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PACE Center for Girls

Legislative forum covers wide spectrum of issues

December 6, 2017 By Kathy Steele

Dozens of speakers signed up to draw attention to topics they think are important at Pasco County’s annual legislative delegation meeting.

The topics ranged from fracking to Medicaid; the opioid epidemic to immigration; medical marijuana to homelessness; and, scores of budget requests.

Some requests were for items vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott last year.

Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco, for instance, asked legislators to renew his request for $4.3 million for the Thomas Varnadoe Forensic Center for Education and Research.

From left: State Sen. Tom Lee, Rep. Richard Corcoran, Rep. Danny Burgess, Sen. Wilton Simpson and Rep. Amber Mariano
attend the Pasco County legislative delegation’s annual meeting to hear from local constituents about issues they’d like lawmakers to address during the 2018 legislative session. (Kathy Steele)

The Adam Kennedy Forensics Field, also known as a “body farm,” opened in May on land next to the Land O’ Lakes Detention Center, off U.S. 41. The facility is the seventh of its type in the nation.

Construction money is needed for the indoor forensic center. The complex is planned jointly with the sheriff’s office, Pasco County, Pasco-Hernando State College, and the University of South Florida’s Institute for Forensics and Applied Science.

“It is a critical piece for us,” Nocco said.

The sheriff also noted that there already are international inquiries regarding training opportunities.

The city of Zephyrhills also had a big-ticket request. It’s asking for $3.25 million to help build the Sarah Vande Berg Memorial Tennis Center.

The planned tennis center includes eight soft courts, two hard courts and nine pickle ball courts.

The city of Zephyrhills already has hired Pennsylvania-based Tennis P.R.O. LLC to operate and manage the complex.

A pro shop, a multipurpose community room and two offices also are planned.

“It’s gaining a lot of momentum,” said Todd Vande Berg, the city’s planning director. “It will bring in players from around the world, and Zephyrhills really will be a destination in the sports arena.”

The complex is named for Vande Berg’s daughter, a tennis scholarship student at University of South Carolina, who died in a car accident.

The annual legislative delegation meeting is a ritual that gives lawmakers a chance to find out what is on the minds of their constituents for the coming legislative year.

This year’s session was on Nov. 27 at the Wesley Chapel Center for the Arts, at Wesley Chapel High School.

More than 60 people signed up, with each allotted three minutes to address the legislators, who were seated at a table on the arts center’s stage.

Rep. Danny Burgess, the delegation’s chairman; Rep. Amber Mariano; and Sen. Wilton Simpson attended the entire meeting. Sen. Tom Lee and Rep. Richard Corcoran attended portions of the meeting. Sen. Jack Latvala was absent.

Afterward Burgess described the meeting as a fact-gathering session to help legislators deliberate on issues during the 2018 legislative session in Tallahassee.

“It’s important — with a state this big and statute books so voluminous —it’s impossible to know every issue,” Burgess said.

He also said people’s presence and participation are important.

“It’s a truly collaborative thing,” he said, noting, lawmakers will have more information “because people from our areas decided to take the time to come here.”

Along those lines, Debra Golinski asked lawmakers to provide funding for screening programs at Sertoma Speech & Hearing Foundation Inc.

She said about $750,000 is needed for a program to help hearing-impaired children, ages 3 to 6 years, “begin to listen and talk.”

Golinksi also asked legislators to support a bill to provide hearing aids for children.

Timothy Beard, president of Pasco-Hernando State College, said the college is expanding rapidly and needs about $3.7 million in additional funding for operations.

He said school enrollment has increased from about 1,800 three years ago to about 4,000 students now.

“The growth there has really been phenomenal. We really, really need the dollars,” Beard said.

Other agencies and nonprofits seeking state funds included the Gulf Coast Jewish Family & Community Services, the Area Agency on Aging of Pasco-Pinellas Inc., the Reach program with Pasco’s PACE Center for Girls, and the Pasco County Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention, or ASAP.

Hot button political issues also came up.

James Brown, of the nonprofit Farmworkers Self Help, sought support for “DACA kids”, the children who are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The federal program could be ended soon, leaving these children subject to deportation. They and their families harvested crops for years, Brown said.

“They did nothing more than work hard. We need to give these longtime families a place in the county. We’re not asking for budgetary concerns. We’re just asking for your compassion,” Brown said.

Several people also spoke on fracking, asking legislators to ban the practice in Florida.

Fracking is a process for pumping chemically treated high pressure water into a drilled pipeline to break through rock formations to tap into oil or natural gas reserves.

“Our message is simple,” said Brooke Errett, of Food & Water Watch. “Fracking doesn’t make sense.”

Legislators also got updates on initiatives under review at the federal level by U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis.

His aide, Summer Robertson, told them that Bilirakis is seeking

a balanced approach toward addressing the opioid crisis.

He wants an approach that helps people with opioid addiction but still gives people “with legitimate pain” access to medications, Robertson said.

Published December 6, 2017

Various issues surface during town hall meeting

August 31, 2016 By Kevin Weiss

East Pasco residents flocked to the Dade City Courthouse to meet face-to-face with Rep. Gus Bilirakis (FL-12); State Rep. Danny Burgess, R-San Antonio; and State Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby.

About 100 residents gathered inside the Board of County Commissioners meeting room on Aug. 22 to voice their thoughts and concerns with their local representatives via a question-and-answer style town hall meeting.

One topic broached extensively throughout the nearly three-hour session: greater veteran care.

A town hall meeting was held on Aug. 22 at the Dade City Courthouse. From left to right: State Sen. Wilton Simpson, U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis and State Rep. Danny Burgess. (Kevin Weiss/Staff Photos)
A town hall meeting was held on Aug. 22 at the Dade City Courthouse.
From left to right: State Sen. Wilton Simpson, U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis and State Rep. Danny Burgess.
(Kevin Weiss/Staff Photos)

One speaker voiced his concern about the increasing suicide rate amongst veterans, and the steps being taken to combat the epidemic.

The issue is a serious one, according to an August 2016 report by the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department that revealed a 32 percent increase in veteran suicides between 2001 and 2014. In 2014, veterans accounted for 18 percent of all adult suicides in the United States, with an average of 20 veteran suicides per day, according to the report.

Burgess suggested a possible solution is to have the state collaborate with federal partners to help fund more alternative therapeutic methods — hyperbaric oxygen therapy, yoga, and service dogs — for vets.

“It’s a staggering number of veterans that commit suicide regularly,” Burgess said. “They’re in combat, they’re overseas, they’re in horrible conditions, and then they come back home and that adjustment period, sometimes, is very difficult to make.”

Providing more jobs for veterans, too, is another prong to combat mental health issues, Burgess said.

“We have highly skilled, highly trained warriors coming back from overseas — let’s bridge the gap between their skills in the military and what they can do in the state of Florida,” he said.

About 100 constituents attended the question-and-answer style town hall, which lasted about three hours.
About 100 constituents attended the question-and-answer style town hall, which lasted about three hours.

“We should make it easier for them to get licensed in the same skills that they’ve been trained for in the military,” Burgess said.

Bilirakis, vice chair of the U.S. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said funding needs to be better allocated toward high quality medical care for vets.

“We’ve got to make the VA stronger, but we’ve got to give our veterans options to seek private care if they wish,” Bilirakis said. “We need more veterans who are mental health counselors, and we need more diversified therapies within the VA. “Not one size fits all — that’s the problem with the VA,” he said.

Bilirakis noted there are still significant issues within the VA’s leadership structure, and its spending habits.

“We need to hold the VA accountable,” Bilirakis said. “We passed legislation to give the secretary the authority to fire individuals for not doing a good job — most of them are on the executive level.”

Another topic presented during the gathering were failures within the criminal justice system.

One speaker, a former inmate and drug user, shared her personal struggles within the prison system. She said that increasing diversionary and rehabilitation programs are, in some cases, more impactful than long-term incarceration in reducing recidivism rates.

The three politicians agreed that programs such as PACE Center for Girls and Bridges of America are examples of ways to help decrease the rate of repeat criminal behavior.

“Rehabilitation—we need to do more there,” Burgess said. “Some of the key factors to reducing recidivism is family and being close-knit within the community that you live in. We have a lot of lower-level, nonviolent offenders who are stuck in state prisons along with some very violent offenders, and sometimes that only puts them deeper within the criminal justice system.”

Simpson concurred: “You have to have that transition opportunity — to stop the cycle.”

He believes most people can be rehabilitated, especially youth.

Texting while driving was another area of focus during the meeting.

One speaker said the law, a secondary offense, needs to be harsher, especially in school zones.

Burgess agreed, but noted the initial passing of the “Florida Ban on Texting While Driving” was already a major hurdle, and bumping it up to a primary offense would be a significant challenge.

“We just need to keep plugging along,” Burgess said. “There needs to be something more done to curb that behavior. Texting while driving is becoming a growing problem.”

The problem is prolific, according to a Florida Highway Patrol report that revealed there were more than 45,000 crashes caused by distracted drivers in the state during 2015.

One of the most animated moments during the town hall occurred when one speaker, representing the group Save Southern Heritage, lambasted Simpson for endorsing the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the state’s official seal.

The state senator was unapologetic for his decision-making.

“I don’t make excuses for my votes,” Simpson said.

“I’m not going to support a symbol that is meant from such hatred to such a large part of our population,” Simpson added.

The Save Southern Heritage speaker also scolded Burgess for supporting the removal of the Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith’s statue in the U.S. Capitol.

The state representative buoyantly defended his action to remove Smith from the National Statuary Hall in Washington D.C.

“I respect our history, I respect our past,” Burgess said, but he added, “I don’t believe Gen. Kirby Smith represents the third-most populous state in our union,” Burgess said. “I believe there are so many other people that should represent us in our nation’s capitol.

Burgess said he stands by his vote and is excited to see who will be chosen, because the state has many great representatives, ranging from Henry Flagler, to Mary McLeod Bethune, to Walt Disney.

Published August 31, 2016

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