Special to The Laker/Lutz News

By B.C. Manion

As workers across America prepare for the three-day Labor Day weekend, millions of people continue to search for jobs.

Some of those workers have joined support groups that offer emotional and practical help in their quest.

Two of those support groups meet in north Hillsborough County.

One meets at St. Paul Catholic Church on Thursday mornings and the other meets at Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church on Tuesday evenings.

Both groups strive to offer a place where people between jobs can get help with such practical matters as brushing up their resumes, honing their interview skills and networking to find vacancies that are never posted in newspaper classified advertisements or on job boards.

Bob Saxon is a volunteer that has been helping unemployed people get back into the work force since 2002. He’s met thousands of people who have lost their jobs during the past decade.

“We’ve had everybody in there from a homeless person to someone making a six-figure salary,” said Saxon, who used to run a job search ministry at Idlewild and now volunteers at St. Paul.

“We’ve had widows who have been married for 30 years,” said Jim Carow, a volunteer facilitator at the iWork, the job search ministry at Idlewild. The retirement funds didn’t last as long as expected, and now they’re out looking for work, he said. “They don’t have any idea how to find a job.”

Nationally, official figures put the unemployment rate at 9.1 percent in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Florida, the unemployment rate was 10.7 percent during the same period. The rate was 12 percent in Pasco County and 11 percent in Hillsborough County, according to statistics released by the state’s Agency for Workforce Innovation.

Carow said those numbers do not tell the full story. They don’t reflect everyone looking for work, and they don’t include people who are underemployed, he said.

Larry LaBelle, owner of the Training Tamer, Inc., a private company that provides coaching and training for job seekers and employers, provides pro bono help to the groups at St. Paul and Idlewild, as well as a group called Real Estate Lives. Real Estate Lives, founded by land-use attorney Ron Weaver, is a Tampa-based group established to help people who lost their jobs because of the housing crash.

Lots of help is needed in today’s market, Saxon said, noting competition for jobs is fierce and job seekers must make a compelling case to stand out from the crowd.

“I think the No. 1 obstacle I’ve see in people is their resumes. They’re not doing enough to sell themselves,” LaBelle said.

Resumes should have a professional summary statement – identifying what the candidate brings to the table.

“It needs to be a sales pitch,” he said.

Resumes also must include a list of core strengths and must provide measurable accomplishments throughout each job experience listed, in order to persuade potential employers of what a candidate has to offer, LaBelle said.

“You have to show the value of what you’ve been doing,” LaBelle said.

A resume must be concise, he added.

“People can drone on and on. The more specific and compelling they can be, the better,” LaBelle said.

Job seekers must be ready to seize the moment, said Jim Kissane, volunteer facilitator at St. Paul’s job search group.

“You’ve got to put yourself out there with total abandon. It’s a now or never kind of thing,” he said.

Kissane said job seekers need to remember: “People only hire for two reasons: They’re trying to save money or make money.”

To get hired, applicants must be ready to produce evidence revealing past experiences when they got results, Kissane said.

The landscape for job seekers has changed dramatically over the years, Saxon said.

Allan Teixeira, of Land O’ Lakes, who was laid off from his job in June as a financial analyst for Clayton Services, said he was not ready for those changes.

“I kind of got caught off guard,” said Teixeira, who said he had no idea how important it is to develop a vast professional network.

He said he was focused on his job, not on developing a network of contacts on social media sites.

He’s also concerned that a mismatch between his educational credentials and his work experience will keep him from getting in front of hiring managers.

Teixeira has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural operations management and a master’s degree in agricultural engineering. But his work experience is in financial analysis.

“I’m kind of what they call an accidental accountant,” Teixeira said.

That disconnect might not matter in a healthy economy, he said. But, he added: “It’s a buyer’s market. That creates for me some very unique problems.”

There are many, good qualified people who are seeking work, so employers are less likely to take a chance on someone who is not a perfect match for their requirements, Teixeira said.

The nature of today’s job search can be discouraging, too, he said.

“Much of the job search is automated,” Teixeira said. “The Internet can be very dehumanizing.”
Dan Waters, another job seeker at a recent St. Paul’s meeting, said he’s been doing as much networking as he can to improve his chances of finding work, which is why he attends sessions at St. Paul and other support groups.

His background is in pre-construction estimating for commercial building construction, but Waters said he has expanded his search to consider a broader range of opportunities.

Kevin McDonald, who attended his first session at St. Paul, said he worked in public safety for years then decided to make the switch into insurance sales.

It turns out that he couldn’t close sales as well as he’d hoped.

So, now McDonald is back in the job market and he’s glad there are places like St. Paul where he can get help from other job seekers and from people who have put together all sorts of useful information.

He’s glad he can learn from other people’s experience, he said.

Those attending the networking groups at both St. Paul and Idlewild will find there’s a spiritual component to the sessions.

During the recent St. Paul meeting, Kissane reminded those gathered that God will help them as they encounter life’s struggles. He also pointed out a message in many spiritual teachings that, “from adversity comes new beginnings.”

Carow said those attending Idlewild meetings receive spiritual support, job search help and nourishment, too.

“We feed the whole group,” Carow said.

Unfortunately, he added, “we know, for sure, that sometimes this is the only meal that they’re (some of those gathered) going to eat that day.”

 

Job seeker resources

 

St. Paul Catholic Church, 12708 N. Dale Mabry Highway

Between Jobs Support Group

Meets Thursday mornings, 8:30-11 a.m.

For more information, contact Jim Kissane: (813) 264-3316

 

Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church, 18371 N.Dale Mabry Highway

iWork In Between Careers Ministry

Meets Tuesday evenings 6:30-9 p.m.

For more information, call (813) 264-8771

Real Estate Lives, go to www.Realestatelives.org for more information

 

By Kyle LoJacono

 See the new districts

The Pasco County Commission and school board adopted new district lines for the next 10 years with significantly less political attention than its neighbor Hillsborough County.

The only real debate for the two Pasco boards was if Gulf High should be in District 4 or 5, a relatively minor matter according to Commission Chairwoman Ann Hildebrand.

“I was really happy we didn’t get into a lot of heated arguments like you usually see when districts are redrawn,” said Hildebrand, of New Port Richey. “One school’s district was the only thing that held us up at all. … We decided to put Gulf in District 4.”

Hillsborough had more arguments about the new districts, including Democratic Commissioner Kevin Beckner arguing the county’s new lines were drawn to “keep Republicans in power.” No such accusations were made during Pasco’s workshop — though all five commissioners in Pasco are Republicans.

Pasco realigns the five districts for the county government and school board every 10 years to reflect changes in population. The U.S. Census shows there are 464,695 residents in the county, so each district needs to have as close to 92,939 people as possible.

The most apparent change with the new lines is the shift of representation east. The previous alignment had three of the commissioners and board members based entirely west of the Suncoast Parkway. Now all five stretch east of the highway.

“All of the growth during the last 10 years has been in District 2,” said County Administrator John Gallagher. “We needed to bring those districts more eastward to represent that growth.”

District 2 is represented by Commissioner Pat Mulieri, who has been on the board for the last 17 years.

“It was a big shift,” Mulieri said. “All the time I’ve been a commissioner there has always been more people in the west. Things have changed a lot.”

Mulieri said she would like to continue representing all the people who re-elected her last November, but understands that is not possible.

“It is actually a good thing because when more commissioners are representing this area, that means more people are looking out of those communities,” Mulieri said. “It used to just be me advocating for this area. Now it’s basically all the commissioners.”

Ted Schrader’s District 1, which was already the largest district in terms of land mass, grew even more. The east Pasco district now stretches further west of I-75 and north of SR 52 past the Suncoast.

Schrader said he liked how the new districts followed “logical boundaries,” such as major roadways.

One of the more unusual-looking alignments is Hildebrand’s District 3, which stretches from the Gulf coast to Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in Wesley Chapel. It mainly stays south of the SR54/SR 56 corridor.

At the workshop, Gallagher joked that the new District 3 makes sense for Hildebrand because “you spend most of your time over there shopping.”

Hildebrand got a laugh out from the observation.

“I do enjoy the malls in Wesley Chapel,” Hildebrand said.

The new districts have similar population totals, all within 500 of the others. The schools are not evenly distributed however, with three districts having 15, District 1 having 19 and District 4 having 20. District 3 school board member Cynthia Armstrong said the nature of how the county redistricts makes it hard to be completely balanced.

“I don’t think there’s any way to keep the schools perfectly balanced,” Armstrong said. “I’m amazed they came out as balanced as they did.”

Pasco has five government commissioners, which are elected by the entire county but must live within the zone they represent.

Pasco’s government and school district lines are identical. The new lines go into effect next year.

By B.C. Manion

She lives at Heartland Zephyrhills, a nursing home in Zephyrhills, but during her glory years, Frances Ingalls acted with Helen Hayes, Dorothy and Lillian Gish and other megastars of the day.

The 88 year old said she became enamored with acting while she was still in high school.

She was cast in the role of “Topsy” in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and she made the most of the part.

The response by the audience was encouraging.

“What I did made people laugh,” she said.

The native of Pelham, N.Y., wanted to be a doctor when she was a little girl, according to a Dec. 25, 1961 report in the Boston Globe. But then her interest shifted to acting while she was in high school.

She wound up becoming both a nurse and an actress.

During the day, she donned her uniform and nursing cap and tended to patients; at night, she put on costumes and turned her attention to the audience.

Over the years, she accumulated quite a number of acting credits for work done on Broadway, off-Broadway, in regional theaters, community theaters and on television.

Her work ran the gamut — from comedy to drama to tragedy, and her performances drew acclaim from a number of theater critics.

Some characters she played through the years included Mrs. Tarleton, in the off-Broadway production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Misalliance,” Olivia in “The Chalk Garden,” with Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and Dorothea in “Eleemosynary.”

She also made appearances on a variety of television programs during the 1950s, including the “Barretts of Wimpole Street,” featuring Helen Hayes.

In the Nov. 6, 1953 edition of The New York Times, Ingalls’ acting abilities received high praise.

“Easily the most impressive portion of the bill last evening was the scene from Maxwell Anderson’s “Elizabeth the Queen,” where Essex is recalled from Ireland to face charges of conspiracy against the crown. Frances Ingalls gives a moving performance of the declining Queen. She is at once moving, proud, vindictive and properly ambitious,” the New York Times’ critic wrote.

In a Dec. 6, 1955 review, The Chicago Daily Tribune described Ingalls as “a dedicated young actress who plays the scrubwoman” in the play, “Anastasia.”

In July 1957, Ingalls played the husband-hunting widow in “The Circus of Dr. Lao,” starring Burgess Meredith, according to a news clipping from the Chicago Daily News.

Working with Meredith was wonderful, Ingalls said.

She also enjoyed working with Helen Hayes, whom she considered to be a consummate professional.

Over the years, she performed on stages in New York, Boston, Chicago and other cities, acting in plays penned by such playwrights as Thornton Wilder, Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw and Eugene O’Neill.

Her nephew, Monty Montieth, who lives in San Antonio?, recalls watching a couple of his aunt’s performances.

He was amazed by her transformation into the characters she played.

Ingalls said she always had a knack for memorizing her lines and she enjoyed stepping into the role of her character.

She said the highpoint of her acting career probably came from the work she did with the Gish sisters in “The Chalk Garden.”

“They were so well-known,” Ingalls said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parks have 10 months to make self-sufficient plan

By Kyle LoJacono

 

The Hillsborough Commission voted to revive the after-school program at county parks just less than one month after condemning it to the budget cutting chopping block.

Commissioners voted 4-3 to end the program on July 27 as a way to save $7.5 million from a $50 million budget shortfall. County parks director Mark Thornton said ending the program was the only way to make the department solvent.

The program would have ended on Oct. 3, the first business day of the new fiscal year. However, the commissioners unanimously voted on Aug. 24 to give the parks department until next June to show the service can be self-sufficient.

Commissioner Ken Hagan was one of the supporters of ending the program because it was “broken” and unable to exist without major taxpayer subsidies.

“Our current model is not sustainable,” Hagan said. “We cannot afford to spend $7.5 million for a program that serves 1,880 children.”

Hagan came up with the compromise to offer the program at just 30 parks, down from the current 42.

Hagan said keeping 30 facilities staffed would reduce the cost of the program to as little as $1.1 million.

“You would save on staffing, maintenance, utilities and a lot of other things,” Hagan said.

Thornton suspected the savings would be more modest than Hagan’s prediction, but said it could cut the cost in half.

While no official plan was presented, both Hagan and Thornton said Nye Park in Lutz would likely be one of those 30 sites that would keep the program.

“It would make sense to have the parks spread out, and that’s the only site in that part of the county,” Thornton said.

The new plan would also include reduced fees for parents and guardians sending their children to the program. The cost of a week has been $48, up from $20 two years ago.

“When we increased the fee to generate more revenue for the department, more people left,” Thornton said. “It had the reverse effect and that’s been hurting the budget for the last two years.”

Two years ago there were 6,000 kids enrolled in the after-school parks program, the most ever. Thornton said the department will likely reduce the cost to $38 per week, with discounts to as little as $20 for those receiving free and reduced-price lunches. That would be $10 cheaper a week than at a YMCA or at the county’s similar program at the schools, known as HOST.

In order to break even using Hagan’s estimated $1.1 million cost for the scaled-back program and an average fee of $30, an additional 34,787 children would have to enroll in the after-school service.

“This is not based on instinct,” Hagan said. “It’s based on talking to park directors. If you have a program and you lower the fees, they’re going to come back in droves.”

Commissioner Kevin Beckner was skeptical the program could increase its population by so many in less than a year. He said he does not want to use any of the county’s reserves to subsidize the service any longer.

“How long do you operate at a loss before you decide to pull the plug on an operation?” Beckner asked the other commissioners.

Commissioner Sandy Murman attached an amendment to the vote allowing the county to drop any sites from the program that had fewer than 25 children enrolled.