning. The weather was perfect for a festival, with clear, blue skies and temperatures hovering just under 80 degrees.

“We have the best turnout that we could ask for,” Sandra Wilson, Main Street Crestview Association program manager, said. “Everybody seems to be super happy.”

The festival featured more than 30 craft vendors, live music and of course, strawberries. Some of the crafts on display included artwork, woodworked items, soaps, jewelry, purses and food items like honey and cupcakes. The one thing they all had in common: They were all handmade.

Most of the vendors were from around the Crestview area, but there were also vendors set up from Alabama and as far away as Michigan.

Dan Wright, an author traveling the country to promote his series of children’s books, is from Grand Rapids, Michigan. His books are targeted at young boys to encourage them to get into reading. He has been on the road for four weeks and has made stops all around the south, including the Strawberry Festival.

“It’s a great festival, it seems like everybody came out to support it,” Wright said. “It’s been awesome. I really appreciate everybody stopping by the booth, asking questions and buying lots of books.”

Larry Hunter, who is from Crestview, came to the festival to sell his handmade cedar products.

“I’ve got cedar chests, cedar jewelry boxes, cedar birdhouses, cedar everything that you can think of, all made out of aromatic red cedar,” Hunter said.

Hunter was pleasantly surprised by the turnout, saying he was told to expect around 3,700 people to show up over the course of the festival, which ran from 9 am til 3 pm.

Last year’s Strawberry Festival, the inaugural event, was a much smaller affair. This year’s event met the demand for a downtown springtime festival.

“We didn’t have anything in Crestview in the spring after the Triple B, so we wanted to bring something in,” Wilson said.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Strawberry Festival highlights local craft vendors

CRESTVIEW — An Olympic medalist returned to Crestview this week, her hometown of 10 years.

Mayor David Cadle presented Mia Manganello with a key to the city at an April 24 ceremony at Warrior’s Hall. County Commissioner Graham Fountain also issued a proclamation declaring the day Mia Manganello Day.

“It’s overwhelming; it really is,” Manganello said. “You leave and you don’t really expect people to remember you, and then to come back and just be overwhelmed by their love and support, it’s magical. It’s better than having the medal.”

Manganello was part of the U.S. Women’s speed skating team that won the bronze medal in the team pursuit event at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. It was the first medal for U.S. Women’s speed skating in 16 years.

It was an event the team wasn’t even supposed to compete in originally. The U.S. team was the last team out in qualifiers, but Russia was unable to field a team due to a doping scandal involving Russian athletes. Manganello and her teammates learned that they would be competing in the event just two weeks prior to the start of the Olympics.

“We had no idea how we would do because we’d never raced together,” Manganello said. “It helped having this mindset where we didn’t have expectations going to the line.”

Manganello, whose parents still live in the area and own a pizza restaurant in Valparaiso, gave an emotional speech crediting her parents and their sacrifices for her success.

“I really tried to hold it together, and then I turned around and saw my mom,” Manganello said after the event. “She cries. I cry. Done. Every time.”

It was an emotional return to the area for Manganello, where she spent the first years of her life before moving away at the age of 10 to jumpstart her skating career.

“To have each and every one of you here is absolutely amazing,” Manganello said, holding back tears as she addressed the audience.

Mayor Cadle introduced two of Manganello’s former elementary school teachers, Leigh Campbell and Jill Adams. Both still teach at Walker Elementary School.

“Community means so much to us. Where you start out really has a big place in your heart,” Cadle said.

After the event, Manganello stayed to take pictures and autograph flyers for fans. She said she enjoyed the idea of helping to inspire children and give them some extra encouragement to pursue their goals.

Manganello was surprised by how many people came out to support her, and was appreciative of the people from the town she once called home.

“It means the world to me to have their support. It’s just crazy how much love they have for me,” she said. “That love that you feel is something else, and I hope everybody in life feels that at some point.

“I’ll live wherever I end up, but Crestview will always be my home.”

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: 'Crestview will always be my home'

CRESTVIEW — If you have an event you would like to submit, send your first and last name and information about the event to news@crestviewbulletin.com.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: 3 things to do this week in Northwest Florida

CRESTVIEW — Ten years ago, Mary Valdez hated running. Last week, she ran the Boston Marathon.

Valdez, a Crestview resident, finished the April 16 race in just under four hours, with an official time of 3:56.42 in cold, wet and windy conditions.

“Running, to me, is like coffee for other people,” she said, adding that she gets grumpy if she doesn’t have her morning run. “When I’m going to bed, I’ve got my workout clothes prepared.”

Running is a major part of her life now, but it wasn’t always that way.

“When I was growing up, I hated (physical education),” Valdez said. As an adult, she made the decision to start working out to get in shape.

“I started running and I hated it,” she said. “Three miles on a treadmill was the most painful thing. It was just miserable to me.”

It was her sister who inspired Valdez to take on her first marathon. Her thinking was that if her sister could do it, so could she. She started training and ran that first marathon in 2010.

“I hated every minute of it,” she said. “It was awful and I never wanted to run again.”

But she was motivated to beat her time and ran another marathon soon after. Before long, she was running longer races, including 50- and 100-mile races. She won the 100-mile Wildcat 100 Ultramarathon in Pensacola in 2016, beating out the next-closest female competitor by more than eight hours.

Valdez had qualified for the Boston Marathon prior to this year, but never seriously entertained the idea of competing in it.

“I didn’t think that I belonged at Boston,” she said. “Those are the elite [runners]. I didn’t belong there, so I didn’t even attempt to go through the process because it was this big, scary thing.”

While working for Gordon Martial Arts in Crestview, Valdez trained and started to improve on her race times. After she qualified for the Boston Marathon at races in both Pensacola and Panama City Beach, her friends pushed her to take on the challenge in Boston.

When she got to Boston and the day of the race finally came, she did not get the warm weather she had hoped for.

“I could not feel my toes for the first three miles of that race,” she said. “I don’t do well in cold.”

She realized that it was going to be a rough morning on the shuttle ride from Boston to the starting point of the marathon in the suburb of Hopkinton, Mass.

“I’m looking out the windows and I see snow on the side of the road.”

The snow was not a welcome sight for a Floridian without much in the way of winter clothes. Neither was the rain that did not let up for the duration of the race and became heavy at times.

Despite the poor conditions, Valdez pushed through, motivated by friends and family who accompanied her, as well as spectators along the course route.

“You hear them cheering before you even approach that city,” she said, referring to the eight cities the route winds its way through. She remembers hearing one spectator shout words of encouragement to the “lady in pink” as she passed the infamous Heartbreak Hill.

After crossing the finish line and reuniting with the friends and family that came to support her, the reality of her accomplishment set in and she fought back tears while posing for a victory photo.

“I would not have had the guts to go if it were not for my friends pushing me along to do it.”

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview woman takes on Boston Marathon

CRESTVIEW — The Crestview city council advanced three items on the agenda at its April 23 workshop.

The items discussed were an overhaul of the city’s property maintenance code, an update of the flood damage prevention ordinance and a change to council rules regarding scheduled public presentations. Council members also agreed to hold a special meeting April 30 to discuss elements of the new proposed city charter.

The city’s growth management department was responsible for rewriting the property maintenance code, which outlines rules for buildings, exterior property areas and features like swimming pools and lawns, among other things.

“I’ve reviewed this several times and I think it covers what the city’s looking for as far as the maintenance and the upkeep of structures and automobiles in the yard and falling-down structures,” council member Shannon Hayes said. “I’m glad to see that we finally have this where I think it needs to be.”

The proposed changes to the property maintenance code will go before the council at the May 14 regular meeting. Members of the public will have the opportunity to comment on it at that time.

Modifications to the flood damage prevention ordinance were necessary due to it being outdated and no longer up to state standards. Teresa Gaillard, director of the growth management department, said that “band-aids” had been applied to the now more than 20-year-old ordinance over the years, but that it now required a full rewrite.

“It’s simply modifying the verbiage of our old ordinance, and the easiest way to do that is to delete the old ordinance and adopt in our new verbiage in a format that is approved by the state, approved by FEMA and the other entities that we must address in the environmental area,” Gaillard said.

The third topic of discussion was a revision of the council’s rules on scheduled presentation by members of the public at city council meetings. If the council adopts the proposed changes, members of the public wishing to make a presentation must present documentation to the city clerk 12 days prior to the council meeting so that council members have time to review the material.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: City council talks property code, flood prevention

CRESTVIEW — First responders sent eight people to the hospital April 24 after a motor vehicle crash on P.J. Adams Parkway in Crestview.

Commuters should expect delays along State Road 85 and associated streets as the crash has closed PJ Adams in both directions.

Witnesses say the crash occurred when a car traveling near the bus drifted into the bus' lane and the bus driver swerved to avoid it. One of the vehicles involved rolled over.

Crestview Police Department officers were still at the scene at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday.

More information will be made available as the situation progresses.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Okaloosa Transit bush crash sends 8 to hospital

CRESTVIEW — If you’ve read anything about what the Crestview Police Department has done in the community over the last few years, you’ve probably heard the name Wanda Hulion.

Hulion is a community services officer in the department and was recently named Crestview Police Department’s officer of the year for 2017. Along with her partner, Sam Kimmons, she is involved in a number of community outreach programs.

She heads the citizen’s police academy, the youth academy and coordinates neighborhood watch groups, school zones and safety presentations. She is also heavily involved in the department’s charitable events.

“I think probably our favorite thing to do is what we call our toy run,” Hulion said. “Usually one or two days before Christmas, we load a trailer up with whatever toys we have leftover or if we have small items that have been donated, stuffed animals, things like that.

“We’ll load the trailer up and we go over into public housing and hit the sirens and the kids come out and get stuff. We love that. You’re always warm and fuzzy after that. It makes you feel real good.”

Hulion was born and raised in Crestview and has a passion for helping her community. She has spent more than a decade in law enforcement, the last five in community services.

“First and foremost, I’m a wife and a mother,” is what she tells everyone. After her children grew up and left home, she wondered what she was going to do for the next 20 years. She spoke with a former CPD officer who got her interested in law enforcement.

“I spent a year in dispatch, which I think makes you better officer,” she said. She then spent six years on patrol, which she called challenging, but said she “absolutely loved it.”

Hulion took a community services job when it came open and hasn’t looked back. She said the most rewarding part of the job is when people say thank you. Whether it’s from a low-income family receiving food donations for the holidays or a bag of goodies from a school bus driver, gestures of appreciation mean the most to Hulion.

Another important aspect of community policing, according to Hulion, is treating people with respect.

“You arrest somebody and you treat them with respect,” she said. “Yeah, you’ve got to take their freedom. You’re taking them to jail, but you treat them with the respect they deserve. Until they treat me differently, I try to give them respect.”

Hulion said the way to lift a community up is by getting involved to help change things for the better.

“Every community has got problems; Crestview’s got their problems. But as a citizen, why sit around and just gripe and complain about it if you’re not willing to step up and try to make a difference and change something?

“You don’t have to change it all, and you haven’t got to make huge changes, but if we all pull together, we all do our little bit, we can bring it up some. We can change it. We can improve it.”

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Officer of the year has passion for helping community