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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1996-1998 - CONCERNED CITIZENS AND OFFICIALS December 3, 1998 COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.R.E. are as follows: Treasure Coast Food Bank Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches Ft. Pierce Police PSL Parks and Recreation St. Lucie County Leisure Dept St. Lucie County Schools Port St. Lucie Police Safespace Miscellaneous Agencies TOTAL 11/98 10/98 9/98 8/98 7/98 6/98 5/98 813 853 225 678 45 140 151 80 2,130 5,115 5,426 5,639 4,662 6,587 4,818 6,465 The boun worked through tbe Sheriff's Department and the County program are in addition to the houn mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the Salvation Army, Boys & Girls Club, Humane Society, and Religious AtTdiations. The worken are given the option of where they want to work their community service houn. The combined number of community service boun assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for November was 10,047. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from J'1onies collected for community houn paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for Dill's which are at the rate of $10 per hour: Nov. 1998 $5,873.25 $ 757.50 $1,628.75 $1.673.75 $9,933.25 St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department JUVENILE ASSESSMENT CENTER: I :-~~i " J":"ì Will be going up to Sanford to look at their Assessment Center to determine sOIÌl~r ' staffing patterns and observe daily operations. Representative~ fe~ the ShfriWs' ¡) . G, , JJ CONCERNED CITIZENS & OFFICIALS MEETING DECEMBER 3, 1998 PAGE 2 Department, School Board, Public Defenden Office, mental health providen, and substance abuse providen are in the building. All tbese agencies are needed to make the center effective and to not be just a booking center. Weare trying to address a non-stabilized issue. Twenty yean ago we never figured this would be a problem. We are trying to catch up. Some kids can be diverted from the system. Weare getting kids as young as 6 yean old charged with battery on scbool board employees. JUVENILE PAY BACK RESTITUTION PROJECT: Suzanne Kiniston from CORE will be attending classes in Melbourne to look at the pay back project and will report back at the next meeting. JAIL: Right before Christmas there is usually a dip in jail population. This year it has not happened. Winter used to be busier than the summer. Criminals come down to get out of the cold. Now it is busy all the time. LEGISLATIVE ISSUES: Ken Pruitt is now Chairman of Appropriations and plans to run for the Senate in 2000. Ken has been a real friend to this area. It is late for new issues to get to him this year but he has been able to squeeze things through in the past. JUVENILE TRUANCY: Orange County has a system with the State Attorney's office for truancy. They are hooked into school computen to be aware of the truant students. In St. Lucie County by the time you go thrl'ugh all the steps the truant kids can be out of school --30 days before anything gets started. We need to do something. The kids are-out there and we are losing them. It is a major problem in the community. To these families education is not important either to the parents or to the children. The desire for education used to come from tbe parents. After missing a chunk of school it gets easier and easier to miss days. The pattern is established. Children with bebavioral problems don't know how to interact - they only know out to react. We used to have classes for children with behavioral problems but we no longer do that. Woodlands Academy is bursting at the seams with problem students. The whole family attitudes have to change to make a difference. Weare dealing with the symptoms but not the real problem. CONCERNEDCIT~ENS&OFFICIALSMEETlNG DECEMBER 3, 1998 PAGE 3 NEXT MEETING: IDS Security has initiated a program for spousal abuse. As part of the program a free monitoring system is installed. Bob Minsky will invite them to come to the next meeting and explain how their program works. The next meeting of the Concerned Citizens will be beld on Thunday, January 7, 1999, at the St. Lucie County Courtbouse, Fort Pierce, Room 217, at 12 Noon. Luncb will be served. Please RSVP to Linda Szabo at 460-7442 at your earliest convenience. f5 6//is v¡J ~. ~:..- tJ~ r- /Is .cP~ ~1 "\ //r-' 1/) 11/ ¡t A--' Vr' ~. CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALSp Ix.. 10 ~ . / October 1, 1998 L ~: ¡IM . ,/_.V f 1 t ª, IV COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: /. I'" 11 The montbly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.R.E. are fr· as follows: m8 M8 W8 ~8 ~8 ~8 m8 Treasure Coast Food Bank 531 625 511 668 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 851 813 1,141 1,257 "- Ft. Pierce Police 410 507 175 173 PSL Parks and Recreation 906 875 843 1,230 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 155 202 431 519 St. Lucie County Schools 190 218 Safespace Thrift Shop 58 82 33 Miscellaneous Agencies 1,633 2,535 1,528 2,522 TOTAL 4,734 5,639 4,662 6,587 4,818 6,465 6,954 The houn worked through tbe Sheriff's Department and tbe County program are in addition to the boun mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include tbe Boys & Girls Club, Hospice, Goodwill, Salvation Army, and YMCA. Tbe worken are given the option of where tbey want to wõrk their community service boun. Some of tbe locations that the youth offenden work include the Food Bank, Hospice Tbrift Sbop, Library, Port St. Lucie Recreation Department, Port St. Lucie Police Department, and Westwood Higb Scbool. Some sites do not want juveniles because of tbe liability issues. Tbe number of boun listed for tbe report are for the adult worken. It would be interesting to see the number of juveniles participating in tbe program. Tbirty to fifty boun is the usual condition of probation for juveniles. The combined number of community service houn assigned by County Judges Vaugbn, Walsh, and Midelis for September was 7,886. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received tbese amounts back from monies collected for community houn paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUl's which are at the rate of$10 per bour: Sent. 1998 $5,343.25 $3,887.05 $1,030.00 $3.482.75 $13,743.05 St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department - -.. ~ !ñ) Œ@ .. Œ.. '11__ ~.\" Œ ~ lilll OCT~~~æJ co. A:;lv;!.\1. OFFICE __"_L."__'·~___· YOUTH OFFENDERS: Kay Davenport serves on the Expulsion Review Committee and bas heard tbem mention they violated their community service. Kids don't have the opportunity to buy their way out of the juvenile houn. They have to work them. Some of the juveniles that violate community service don't finish their houn due to another violation such as suspension, possession of marijuana, etc. Operation Payback is a restitution enforcement program being offered at tbe State Attorney's Office in Melbourne. Juveniles 16+ yean old are trained and taught how to apply for a job. The idea is for them to work so they can pay restitution to the victim. If under 16 yean old they could bave community service projects where they could get some grant money to pay the juveniles for the clean up operation and use it to pay victim restitution Doris Tillman at Main Street has been contacted re using juveniles to clean up graffiti on building restoration sites. Service groups could have car washes and the money received would be used for restitution. The community might be interested in a project like tbis. Could possibly have an agency get a match from a store such as WaI-Mart. This would take some brainstorming. Some group would need to pick up the ball to get it started. This might fall under CORE as a community service project. Would need to have someone monitor it and supervise it. In Melbourne the Chamber of Commerce approacbes business to participate. Businesses are interested in the program because someone else is training the kids with job skills. There is some federal grant money where the employer doesn't actually pay them. There are some very positive possibilities. Suzanne Kiniston will give the Melbourne State Attorney's Office a caD and report back at the next meeting. JUVENILE ASSESSMENT CENTER: The new Juvenile Assessment facility is under construction. It now has a roof and inside walls and is adjacent to the Juvenile Assessment Center on Bell Avenue. It is expected to be ready in January and wiD be open 7 days a week 24 houn a day. A meeting wiD be held to discuss having aU the arrested juveniles booked at the Assessment Center instead of going to Rock Road. A control penon and a secure area wiD be available and we have the ability to draw upon detention center penonnel. The Center currently houses the PACE Administration offices till they get a home. The Human Services Association is operating the JASP program. We have teamed up witb CORE to provide educational programs. It is a 17 hour program available in all 4 counties and is being set up to run 2 days a week. Are in the process of developing an interagency contract to work together on this. " . A list of programs being offered was requested and Suzanne Kiniston will get a list of all programs and the fee. Hostility and Anger Management, AIDS Awareness, and Substance Abuse are some of the programs offered. There is a financial affidavit and the fee can be waived if certain criteria is met. ST. LUCIE COUNTY JAIL: The jail has been running 10-15% over capacity for over a year. No new construction is on the horizon. Some avenues are being explored. Another minimum security barracks would help and would like to build a 200 bed barracks for the farm. These issues are under discussion and will be brought before the Public Safety Council again. Pre-fab buildings might be a possibility. This is on the agenda for discussion at the next meeting to be held the fourth week of October. DEPARTMENT OF JUVENILE JUSTICE: The Department of Juvenile Justice meets with juvenile probationen on Thunday nights from 4-7 p.m. Gang activity has increased and there is concern about security because there is no law enforcement presence. Hoping for an appearance of a police department officer on those evenings. One evening there were about 50 kids attending. The counselor is in with the kids, not doing crowd control. It is a concern with the increased hostilities. Several sites in the county are being used. Chief Savage wiD arrange for coverage and he requested that a letter be fax'd to him with t~e information. FORT PIERCE POLICE DEPT.: There bave been numerous newspaper articles regarding area gangs and their relationship to the recent shootings. The Fort Pierce gangs are not very well organized. There are a few loosely knit juvenile gangs dealing mainly in the drug circuit. It has not been established that the shootings were gang related. The high schools are very concerned and are constantly on watch for problems. Some guidelines for the schools have been discussed. -Game times have been changed to prevent volatile situations from occuring in the evening. At Martin Correctional there is a DOC penon who does a good job with a program dealing with professionals dealing with gangs. In November they wiD be presenting the program and we can broaden the net on it if interested. Martin County has taken a proactive approach and has been very effective. This was a real concern in the Okeechobee schools also. Tbey did a good job. Barbara James is the principal of that school. Dm FIRST TIME OFFENDERS: Chief Savage distributed an article detailing a program for Dm offenden in Oakland, Michigan. For Dm fint time offenden the courts club tbe vehicles at their residence for 2-3 months. Random checks are made to make sure the car is ·' /. . still in place. Locally we club the can for 10 days. Thirty days would have more of an impact. Fort Pierce Police officen are encouraged to arrest DUl's but sometimes the officen are getting a taxi to take the people home and are not arresting them because they don't want to go through the process. An adult is taken to the jail, booked, and gets out on bail. Juveniles have to stay with the officer until they can be released to the parent. They are not detention eligible under the scoring system. Law enforcement is not processing them because they are stuck with the juvenile until the parent is located. The 18-19 year olds are more common than the younger ones. They aren't legally old enough to drive but are adults. A juvenile addiction facility would be helpful. If intoxicated or under the influence of any substance, the juvenile could go straight to a juvenile detox center. Maybe an arrangement with New Horizons could be worked out. LEGISLATION: New legislative issues should be discussed very soon. Right now is tbe time. Tbe Open House is in November. Issues where we may need laws changed wiD be discussed at the next Concerned Citizens meeting. We will invite Ken Pruitt to attend. NEXT MEETING: The .next meeting of the Concerned Citizens wiD be held on Thuriday, November 5, 1998, at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, Fort Pierce, Room 217, at 12 Noon. Lunch wiD be served. Please RSVP to Linda Szabo at 460-7442. /Is - rll,Ø ,-- CONCERNED CITIZENS AND OFFICIALS JULY 9,1998 COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: 8/98 7/98 6/98 5/98 4/98 3/98 1/98 Treasure Coast Food Bank 625 511 668 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 813 1,141 1,257 Ft. Pierce Police 507 175 173 PSL Parks and Recreation 875 843 1,230 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 202 431 519 St. Lucie County Schools 218 Safespace Thrift Shop 82 33 Miscellaneous Agencies 2,535 1,528 2,522 TOTAL 5,639 4,662 6,587 4,818 6,465 6,954 5,965 The houn worked through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in addition to the houn mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the Boys & Girls Club, Hospice, Goodwill, Salvation Army, and YMCA. The worken are given the option of where they want to work their community service houn. The combined number of community service houn assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for June was 8,902 houn in June; 8,848 in July; and 10,035 in August. St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community houn paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUl's which are at the rate of $10 per hour: Au!!. 1998 $2,323.20 $1,972.90 $ 257.50 $ 309.00 $4,862.60 Julv 1998 $ 721.00 $1,736.00 $ 310.00 $ 849.75 $3,616.75 June 1998 $4,861.65 $3,233.25 $1,809.00 $1.164.35 $11,068.25 AIDS RESEARCH TREATMENT CENTER; Diamond Litty invited Dr. Gerald Pierone, Jr., M.D. to attend thi discuss the AIDS Research & Treatment Center. The Center nee OOŒ@ŒDWŒ ill I! t~ ting to ( ~po~~n~ 0 1998 co. ADMIN. OFFICE .. -,. financial help to continue this project. Dr. Pierone has penonally funded this project. He has a private practice in Vero Beach and his wife, Nancy, is a cardiologist in Indian River county. The AIDS Research and Treatment Center is a non-profit organization located at 2407 Okeechobee Road in Fort Pierce. The Center has over 500 patients ranging in age from 15 to 75. 55% of the patients are women. The office is located at 2407 Okeechobee Road, Fort Pierce. The reality is a lot of people are not insured or on Medicaid. The finances run at a deficit of $5,000 to $10,000 a month. The fint component of the AIDS Research and Treatment Center of the Treasure Coast, Inc., is to provide quality primary medical services to individuals with HIV infection in the four county area. The second component is to establish a charitable trust fund for the children of families affected by HIV/AIDS. Help for children being orphaned as their parents succumb to AIDs will be established by providing scholanhips and educational assistance. The third component is the development of a charitable trust for healthcare worken who have acquired HIV infection through exposure at the workplace to provide financial support and a forum to acknowledge their loss. The Center has applied for a number of grants but none have gone through yet. The Center provides care for HIV patients and they get hooked into the system for medications, lab work, counseling, transportation, etc. So many patients are very needy. The challenges are daunting. We work with the health department, TB nunes, Florida Community Health Program, etc. This is a case management agency. Each patient receives a case manager who manages their case. In this community HIV is a huge problem. St. Lucie County has 3-5 new cases per week. This disease is being transmitted on a daily basis. The prime effort is treatment and interruption of transmission. A lot of the patients are young women. The prime issue discussed with them is birtb control. Most of them lead fragmented lives. We see a lot of teenage and young adult pregnandes. Getting patients to take their medications is a challenge to their fragmented lifestyles. We are open to ideas. Most of the problem is in St. Lucie County. Any help in locating other resources in the community to tap into for fund raising would be appreciated. From a public health penpective HIV was previously not a reported disease. Last year Florida made it a reportable disease. Now we can do contact tracing. It is turning from a political issue to a public bealth issue. We can ask the names of sexual partnen and contact them. There are 3 ways to transmit AIDS: mother to infant, sexually transmitted, and blood exposure. Thirty million people worldwide are infected with AIDS with $80 Million expected within the next 5 yean. It used to .. be that 50,000 to 60,000 per year were dying. There has been a slight decline in new cases. The death rate has decreased. People are living longer. The Treatment Center belps the patients get more structure in their lives. They receive counseling to get them off the substance. Case maDagen work with them to get their lives together. Having someone who is concerned about them is important. Some have no idea how to plan ahead. They live day to day. Take their medication, pay their bills, go to work - that is completely foreign to them. Mental healtb issues come into play. Many are depressed. Medication to get their depression under control is helpful. In the St. Lucie county jail setting, an average of 17-20 people a day need treatment for AIDS. It is very expensive to taxpayen but if they are on the "cocktails" we have to continue them. Some are committing crimes to be incarcerated to get care. Weare looking for places for people who are in the last stages of their life. The new Hospice facility can care for 8-10 people and most are cancer patients. A full time treatment center to house people is located in Roseland. It is an 8 patient unit in the process of expanding to 20 located NW of Vero Beach. There is nothing located in St. Lucie County. We have a treatment center to treat people but there is so much more tbat we can do if we get behind this project. If you have any suggestions or questions, Dr. Pierone can be reached at the Treatment Center at 561-468-9900. 60 MINUTES TAPE: A video tape from 60 Minutes re truancy was viewed. The tape featured the juvenile justice system in Jacksonville. Harry Shontein has been the State Attorney in Jacksonville since 1991. He was concerned because there has been a change in juvenile crime but no change in the system to deal with this change. Rape, robbery, and murder are now prevalent. No one was taking it seriously, including the kids. No consequences reinforces criminal behavior. They began hiring sociologists and counselors. They moved their best prosecuton to the juvenile division. They took a wing of the Duval County jail and filled it with habitual juvenile offenden. They were allowed visitation twice a week. They attended school in a wing of the county jail. If they complete the program, they will leave without criminal records. Need to keep little kids from developing into big time criminals. The earlier you deal with the offenden, the earlier it is to change their behavior. There are regular meetings among the social agencies to identify career criminals in the making. Counseling and tutoring by the age of 11 increases the level of success. Some cases are too far gone. You try to make a difference but you can't always over-come the problems. School attendance is a good indicator of problems. If a child is regularly absent the State Attorney's office will demand counseling and make parents sign a letter that they wiD attend classes. If they fail to do this, the parents are arrested. , TV crews are on hand to make their point. Truancy affects tbe crime rate. Juvenile crime occun during the day when they should be in school. Because of this program juvenile crime has fallen dramatically in Jacksonville. The emphasis is on rehabilitation. By preventing crime, it has saved the city dollan. The most expensive way to fight crime is to put someone in jail for life. Invest in kids now for big payoff later. A discussion of the video followed the viewing. It would take efforts on the part of the Sheriff's office, the state prosecuton office, the school, and many agencies. We would need to put aU the sections together. The same people need to deal with it all the time. We have school in the detention center but they stay there for only 21 days. Our school system is mled with large groups of people not attending school. It will take everyone working together. We need a core group of people committed to keeping these kids in school. The key is a consequence unit. The city and county would have to cooperatively. We have to do the best we can for the most people we can. CURFEWS: Cuñews are springing up all over the country. A lot of cities are looking into . cuñews. Fort Pierce has a cuñew and Port St. Lucie may bring it before their Council. Last week 150 mailboxes were knocked down in Port St. Lucie. NEXT MEETING: The next meeting of the Concerned Citizens will be held on Thunday, October 1, 1998, at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, Fort Pierce, Room 217, at 12 Noon. Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to Linda Szabo at 460-7442. /Is · ~ COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIAþS ^ JUNE 4, 1998 / ~. , /,1 b {f 5/98 4/98 3/98 1/98 12/97 11/97 10/97 Treasure Coast Food Bank 175 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 864 Ft. Pierce Police 381 PSL Parks and Recreation 763 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 348 St. Lucie County Schools 85 Miscellaneous Agencies 2,202 TOTAL 4,818 6,465 6,954 5,965 5,820 6,498 5,577 The houn worked through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in addition to the houn mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the Boys & Girls Club, Goodwill, DARE, St. Andrew's, and Hospice. The worken are given the option of where they want to work their community service houn. Two probation officen were on vacation for two weeks so the number of houn was lower this month. The community service convenion numben were also lower because of this. The combined number of community service houn assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for May was 7,769 houn. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community houn paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUl's which are at the rate of$10 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department Mav 1998 $5,995.25 $ 706.00 $ 757.50 $2.379.75 $9,838.50 !fõp (; œ u w œfii), IJIl JUN 1 1998 ~I co. ADMIN. OFFIC~ r SCHOOL CRIME PUBLICATION: Mayor Minsky received a report on school crime which may be helpful to the judges and other memben of this Committee. You are welcome to review the publication or call 1-800-732-3277 to order this report and other BJS crime and justice data. , JUVENILE ASSESSMENT CENTER: The site is being prepared for the new Juvenile Assessment Center. The building is scheduled for completion by Thanksgiving. YOUTH ORGAN~TIONS: The grand opening of the Boys & Girls Club on Lennard Road will beheld,; tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. It will be an open house and you are invited to drop by and take a look if you can. The YMCA bas been chartered in Port St. Lucie but getting their own facility will be a long time coming. Tbe churches in our area bave not participated in the YMCA activities. The kids are the ones tbat suffer as a result. If we don't work with our youth, the future of this county will be affected. There should be a collaboration to make the dollan work harder and get the biggest bang for the buck. If the groups could work together, the money could go a lot further. , The Department of Juvenile Justice has been taking a look at what needs there are in the community and where the gaps exist. Tbey are involved with the school system, the juvenile justice system, Children & Families, etc. They expect to identify the gaps by September. The Faith Initiative is also through the Department of Juvenile Justice. They have had several meetings with local ministries to pull the programs together. If a church offen teen counseling, etc., the program would be matched with the child. Plans are being made for a kick-off for the Faith Initiative. Quite a few yean ago several churches formed Mustard Seed which provides food and shelter. The Salvation Army serves many people each year. Father Whelan at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church mentioned to Dr. Dannahower that there is a new alliance being formed to bring black and white ministen together. The Concerned Citizens group may be able to help brainstorm some resources. Information needs to be gathered about the programs and risk facton. Existing collaborations should be identified and then other possible collaborations determined. HOSPICE: The new Hospice facility is opening today at Dunn Road in Fort Pierce. Dunn Road runs perpendicular to Midway Road. TRUANCY: Kay Davenport, Director of Student Services for the St. Lucie County School Board, attended today's meeting to discuss the truancy situation. Student Services handles the attendance referrals for the St. Lucie county schools. They go out to the student's home to find out what is going on when truancy occun. They try to educate the principals to find out why children in elementary school are not going to school. If we wait till high school, it is too late. In January 1998 Student Services received 202 referrals for attendance. In February 1998 they received 193 referrals. All Florida counties follow the same basic plan. Some work better than othen. Kay has spoken to the people involved in the Jacksonville program and their truancy program is working well. If a child misses six days, state law requires that the parent must be contacted. The social worker is to make contact with the parent to find out why the child is not attending school. If that doesn't work, they are referred to the Child in Need of Services program. That program is handled by the Children's Home Society agency. If they still aren't coming to school, they are referred to tbe court system. Our success rate is 10.15%. The success rate in Jacksonville is 33%. Ifwe do not keep taking steps to find out why there is alienation to education and schools in general, we will not solve the truancy problems. In Jacksonville they have a collaborative effort with a team of social worken working on attendance. They focus on elementary school kids. We focus on middle and high school.' In Jacksonville they go to a hearing at the State Attorney's office. We hold our hearings at the Children's Services office. Jacksonville has an attorney who works for the State Attorney's office and deals with children's issues. The parents and social worker attend the hearing. The students receive counseling and/or tutoring services from the BRIDGE Program of North Florida. Tbe BRIDGE Program works to get tbese kids back into the mainstream and give them the opportunity to work at their own pace. The children that go into this program from our county are up for expulsion and tbis program is a divenion for that. It addresses the high school kids. The program needs to address the elementary school kids. Some kindergarteners miss 30+ days of schools. In Jacksonville the parents are required to attend parenting skills classes and the social worker follows up to be sure they are all doing what they are supposed to. If not, they come back to the State Attorney's office for another session. Combating truancy is a collaborative effort. Parents have to be involved along witb truancy prevention programs and community based organizations. Tbese elements are needed to begin to solve this problem. For the period August 1997 to April 1998 in St. Lucie County tbe following figures were reported for the number of students who had 6 or more unexplained absences: High Schools: 866 596 862 57 (Lincoln Park) Middle Schools: 224 244 296 285 51 (Lincoln Park) At the elementary schools the patterns that we see are absences Monday and Fridays. The school system is working to make a correlation between truancy and juvenile crime. In Jacksonville a drop of about 1/3 was reported. Most of the money in education goes into the classroom. We need to have money to serve these fringe areas. Dr. Vogel is unhappy with these truancy numben. We can't expect test scores to go up if the students don't go to school. It is best to deal with the juveniles at the elementary school level. Family problems, health and food issues, etc., will be revealed there. This needs to happen. When the other issues are revealed, they can be referred to the other agencies for help. We need to put some resources on that age group. Right now there is no consequence to their truancy. The judge cannot send them anywhere if they don't go to school. If the parents have to go to jail because they don't send their kids to school, it will happen. Poverty, lack of employment, lack of skills, etc., is much greater in this area tban some of the other areas. Attending school will increase their skills which should increase their interest and ability to attend school. St. Lucie County has reading mentoring programs for fint graden in 4 schools. The kids attending that program tend to be absent a lot. Case worken call the student's homes to reinforce the positive aspects of the program. We don't have a choice. We have to do something or it will only get wone. The scbool system is willing to do wbatever needs to be done to work on this collaboration. Grants addressing truancy or school attendance will be sought. · A suggestion was made to invite the legislative delegation to attend these meeting. They are bringing a lot of money back to this county and may be able to help with the truancy issues. NEXT MEETING: The video tape received from the State Attorney's Office in Jacksonville regarding their truancy program will be viewed at the July Concerned Citizens meeting. The next meeting of the Concerned Citizens and Officials is scheduled for 12:00 noon on Thunday, JULY 9.1998, at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, Room 217, in Fort Pierce. (Due to the fourth of July weekend, it was decided to change the July meeting date to one week later than usual.) Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to Linda at 460-7442. /Is 7 /9 ~ ~~,_b t/, /98 "Nb~ /"'? ~n /1 --CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALS /-Vi /<J MAY 7,1998 - COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: 4/98 3/98 1/98 12/97 11/97 10/97 9/97 Treasure Coast Food Bank 453 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 848 Ft. Pierce Police 181 PSL Parks and Recreation 1,582 Safespace Thrift Store 99 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 450 Miscellaneous Agencies 2,852 TOTAL 6,465 6,954 5,965 5,820 6,498 5,577 7,905 The hours worked through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in addition to the houn mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the County golf coune, Seal Museum, Boys & Girls Club, and Boxing Club. The worken are given the option of where they want to work. The combined number of community service houn assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for January was 6,804 houn. CORE is working with the Department of Juvenile Justice on community service houn. Trying to locate places for juveniles to serve community service hours. Many places do not accept juveniles. CORE and the Department of Juvenile Justice will continue to work together on this project. Community service hour reports are completed, verified, and initialled by the community service providen. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community hours paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUI's which are at the rate of $10 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department Aoril1998 $1,717.45 $ 566.50 $ 500.00 $2,523.50 Mav 1998 $2,899.50 $1,500.00 $1,500.00 $1,452.75 CHARACTER COUNTS: Mayor Minsky developed a letter requesting assistance in locating an Executive Director for the Character Counts program. If anyone comes to mind that you think might be interested in this, please get them in touch with Mayor Minsky to discuss the program. A copy of the letter is attached. Chief Skinner visited some elementary schools re the Character Counts program. This is a great program and is so important. Locking people up is not the solution. Port St. Lucie is a middle class community with many latch key kids. Police problems increase from 2-5 p.m. before the parents get home from work. It is important to keep punuing these issues. AGENCY COLLABERATION: Mayor Minsky has contacted the YMCA, Big Brothen/Big Sisten, and PAL regarding federal government grants. Some people run programs and, if they are successful in grant writing, they receive the grant money. Would like to encourage starting a pilot program to fund agencies to give them seed money for proven programs. Every time we get a new administration, they form a new pool of money to throw out and spend. Some of the programs don't produce the results they should but get the money anyway because they are good grant writen. The three agencies mentioned produce good results but don't get any help. Matching the grants with our local needs to meet objectives is needed. The needs are being put together. As grants come in they are being reviewed to see if it fits our needs. Unless we think about joint venture and pooling resources they will not be able to be as effective as they could be. It would be logical to coordinate this collaberation through the Children's Services Council. The Executive Roundtable meets regularly and is proof positive that we need more of this. Partnering between government and service providen is the key. The school system, county government, and city government need to work together. It will take everyone pooling their thoughts and resources together. The goal would be to have a comprehensive strategy for the county and a focused plan to pull together to share the resources. This could be a model for other problems in the community. It would separate charisma from substance and would give a tool to focus on the substance. The way it is now, if a penon makes a beautiful enough presentation, they get the funding. JUVENILE ASSESSMENT CENTER: Construction should be commencing on the new building with a year end target date. The Center will be open 7 days a week, 24 houn a day. A secure area will be designated for arrested juveniles. With the grant money received they will have a live scan fingerprint station communicated to the Sheriff's main office and data base at FDLE. This will enable a rapid ID of children already in the system. Within 5 minutes this will give a positive ID back and also a latent print search. TREASURE COAST SAFETY COUNCIL: The kickoff is scheduled for next Tuesday, May 12, 1998, at the new Port St. Lucie Community Center on Airoso Boulevard. They will have speaken and will network about traffic and transportation problems. Meetings are held on the tint Wednesday of each month at the Safety Council located at 2154 N US 1, Fort Pierce, at 1:30 P.M. One long range goal of the program is to try to get more detailed programs for fint- time driven to develop their skills more. Many driven have only had classroom driven ed and no training on the roads. Drinking and driving, seat belt usage, and awareness of other safety issues are additional topics being addressed. A suggestion was made that lights along US 1 be synchronized. This would alleviate many of the traffic problems. Also the intenection of Citrus and US 1 is a nightmare. Traffic is backing up from the overpass onto US 1 blocking traffic. JUDGESHIPS: For everyone's information, the 19th Circuit did not get an additional judge. Nor did any other judgeships get approved. Tbe legislature could not decide if the judges should be elected or assigned. It was a stalemate. Since they could not resolve the battle, they decided to not authorize any judgeships. We will have another shot at it next year. We have a good legislative delegation for two more yean. The delegation is very well respected and we are very fortunate. A presentation should be made in November before the session starts re the necessity for a 19th Circuit judge. In the past we have had Ken Pruitt meet with us to discuss this and other legislative issues. ANDREA HOWARD: The Boys & Girls Club has a partnenhip with CASTLE and the Fort Pierce Police Dept. in Martin and St. Lucie counties. They graduated 50 participants who attended 12-16 weeks of classes and participated in supervised community service. It includes a family counseling component on a voluntary basis. The program has been going very well. It is a true testimony that collaberation and partnenhips do work. Community effort, family effort, and individual efforts are needed. When parents do not do the job, the community should be the safety net. School facilities could be used beyond 3 p.m. The word from the top is to be moving in that direction. A synopsis of the programs being run from the Boys & Girls Club was requested. NEXT MEETING: The next meeting of the Concerned Citizens and Officials is scheduled for at 12:00 noon on Thunday, June 4,1998, at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, Room 217, in Fort Pierce. Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to Linda at 460-7442. /Is CITY OF PORT ST. LUCIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A CITY FOR ALL AGES April 29, 1998 To Whom It May Concern: RE: Character Counts, Executive Director S1. Lucie County needs your help! Several years ago citizens of the county discussed a program called Character Counts and why it would be beneficial for the county to adopt and implement this program. The basic concept of the program is not complicated. It is founded on promoting six pillars of character development into the community's way of life. Six moral codes of behavior which, if embraced by the community, would enhance the quality of our lives. The pillars are: TRUSTWORTHINESS, RESPECT, RESPONSffiILITY, FAIRNESS, CARING, AND CITIZENSHIP. The vision of the program is that S1. Lucie County is a community whose citizens embrace and are committed to the principal that CHARACTER COUNTS. This program has been introduced to our school system, and I am proud to report that each and every school in the county has implemented the Character Counts Program. There remains one more element that must be attended to for this program to be successful. That element is to bring the rest of the community on line. What we are looking fôr is that very special person who is ready, willing, and able to be the Director of this county program. So far everything has been accomplished through a Steering Committee that will continue to work with the Director, and help establish a Board of Directors. It will be a volunteer position and will require a person who is dedicated and committed to the concepts of the Character Counts initiative. Weare hoping for a person who has the time, energy and desire to help our community recapture the morality and values that are essential to the basic foundation of Americana. The only parameter that we have set in place is that the person chosen is a resident of the county. The person chosen would be responsible for the coordination of promoting the Character Counts program between the schools and the rest of the community. It would be preferable if this person 121 S.W. Port St. Lucie Boulevard · Port St. Lucie, FL 34984-5099 · 561/871-5225 · 561/878-0097 Page Two April 29, 1998 had experience in fund raising, and interacting with all elements of our society. The Character Counts program has a proven track record all across the country. It has been endorsed nationwide by many of the most notable people and agencies in the nation. If you know of anyone who might be remotely interested in this most gratifying task, please contact me or any of the other people listed below. Thank you for your courteous consideration. Sincerely, ~ R~ Mayor rem/mm ..,.......~ COMPijEHENSIVE OFFENDER REHA81UTATION & EDUCATION THE C.O.R.E. PROGRAM SERVING THE 19TH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT MARTIN. ST. LUCIE. INDIAN RIVER. OKEECHOBEE COUNTIES . 800 VIRGINIA AVENUE, SUITE 4 P.O. SOX 3837 FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA 34948 (561) 465-9204 FAX (561) 460-1751 406 NW 3rd STREET P.O. BOX 381 OKEECHOBEE, FLORIDA 34973 (941) 763-1985 FAX (941) 763-4616 COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT MAY 1998 1422 OLD DIXIE HIGHWAY VERO BEACH, FLORIDA 32960 (561) 567-1282 FAX (561) 567-1336 JUDGE MIDELIS JUDGE VAUGHN JUDGE WALSH Community Service Houn 2,710 2,174 2,005 Weekender Houn 120 0 760 Total 2,830 2,174 2,765 AGENCIES: Ft. Pierce Parks Dept. Ft. Pierce Police Dept. Treasure Coast Food Bank St. Lucie County Leisure Dept. Port St. Lucie Parks Dept. St. Lucie County Schools Miscellaneous Agencies (Boys & Girls Club, Goodwill, DARE, St. Andrews, Hospice) 864 381 175 348 763 85 2,202 TOTAL: 4.818 MIDELIS VAUGHN WALSH Houn to Fine Fine to Houn $4,270.25 362 $1,401.25 225 $596.60 19 COMMUNITY SERVICE TO FINES (PAID OUT): St. Lucie Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Dept. Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Dept. May 98 $5,995.25 $ 706.00 $ 757.50 $2,379.75 905 JOHNSON AVENUE P.O. BOX 1650 STUART, FLORIDA 34995 (561) 286-7352 FAX (561) 223-0903 06/02/98 TUE 15:11 FAX 904 630 4757 S. A. O. ~004 I. Narrative Comments: Please provide a narrative description of bow your program is operating, iø.duding problems and successes: Between January 1, 1998 and March 31, 1998, One htD1dred and thirty~seven (137) cases were opened in the State Attorney's Office, Fourth Judicial Circuit Ninety-six (96) hearings were held and all oilier cases were either closed or are currently pending hearings. Twenty-two (22) cases were rejected from the program this quarter and are pending investigation for possible prosecution of the parents. Most students in TAP are already showing improvements in atten.dancé this year when compared to 1996-1997 attendance data. Over nmety (90) percent of students with open cases in TAP have returned to school within five days following their hearings. Attendmce is most positively affected among elementary school children. Parents of truant children are brought into the State Attorney's Office for a TAP hearing. At this time, they are informed thai if they do not send their child(ren) to schooL they will be prosecuted for the second degree misdemeanor. Failure to Requuc School Attendance. This is a variable tmique to TAP since the program is a part of tile State Attorney's Office. If a case cannot be resolved through a non-judicial hearing and a parent is clearly at fiwIt, it will be referred to a SWe Attorney's Office Iuvestigator for investigation and possible arrest of the parent Cases which are unresolved at a TAP hearing or do not show for a hearing go immediately to 1he investigator. TAP continues to work in partnerslúp with several outside agencies in order to improve and enhance the quality and amount of services offered to clients. In attendance at every TAP hearing is a social worker &om the Duval COWlty School Board assigned to the State Attorney's Office for the purpose ofreducmg truancy. As a result of the hearin~ students may receive counseling services ftom Y ou1h Crisis Center or Child Guidance Center orsreceive tutoring servi~ from the Bridge of Northeast florida. Also, parents may be ordered to attend parenting skills classes at Chì1dren' s Home Society. B~ January 1, 1998 and March 31. 1998, twenty-<Jne (21) students have been required to seek counseling services and two (2) have been referred to The Bridge for tutoring. In addiíion. Sneen (J 5) parents have been mandaíed to attend parentIng sk1lis classes. .'ill of these partnerships grea1ly improve the effectÌVeness ofT AP and also assÌst these agencies in thelI efforts to reduce truancy in this CIty. in the first three quarters of the 1997-1998 school year, efforts at reducing truancy have proven very successful. 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('¡ as 5 0 ~a.uš.g ~f~~~ en-e:-'" ",Q)-oc: ctI 0 D --_ Q.~g;'C"C a¡CI1C')!!:~ cE>.œc: o~.e~~ ~üQ)O:J ·c 'E g¡ u () ttlctlQJc:O .Q.c.....( )~ E_g.c<ll 1:: 0 .- ~ co [-.ro....~ _15.c::~g¡ CI1E"'>.>-· OJ::J"'--{g c:c:Q)OO.... o "0000 EQJctI.c::.r::(J ~£Î5>~~~ C') UJ > ¡:: 10 W ¡ffi I _ æ -} . m t:a æ .!!!oSGI . (IJ ... >.... OGl_gJ "'ao>.. o~~_ij -.i~ûgo ct a¡"'.c::o C:Eë~e 0_01 _ en 0 t:: ò 0 - c.:;"r:: 0 16 Q (.J 0.'5 .Q.i~Glw .~ 0"'£.50 ~- E 0'0 '~I/) .. Q) a.ë~'t:)- ûíIl CD~~ OJ.Q- If) m E cuma. o 't: e E 6 E CtI goo « 0.._ to> 'C v w 2: ~ n '-' !.L' '- --.__._~--- .,-- ,g iii E~ ::¡ï:: åjm .... ( ) _.1::. me: L:O 00:;: r/') ~ ë :=: rn£ Q.rn ë).... r~ ~co E~ ct1 Q Î5>;:: o W .... c: Q.o 'õõ '#. ~ lDu f'.. VJ Lt) w > >- " ,,-,' ., ~ _. _I: C) ~< CD... C.r..1: C).t::('¡ .- ..... co ..: c: ... 11> 'CC-a¡_>.>- m.c~.cE.c-8 ->.ClJUQ)'C fI .o:;'~Oa¡.c: t:'CC)-§Cõ° gCQo....oa.CI) .-.... 0 Q.) Q) "Orn_'--:=-'-r- ¡:Q,(1]OQ.)Q:= o Q):::-ã) E 01- uti,c:", .co - O1c:en _ OCDèã::Jw=è: -.Qa.o~$Q) c_ to> 1/)'- miijCn_a¡I/)CD E.r.ë8c:e-5 g¡(/)Ct!.c;Q):;'_ CD.!2.2-u.t15 (IJ (j)1'D()tO~_", en t: 't: CD > ....~ ctIQ)III.c:-Ot:: C:'ë5o.-êen('¡ Q)....Q)Ñoto Q.....:.. .t ( ) .c: -;; Q) Q) Q) ~-S-,o::agE§ o;::-C:"::¡rn",,? <_-a:lCtlfI)fJ)_ (C w 2 '- '-' ~.! -; ,- --.-._._--~ - CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALS MAY 7, 1998 COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: 4/98 3/98 1/98 12/97 11/97 10/97 9/97 Treasure Coast Food Bank 453 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 848 Ft. Pierce Police 181 PSL Parks and Recreation 1,582 Safespace Thrift Store 99 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 450 Miscellaneous Agencies 2,852 TOTAL 6,465 6,954 5,965 5,820 6,498 5,577 7,905 The houn worked through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in addition to the hours mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the County golf course, Seal Museum, Boys & Girls Club, and Boxing Club. The worken are given the option of where they want to work. The combined number of community service hours assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for January was 6,804 houn. CORE is working with the Department of Juvenile Justice on community service bourse Trying to locate places for juveniles to serve community service hours. Many places do not accept juveniles. CORE and the Department of Juvenile Justice will continue to work together on this project. Community service hour reports are completed, verified, and initialled by the community service providers. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community hours paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUI's which are at the rate of$10 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department Aoril1998 $1,717.45 $ 566.50 $ 500.00 $2,523.50 Mav 1998 $2,899.50 $1,500.00 Œ n WI m rn MAY 1 2 1998 co. ADMIN. OFFICE CHARACTER COUNTS: Mayor Minsky developed a letter requesting assistance in locating an Executive Director for the Character Counts prograin. If anyone comes to mind that you think might be interested in this, please get them in touch with Mayor Minsky to discuss the program. A copy of the letter is attached. Chief Skinner visited some elementary schools re the Character Counts program. This is a great program and is so important. Locking people up is not the solution. Port St. Lucie is a middle class community with many latch key kids. Police problems increase from 2-5 p.m. before the parents get home from work. It is important to keep pursuing these issues. AGENCY COLLABERA TION: Mayor Minsky has contacted the YMCA, Big Brothen/Big Sisten, and PAL regarding federal government grants. Some people run programs and, if they are successful in grant writing, they receive the grant money. Would like to encourage starting a pilot program to fund agencies to give them seed money for proven programs. Every time we get a new administration, they form a new pool of money to throw out and spend. Some of the programs don't produce the results they should but get the money anyway because they are good grant writen. The three agencies mentioned produce good results but don't get any help. Matching the grants with our local needs to meet objectives is needed. The needs are being put together. As grants come in they are being reviewed to see if it fits our needs. Unless we think about joint venture and pooling resources they will not be able to be as effective as they could be. It would be logical to coordinate this collaberation through the Children's Services Council. The Executive Roundtable meets regularly and is proof positive that we need more of this. Partnering between government and service providers is the key. The school system, county government, and city gO';ernment need to work together. It will take everyone pooling their thoughts and resources together. The goal would be to have a comprehensive strategy for the county and a focused plan to pull together to share the resources. This could be a model for other problems in the community. It would separate charisma from substance and would give a tool to focus on the substance. The way it is now, if a penon makes a beautiful enough presentation, they get the funding. JUVENILE ASSESSMENT CENTER: Construction should be commencing on the new building with a year end target date. The Center will be open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. A secure area will be designated for arrested juveniles. With the grant money received they will have a live scan fingerprint station communicated to the Sheriff's main office and data base at FDLE. This will enable a rapid ID of children already in the system. Within 5 minutes this will give a positive ill back and also a latent print search. TREASURE COAST SAFETY COUNCIL: The kickoff is scheduled for next Tuesday, May 12, 1998, at the new Port St. Lucie Community Center on Airoso Boulevard. They will have speaken and will network about traffic and transportation problems. Meetings are held on the first Wednesday of each month at the Safety Council located at 2154 N US 1, Fort Pierce, at 1:30 P.M. One long range goal of the program is to try to get more detailed programs for fint- time drivers to develop their skills more. Many driven have only had classroom drivers ed and no training on the roads. Drinking and driving, seat belt usage, and awareness of other safety issues are additional topics being addressed. A suggestion was made that lights along US 1 be synchronized. This would alleviate many of the traffic problems. Also the intenection of Citrus and US 1 is a nightmare. Traffic is backing up from the overpass onto US 1 blocking traffic. JUDGESHIPS: For everyone's information, the 19th Circuit did not get an additional judge. Nor did any other judgeships get approved. The legislature could not decide if the judges should be elected or assigned. It was a stalemate. Since they could not resolve the battle, they decided to not authorize any judgeships. We will have another shot at it next year. We have a good legislative delegation for two more years. The delegation is very well respected and we are very fortunate. A presentation should be made in November before the session starts re the necessity for a 19th Circuit judge. In the past we have had Ken Pruitt meet with us to discuss this and other legislative issues. ANDREA HOWARD: The Boys & Girls Club has a partnenhip with CASTLE and the Fort Pierce Police Dept. in Martin and St. Lucie counties. They graduated 50 participants who attended 12-16 weeks of classes and participated in supervised community service. It includes a family counseling component on a voluntary basis. The program has been going very well. It is a true testimony that collaberation and partnenhips do work. Community effort, family effort, and individual efforts are needed. When parents do not do the job, the community should be the safety net. School facilities could be used beyond 3 p.m. The word from the top is to be moving in that direction. A synopsis of the programs being run from the Boys & Girls Club was requested. NEXT MEETING: The next meeting of the Concerned Citizens and Officials is scheduled for at 12:00 noon on Thunday, June 4,1998, at the Sf. Lucie County Courthouse, Room 217, in Fort Pierce. Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to Linda at 460-7442. /Is ,1 \) C/ D ~ çJ\tJ Cf¡ ¿/\ ') ~ CITY OF PORT ST. LUCIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A CITY FOR ALL AGES April 29, 1998 To Whom It May Concern: RE: Character Counts, Executive Director St. Lucie County needs your help! Several years ago citizens of the county discussed a program called Character Counts and why it would be beneficial for the county to adopt and implement this program. The basic concept of the program is not complicated. It is founded on promoting six pillars of character development into the community's way oflife. Six moral codes of behavior which, if embraced by the community, would enhance the quality of our lives. The pillars are: TRUSTWORTHINESS, RESPECT, RESPONSffiILITY, FAIRNESS, CARING, AND CITIZENSHIP. The vision of the program is that St. Lucie County is a community whose citizens embrace and are committed to the principal that CHARACTER COUNTS. This program has been introduced to our school system, and I am proud to report that each and every school in the county has implemented the Character Counts ProgJam. There remains one more element ~hat must be attended to for this program to be successful. That element is to bring the rest of the community on line. What we are looking for is that very special person who is ready, willing, and able to be the Director of this county program. So far everything has been accomplished through a Steering Committee that will continue to work with the Director, and help establish a Board of Directors. It will be a volunteer position and will require a person who is dedicated and committed to the concepts of the Character Counts initiative. Weare hoping for a person who has the time, energy and desire to help our community recapture the morality and values that are essential to the basic foundation of Americana. The only parameter that we have set in place is that the person chosen is a resident of the county. The person chosen would be responsible for the coordination of promoting the Character Counts program between the schools and the rest of the community. It would be preferable if this person 121 S.W. Port St. Lucie Boulevard · Port St. Lucie, FL 34984-5099 · 561/871-5225 · 561/878-0097 Page Two April 29, 1998 had experience in fund raising, and interacting with all elements of our society. The Character Counts program has a proven track record all across the country. It has been endorsed nationwide by many of the most notable people and agencies in the nation. If you know of anyone who might be remotely interested in this most gratifYing task, please contact me or any of the other people listed below. Thank you for your courteous consideration. Sincerely, I/¡~ R~ Mayor rem/nun _~..4>..._ CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALS APRIL 2, 1998 COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: 3/98 1/98 12/97 11/97 10/97 9/97 4/97 Treasure Coast Food Bank 553 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 1,355 Ft. Pierce Police 233 Port St. Lucie Police 29 PSL Parks and Recreation 1,055 St. Lucie County Schools 232 Safes pace 104 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 280 Miscellaneous Agencies 3,113 TOTAL 6,954 5,965 5,820 6,498 5,577 7,905 5,114 The hours worked through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in additional to the hours mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the County golf course, Seal Museum, Boys & Girls Club, and Boxing Club. The workers are given the option of where they want to work. The combined number of community service houn assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for January was 10,012 houn. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community houn paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUl's which are at the rate of $10 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department (Amounts not available at meeting time - will update at May meeting) D~©~ßW~~ ~ APR 30 \993 co. ADM\N. OFF\CE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES: The "Public Safety Measures That Are Most Likely to Reduce Crime" sheet from the National League of Cities was distributed at the meeting. At the top of the list at 63.6% was Strengthening and Supporting Family Stability. Mayor Minsky has also received a community risk factor profile listing counties in categories such as school dropouts, etc. It shows how counties match up with other counties. Let Mayor Minsky know if you would like a copy sent to you. DARE: The DARE program is a very good program but is restricted to only having sworn on-duty officen participate. We þave such,a resource of retired police officen that would like to get involved. Could hire several of them for the same price as one officer. Right now the program is only offered to children in the fifth grade. Would like to see it expanded. In St. Lucie County the Sheriff's Dept. is looking at going into the middle schools. DARE is only as good as the follow up. We drop the ball in the middle school and high school level. It is something that needs to be considered. A juvenile justice conference was recently held and the speaker discussed trends, particularly crimes among juveniles. They are finding that DARE in combination with other things makes a difference, not just the DARE program itself. It was noted that Terry Donahue from the Dept. of Juvenile Justice did the research. There are so many changes a cbild goes through from the fifth grade to the twelfth grade. You can't compare a high school kid to a fifth grader. CHARACTER COUNTS: Judi Miller and Mayor Minsky have been working on the Character Counts program. They are looking for someone who on a volunteer basis would spearhead the program in the community. That penon would coordinate tbe activities in the schools, business commu:..èÎty, and religious community. If you know someone who might be so inclined, please ask them to contact Judi Miller. Everyone that is affiliated with the effort now is stretched too thin. This penon would have to be able to work 20 houn a week. It is the one thing really holding things up. All the schools are working with the program and liking it. Six pillars of morale behavior are the basis of the program and the curriculum is referenced in those six pillars. Roswell, New Mexico, has a real successful Character Counts program. Ifwe reinforce outside of school what they are learning in school, it will help it become a way of life. The Education Foundation picked it up under the 5013C. They are getting ready to do a major solicitation which would include Character Counts. John Giordano was contacted because he would be the kind of penon they are looking for. He does not want to take the top seat but would be willing to be the second person. Character Counts is certified through the Education Foundation and can now use the logo and the name. FEDERAL COURTHOUSE: Dr. Dannahower reportèd that the Federal Courthouse seems to be back on track with construction scheduled to begin October 2001. There are still some hurdles to go such as the location. We believe they will stick to a downtown location and are working with the city on this. PROGRAM ON DUVAL COUNTY: On Sunday night there was a TV program featuring Duval County and what is happening there through the State Attorney's office. They are doing a great job in preventing juvenile crime. We would be interested in getting a copy of that video. Steve Lewin offered to contact that office to request a copy. According to the program, Duval County started with the school system and watched the absentees and focused on the truancy. They are trying to put the responsibility on the parents. There are a lot of latchkey kids not given the values they should. There may be some information we might be able to use. Judi Miller would like to bring the St. Lucie County absentee numbers to the next meeting. The numbers are sky high. Until we get a better handle on getting a consequence for not going to school, the problem will not be solved. Even when faced with the social worken and the court, they don't believe anything will happen to them. When kids are out of school, they will get in trouble. The Mayor's Conference puts out a book covering the programs that have been successful. Mayor Minsky has two of those books and will circulate them. Some of the ideas are gems. In New York and New Orleans they are finding that some of the crimes that we don't think affects the community actually do have a big impact such as school truancy. The Assessment Center will be located on the grounds of the Detention Center and a school system psychiatrist will be located there. It will be one stop. Should be able to get a better handle on truants this way. When a police officer picks up a truant, it takes a lot of the officer's time. Many times both parents are working and can't be reached. It ties up the officer for too long. Kids are getting smart. When they skip school they don't go to the street. They go to each other's houses. Attendance cards should be monitored. If someone doesn't show up for school, find out why. Truancy is determined by the number of days absent. If the law doesn't make sense at the legislative level, maybe it should be changed. It might be helpful to see what the truancy statistics are in Duval County since the program started. There are no consequences for the parents if the child doesn't go to school. One child has been absent 72 days. This child is not getting in trouble with the law but is not getting anything out of his education. There needs to be a way to close the loop at the other end. Some parents say they cannot control their kids. Suspensions from school becomes a free vacation for them. There are some in-school and some out-of-school suspensions. There used to be suspension for skipping class. That has been stopped. There are many out of school for assault and battery issues, etc. Some of the kids that are up for explusion and are on suspension are mandated to go to Woodlands Academy. There is this middle group that is out of school but does not qualify to be in school and there is not an alternative program to handle them. The State funds can be reduced according to the attendance numbers. FTE counts are done on two separate weeks during the year. Could look at the truancies and draw a parallel with the kids in trouble. As one goes up the other probably follows. Judi Miller suggested that Kay Davenport attend the next meeting. Kay is in charge of Social Services and handles truancies. The process is fractured. Until it is fixed, we are spinning our wheels. TEEN COURT PROGRAM: The Teen Court Program deals mostly with thefts and substance. Judge Connor met with Bruce Colton and Diamond Litty to see if he can start sentencing the juveniles in front of other juveniles to send a message to the kids. Kids think they can do anything as long as they are under 18. Sheriff Knowles, Chief Savage and Chief Skinner meet monthly and have recently discussed the Arkansas shooting situation. We have school resource officen and have them interact with the principals about potential situations. In Arkansas there were signals that should have been noticed. We can't underestimate the kids. Don't take for granted that kids can raticnalize danger on the same level that adults can. Steve Lewin has worked with School Resource Officen re domestic violence. The School Resource Officen are made aware of the kids that have witnessed and been exposed to violence at home. The Families Fint program also focuses on domestic violence. There was a 13 year old in the Big Brothen/Big Sisters program that saw some very violent domestic acts when he was two yean old. He remembered it in detail. Domestic violence can make a real impact. Even if they forget the details, the effects of it stays with them. They might not even realize it. Counselers at school could be a help. Re the Arkansas shooting, we shouldn't let a bad situation go to waste. We should learn from this and adjust because of this. TREASURE COAST AIDS CLINIC: Diamond Litty suggested inviting Dr. Jerry Perone to a Concerned Citizens & Officials meeting. Dr. Perone works with the Treasure Coast AIDS Clinic, a not for profit clinic that treats 500+ AIDS patients in St. Lucie and Indian River counties. They need some financial help. He has made contacts in Indian River county but needs to network in St. Lucie county. They have been innovative with AIDS "cocktails" which can stop the AIDS process. NEXT MEETING: The next meeting of the Concerned Citizens and Officials is scheduled for at 12:00 noon on Thunday, May 7,1998, at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, Room 217, in Fort Pierce. Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to Linda at 460-7442. It was decided to discuss the AIDS Clin' at the May 7 meeting and the attendance issue at the June 4 meeting. /Is þ, C -- L ~Y" 6' '-1/ C-~ ~ ~" -L2-- // ~~ ;Ç c# AT7<--w. J /} ~'" ~ '-I. /ß7 ~ · , CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALS FEBRUARY 5, 1998 COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service hours worked provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: 1/98 12/97 11/97 10/97 9/97 4/97 Treasure Coast Food Bank 416 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 908 Ft. Pierce Police 597 Port St. Lucie Police 52 PSL Parks and Recreation 1,382 St. Lucie County Schools 25 Safespace 102 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 306 Miscellaneous Agencies 2,177 TOTAL 5,965 5,820 6,498 5,577 7,905 5,114 The hours worked through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in additional to the houn mentioned above. The annual totals for 1997 are being compiled. Miscellaneous Agencies include the County golf coune, Seal Museum, Boys & Girls Club, and Boxing Club. The worken are given the option of where tbey want to work. The combined number of community service hours assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for January was 8,856 houn. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community houn paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUl's which are at the rate of $10 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Higbway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department 1/98 $ 2,626.50 $ 2,257.50 $ 1,272.50 $ 2.048.40 $ 8,204.90 !ñ)lli œ u \VI Œ~ ln1 MAR 3 0 1998 æJ - co. ADMIN. OFFICE .. "7 TREASURE COAST COMMUNITY SAFETY PROGRAM: Terry Spaide is the Chairman of the Treasure Coast Community Safety Program. This program is sponsored by the Florida Department of Transportation to deal with local transportation issues by people at the local level to punue local solutions to traffic safety problems. The program will have a kick off to alert the public to know what we are doing. A team approach combining law enforcement, emergency medical services, public education and engineering efforts is used. An Action Item Request Form is to be filled out when a problem is observed. The form is returned to the Committee for their consideration and recommended action. It does not matter if the road is a local, state, or intentate road. They are looking for support and interested people to get involved with the program. Safety Council Meetings will be held the first Wednesday of each month. They are hoping to get local mayors and judges to take part in the program. Some DOT funds are available to deal with some of these problems. We can request the legislature find grant money and get it elevated on DOT's list. ST. LUCIE COUNTY JAIL: Working on the issue of renovating the Administration wing and expanding the booking area. Also looking at infectious disease control rooms. Hoping to solve some of these issues this year. JUVENILE JUSTICE: Have gone to the schools to attempt to make kids aware of what the department is all about. Juvenile Justice has moved from a social services agency to a criminal justice agency. It costs $30,000 per year to keep a child in a moderate risk detention center. There is no home visit permitted. It is like a prison and meant to retrieve the deep-end kids. They want to send the message, if you do the crime you do the time. Also trying to deal with the kids in the first and second grade. We have some 9-10 year olds in detention now. It used to be that 12 was young. Kids are our most valuable resource. We are attempting to educate both the public and the kids. We have agencies with programs that have worked well such as Boys & Girls Club, PAL, YMCA. Mayor Minsky is drafting a letter to try to get consideration for a pilot program for a test area for agencies with a proven track record. The government would get a better return on their money with these agencies. Mayor Minsky would like to bring a draft of this letter to this group for endorsement. It might make more sense than the way it is currently done. Money may be better spent with agencies who have proven they can do something. Some programs get seed money for a limited time and after that they have to find their own funding. We are taking a look at programs in the community that .; / perform services to see what works. The government has come up with a module of what's working. Our plan was sent to Washington and our county's plan was the best they have seen so far. Churches are an important part. Will involve the business community too. Kids are being removed from pre-schools because they are being bad. Those kids are heading for court. Brain research indicates 85% of the brain is imprinted by the time the child is 3-4 years old. Kids often do not have the family network that families had in the past. This may be creating the "breed" of juveniles today. It is an important element in early yean. The communities should be aware that it is a factor. BIG BROTHERS/BIG SISTERS: Some families move month to month depending on whether they can pay the rent. They move from neighborhood to neighborhood, school to school. There is no stability. The grant for a new program, Jump into Reading, has been received. This is a reading menton hip program for 6 year olds. There is a training program for the menton. The program is conducted in the classroom so tbe mentors are not alone with the child. There is a support system for the parent, student, and the teacher. Big Brother/Big Sisters has 267 volunteen (an increase of 100%). There is a waiting list of 130 and a hold list of 206 (a waiting list for the waiting list). Events are held once a month. Last month the Olympathon was held and over 150 people participated. JUVENILE ASSESSMENT CENTER: The Juvenile Assessment Center was fint established in 1993 in Pinellas County with no specific money from the legislature. It was a law enforcement initiative. In 1995 seed money was made available to establish a center in each juvenile justice district. District 15 is ours. Two yean ago in January we opened a part-time center open 9-5. We receive direct referrals from law enforcement and have a truancy intervention program for officen to bring children who are skipping school. With the help of Rep. Ken Pruitt we received funds last year from the legislature to build a facility. The new facility should be completed before the end of the calendar year. Construction began 3 weeks ago. The facility will be secure for those who are arrested and will be designed to conduct bookings. There will be a non-secure side for runaways, truants, etc. Representatives from agencies will be on call 24 hours a day to be able to meet the needs of these youths and their families. It has been a maj or frustration of law enforcement where to bring the juveniles once they have been picked up. This will be a good solution. ;, A licensed mental health counselor is on staff now to get the child and family psychological counseling. CHILDREN'S SERVICES COUNCIL: Preventative programs initiative is the Healthy Families Home Visitation program. It works hand and hand with the Healthy Start program. The legislature will be deciding soon. There is a good possibility it will come to this area. There is also a tobacco preventative program and one program that works with kids smoking now. The funding won't be available until June. Agencies are trying to be prepared to apply for the funds. Child Watch is moving along rapidly. Child abuse and neglect is the focus. Patsy Kurth and Ken Pruitt have been involved. We have a great delegation up there in Tallahassee. DARE: DARE has the sworn-in officer requirement. We have a resource of retired officers in our area who are qualified in every other way. It makes the program out of reach with the sworn-in officer requirement. The program needs to be expanded. Both cities are involved with this program. There may be a way around this. Riley Barnes may be a good person to contact regarding this issue. We need someone to dissect what this classification means. Lilly Miller has agreed to ask the person to come to the next meeting to explain the program to see if there is any way to get around it. Fifth graders (10-11 year olds) are involved in the program. JUDGE WALSH: Trying to get petitions signed so that the judges do not have to pay the filing fee for the upcoming e~~~!i~~~JJle rards have.tnl1e..turnedl~.J?!!!~~_e. NEXT EETING: The next meeting of Concerned Citizens and Officials will be held on Thursday, 1\oril 2. 1998 at 12:00 Noon in Room 217 at the St. Lucie County Courthouse. Lunch will be provided. Please contact Linda at 46't--7442 to RSVP. To ICS suggested for next meeting: Lisa Van Seeling works with the Juvenile Justice entoring program. Mr. Leath with the Housing Authority is also part of a mentoring program. These individuals will be contacted to see if tbey are available to attend the next meeting. çf-'" ~ CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALS JANUARY 8, 1998 nvp':Z COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: Treasure Coast Food Bank Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches Ft. Pierce Police PSL Parks and Recreation St. Lucie County Schools Safespace St. Lucie County Recreation Dept Miscellaneous Agencies 12/97 466 766 445 1,724 33 273 200 1,743 TOTAL 11/97 10/97 9/97 4/97 5,650 5,820 6,498 5,577 7,905 5,114 The houn worked through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in additional to the houn mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the County golf coune, Seal Museum, Boys & Girls Club, and Boxing Club. The worken are given the option of wbere they want to work. The combined number of community service houn assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for November was 11,637 houn. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received thes~ amounts back from monies collected for community hours paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUI's which are at the fate of $10 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department 12/97 $ 2,795.00 $ 4,120.00 $ 925.00 $ 507.50 $ 8,347.50 JUVENILE JUSTICE: A meeting was held met with CORE representatives and plans are contfact with CORE to supervise the Saturday program for juveDI supervise juvenile justice clients and participation will be made pa U 'f Œ œ 1998 CO. ADMIN. OFFICE .... ~ order. Houn worked by the juveniles will be validated to ensure the houn are actually worked and tracked. With 30-60 days a supervised process will be in place. Suzanne at CORE will be working on the procedures to put the program in place and sbe will corrdinate it with CORE and the County Administrator. POLICE ATHLETIC LEAGUE: PAL has broken ground for their own building located next to the fire station off Walton Road and Village Green Drive in Port St. Lucie. This should be a good location. Still trying to get the YMCA in there. They are operating out of a location . on Prima Vista. It is at least a start-ofT point. CHILD WATCH: Child Watch programs move executives, legislaton, clergy, and other community leaden out of their offices and into the world of the real children and families whose lives they affect every day with their decisions. They want the general public to be made aware of how to report child abuse and be made aware that the average citizen can do something about incidents occurring or people needing potential help without actually confronting anyone. Some methodology is needed so everyone can be made aware. Would like some people with influence who are willing to belp support Child Watch acknowledge their approval through a letter or by signing a sheet indicating their support. It was suggested that some sort of definition of child abuse is needed. People have a hard time undentanding the legal description. Being abusive vs. child abuse is bard to know. Parents don't know where to draw the line because they are given mixed messages. Child Watch is a program to make people aware of problems and also solutions to those problems. People in roles of leadership are needed to show how it can be cost effective to crime prevention programs. For requests received ~y United Way, some of the children are brought in to discuss their stories. When you hear it fint hand, it makes an impact. Tbis may be a good vehicle for Child Watch too. The target date for Child Watch is May 9. In June there will be a Stand For Children program through the Children's Defense Fund to target child care. Would like to use the impetus from Child Watch to do a 4 countywide event. Maybe children from day care centers can participate. Companies with message boards will be contacted to ask them to show their support for quality and accessible child care. · ,- TREASURE COAST COUNCIL: Mayor Minsky met with the Treasure Coast Council of Local Governments. If there are any legislative items to promote, we should let them know. These items can be presented to the Florida League of Cities. BOYS & GIRLS CLUB: The Boys and Girls Club did not receive full funding through Fort Pierce Housing Authority. The Children's Services Council came up with $70,000 for them but there is still a critical shortfall. The Fort Pierce City Commission did not take a,tion on this issue. The way it stands now, the program will be cut back. Some of these programs earn their own way in the community but the community does not want to pay for it. The YMCA is strictly fee based. They don't take any grant money. The Boys & Girls Club has a low fee base because they deal with impoverished areas. Tbe fee is only 1/2% and the rest is on grants, etc. The Housing Authority funding was 20% of their total budget. In the bigger cities there is no problem getting these programs sponsored. In St. Lucie County the United Way drew $750,000. In Martin County United Way drew $1.4 Million with fewer people. It is difficult to get the community to respond. The public pays one way or the other. After-school programs vs. detention program costs would be surprising. Educating the public is a conditioning process. It has to be repeated over and over or it won't sink in. It can't just be an ad in the newspaper. NEXT MEETING: The next meeting of Concerned Citizens and Officials will be held on Thursday, February 5. 1998 at 12:00 Noon in Room 217 at the St. Lucie County Courthouse. Lunch will be provided. Please contact Linda at 461-7442 to RSVP. Is CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALS DECEMBER 4, 199~ ~r~ COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: 11/97 10/97 9/97 4/97 3/97 Treasure Coast Food Bank 739 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 787 Ft. Pierce Police 537 PSL Parks and Recreation 1,025 PSL Police Dept. 55 St. Lucie County Schools 144 Safespace 233 White City Cemetary 50 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 150 Miscellaneous Agencies 2,100 TOTAL 5,820 6,498 5,577 7,905 5,114 The boun worked through the Sberiff's Department and tbe County program are in additional to the boun mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the County golf coune, Seal Museum, Boys & Girls Club, and Boxing Club. The worken are given the option of where they want to work. The combined number of community service houn assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for November was 8,207 houn. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community houn paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUl's which are at the rate of $10 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department 11/97 $ 2,414.05 $ 2,520.00 $ 1,408.00 $ 3.908.76 $10,250.81 m~ & Œ ß W œ íñl UU DfC 31 1997 æJ ,...,.. " ...." """ "'~e:""'e CHILDREN'S SERVICES COUNCIL: Diana Rew, Neighborhood Collaborative Specialist for the Children's Services Council, attended the meeting to familiarize the group on the programs being offered. The Children's Services Council was established by public referendum in 1990. They now have 21 programs representing 15 agencies. The Children's Services Council is composed of 10 Board memben, 5 are designated and 5 are appointed. Their mission is to improve the quality of life for the children of St. Lucie County. They speak for the children and their families and attempt to prevent problems before they start. The funding decisions are made by the Council. There is heavy emphasis on health care and this is a large portion of the dollan given out. Healthy families, school readiness, and school success are goals to create resiliency and encourage healtb life styles. There are several types of grants offered: Collaborative; Innovative; Neighborhood; and Mini-grant programs. Tbe Collaborative category consists of different agencies coming together to provide one service countywide. The Innovative program is for new programs in the county. They need to have a proven track record or some statistics indicating it is going to work. They want to spend the taxpayen money as carefully as possible. Initial funding is given and then they stand on their own. There is a maximum of 2 yean funding. The Neighborhood Program grants are funds tbat are for programs in a neighborhood. Tbey are designed to improve the quality of life for those children in that neighborhood. There are 3 funding levels for the neighborhood program: · Neighborhood Mini Grant awards up to $5,000 to neighborhood based groups for the development of one time projects. The application form can be filed at any time. Groups must match dollar for dollar with grant funds througb volunteer houn, cash or donations. To qualify it must be a neighborhood based group that can meet on a regular basis. · Neighborhood Program awards up to $20,000 to establish new neighborbood programs to serve a minimum of 100 children. Groups must bave an established neighborhood advisory board of at least ten memben. Projects chosen will represent the wishes of the community as indicated through a neighborhood survey and will provide activities for a variety of age groups. A community survey is done to be sure the program is serving the desires of that whole neighborhood. This can be applied for at any time during the year. It does not have to be on the funding cycle. · Comprehensive Neighborhood Program awards up to $40,000 to create new or expanded programs for established 501C.3 neighborhood organizations that serve up to 200 people year round with a variety of activities for all ages. This has to be done through the regular funding cycle. To qualify, activities have to take place within established boundaries; is for neighborhood residents; completed within 12 months; include activities for all ages; and these funds can't take the place of other funding available. Spread the word that funds and assistance are available. The Fort Pierce Police Department is in the process of creating the Police Athletic League (PAL). In Port St. Lucie they are trying to develop a system of hobby shops designed for children that don't participate in outdoor sports. Will check to see if these areas fit the criteria for funding. CHILD WATCH: Child Watch is a national project from the Children's Defense Fund. It is a way to highlight different issues to people who can do something about them. One is being started in St. Lucie County. They are looking to take a group ofleaden, educate them about issues in St. Lucie County, and have them experience some of the problems pertaining to thafissue and discuss solutions. Martin County had tbeir meeting yesterday on teen pregnancy prevention. Tbe next Child Watch meeting is set for December 12 and they are thinking about focusing on child abuse. At the last Concerned Citizens meeting we discussed the program in Port St. Lucie for children sentenced to community houn (fint time offenden). The program fell apart partly due to lack of officen to ovenee the program. Due to cutbacks no one from Juvenile Justice was participating in the weekend program. Volunteer policemen were available. Parks crew employees showed the juveniles how to do yard work. Rakes, gloves, etc. were provided. Maybe another counseling system would be available for them. They averaged 40-50 participants every Saturday morning. A case counselor is needed to talk to them after they have completed their work time. We have the work to do and the equipment needed to do the work. Herb Bolan is employed by Juvenile Justice in the administrative funding capacity and coordinates the juvenile justice system with the court system. Tom Walsb and Dan Vaughn offered to invite him to the next Concerned Citizens and Officials meeting. NEXT MEETING: Since the tint Thursday of the month falls on a holiday, the next meeting will be on Thursday, January 8. 1998 at 12:00 Noon in Room 217 at the St. Lucie County Courthouse. Is ¡.' ; ¡;~'-- 6P ., -:?.....J ......} ~.~/... , . [/7Jj¡;-""- 30) CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALS NOVEMBER 6, 1997 COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service hours worked provided by CO.R.E. are as follows: 10/97 9/97 4/97 3/97 2/97 Treasure Coast Food Bank 562 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 885 Ft. Pierce Police 602 PSL Parks and Recreation 1.081 St. Lucie County Schools 75 Safes pace 512 White City Cemetary 50 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 125 Miscellaneous Agencies 2,606 TOTAL 6,498 5,577 7,905 5,114 3,943 The houn worked through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in additional to the houn mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the County golf coune, Seal Museum, Boys & Girls Club, and Boxing Club. The workers are given the option of where they want to work. The combined number of community service houn assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for October was 8,879 houn. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community houn paid instead of served at the rate of $5.15 per hour except for DUl's which are at the rate of $10 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department 10/97 $ 3,786.43 $ 1,507.50 $ 1,675.00 $ 515.00 $ 7,483.93 '+ CHANGE OF MEETING TIME/PLACE: It was discussed and decided that the December 4 meeting will be held at the St. Lucie County Courthouse in Fort Pierce at 12:00 Noon in Room 217. Lunch will be provided and the meeting will be adjourned at 1:00 p.m. Diana Reu of the Childrens Services Council will make a presentation. Please call Linda at 460-7442 to RSVP by December 3. ISSUES: Are there enough numben to warrant a new circuit or county judge? Judge Kanarek has indicated he felt the numben warrant a new county judge. We have some power in the legislature now. We have a short timeframe to work with before their terms end so we should take advantage of it. One issue of concern which could be presented to the legislaton is the fact that if juveniles are sentenced to probation and then violate probation, there is nothing the judges can do other than double their probation. The statutes do not permit them to be able to do anything to them. The Circuit court has more things they can do. They have a network to do something to them. The juveniles are aware of all the angles. Dan Vaughn will draft something to give to Ken Pruitt to present to the legislature. The Circuit court handles most of the felony offenses committed by juveniles. Many times the parents of the juveniles sentenced to probation are looking for ways to get them out of it. A lot of juveniles will just not show up at all. The parents do not support what the court has proposed. Are there any states that bave sanctions that work for the juveniles? If we could impose being placed at a detention center for violating probation, it would help. There was a weekend program for juveniles in place but it ran into problems getting probation officers to supervise. Volunteers did not have the authority needed to enforce. There was a shortage of probation officen so the program had to be stopped. Another problem they ran into was some of the juveniles could not pay for their lunches. The volunteen were taking it out of their own pockets. Maybe McDonald's would donate food if the juveniles in the program cleaned their grounds. The DARE program is only for the 5th graden. DARE requires active police officers. They won't allow retired officen. Perhaps they could deputize retired police officers to act as probation officen. Need someone from the juvenile justice who knows these juveniles. It was suggested that Vern Melvin of Juvenile Justice be contacted (467-3166) to discuss this and also invite him to attend a meeting. .... The St. Lucie County Delegation meets November 12. Two or three months prior to their next meeting we should prepare what we want to present to them. Could also get with the Florida League of Cities so they could help lobby for statewide support. We have common problems. We need to get on the agendas. This group echoes the Executive Roundtable. They were instrumental getting the Juvenile Assessment Center started. It was funded through the Department of Education. Taking on a similar format may help this group get things accomplished~ KIDS COUNT PROGRAM: Starting this month every school in St. Lucie County will participate in the Kids Count program. Are in the process of getting someone for Executive Director. Presentations are being made to some of the area pre-schools. Will work on getting the commercial and business community aboard as well as the clergy. PROPOSED SURTAX: The proposed surtax will improve 7 main streets within the city of Fort Pierce. 25th Street will be extended to US I and will be the new north/south artery. It will be 4 laned. The County does not have the money to 4 lane its portion of 25th Street but this tax will provide the funding. In Port St. Lucie it will be used for the City Hall and Community Center interest and a 1/10 of a mill cut in property taxes. Radio commercials are coming out with separate ads for Port St. Lucie, Fort Pierce, and the county. They will have some billboards on Prima Vista and 1-95. Ads will run in the newspaper and the TV commercial is being finalized. There is no organized opposition as yet. Each city kicked in $15,000 for this project to get the information out. The referendum failed a few yean ago because the timeframe was not specified. In the past the property own en have had the burden. With this tax everyone will share the burden. NEXT MEETING: Remember - the next meeting will be on Thunday, December 4 at 12:00 Noon in Room 217 at the St. Lucie County Courthouse. Is CONCERNED CITIZENS AND OFFICIALS ¡; I MAY 1, 1997 tr3 ~ COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service houn worked provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: 4/97 3/97 2/97 1/97 12/96 11/96 Treasure Coast Food Bank 608 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 1,186 Ft. Pierce Police 488 PSL Parks and Recreation 1,445 St. Lucie County School 50 Miscellaneous 1,502 Mail In Clientele 671 St. Lucie County Recreation Dept 100 TOTAL 5,577 7,905 5,114 3,943 5,151 7,848 The houn worked through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in additional to the hours mentioned above. Miscellaneous Agencies include the County golf course, Seal Museum, Safe Space Thrift Shop, Boys & Girls Club, and Boxing Club. The worken are given the option of where they want to work. The combined number of community service houn assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for April was 4,483. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community hours paid instead of served at the rate of $5 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department 4/97 $ 5,868.50 $ 2,500.00 $ 2,035.00 $ 1.625.00 $12,028.50 TENT CITY: A tent city for female inmates is being built. No date for completion is set yet. ,;', œ -31m CO. ADMIN. OF'rle~ _:L..._...;.. The jail population keeps growing. Inmates were being put in tents only on the weekends but now the tents are being used during the week also. CHILDREN'S SERVICES COUNCIL: Marjorie Spence was in West Palm Beach with the Treasure Coast Collaboration Coalition for their fint major conference to share resources and combat common problems. The Children's Services Council supports about $1.4 Million in program services this year. Tbey have had requests for almost $2.6 Million. The resources available will have a rippling effect for fint time offenders. It will reduce the likelihood of them getting into bigger trouble. RESTORATION HOUSE: Mareya Schneider and Frances Watson attended this Concerned Citizens meeting to share the purpose of Restoration House and its programs. Mareya and Frances founded the program. The grand opening of Restoration House will be held Monday, May 5. It is a rehabilitation center for women offering a long term (one year) program to help women find themselves. These women have dropped out of society and lost their way with drug abuse, alcohol abuse, spouse abuse, etc. The goal of Restoration House is to get the women on the right path so they can get a good job, take care of their children, pay taxes, and be responsible citizens. They also work witb women who are incarcerated right now and women who are on the streets. Restoration House wants to make a difference in St. Lucie County. Both Mareya and Frances pooled their experiences to start this program. They are blood sisters and decided to combine what they knew from personal experiences and from working with people with problems. They have worked in jails, nuning homes, and people's homes helping them to have a better life. Restoration House was funded by the City of Fort Pierce this year. They received a community development block grant which the City of Fort Pierce matched and the County matched the City's amount. The Housing Authority left them a building on 7th Street (the old health clinic) and the $1,000 per month rent was forgiven. They also supplied the funds to renovate the building. Restoration House also works with other short term programs with the Sheriff's Dept. and with the bridge program from New Horizons. They are working with Major Miller to find strategies to work with the women who are ambitious enough to complete the bridge program. One woman just released from jail is waiting to get into the program. Another woman in jail is to be released in about one week and will be put on probation to the Restoration House program. They are working with HRS and CORE to lay the groundwork. Children's Services has also been very helpful to them. If there are any women you want to refer for consideration, let them know. If any of the community service worken are available to help at the Restoration House facility, please send them. Frances Watson is the Director of Administration at Restoration House. She was addicted to drugs for 17 yean. She entered the Teen Challenge program on April 3, 1988 and has been clean for 9 yean. She was hired by New Horizons and Fort Pierce Housing Authority as a counselor. In August 1996 she decided she wanted to put her heart into Restoration House. She knew that it worked. They have a 12 month live-in drug rehabilitation center for women. They teach job skills, job training, IRCC women's programs, St. Lucie County Extension services, and credit counseling. They have evening seminan to work with the women such as sewing, etc. They are applying for an HRS license. HRS in Tallahassee has cleared her to be a primary counselor. The Restoration House program is very structured. The day starts at 6:30 a.moo Classes are held 9-12 and include job training, credit counseling, credit services, and effective parenting. Chores alternate each week. There is hands on cleaning and cooking. A nutritional plan is followed. The women are taught bow to budget and be economical shoppen. This is not a free program. One third of the money is escrowed. They keep 1/3 and give back 1/3 of the salary for 6 months. They work and they save. If they complete the entire program, they will be given two years public housing. They will have money in their savings, a home to go to, and knowledge to manage that home. Other groups come into Restoration House to teach the women such as Christian Women United, a mentonhip program, and they are taken to church on Sundays. They go to different churches each week to help them make a choice. The women do not receive visitors during the fint 14 days. Visitors must be approved by the staff. Only immediate family is allowed to visit. If the women are married, they try to restore relationships. Lockdowns are conducted once a month. Restoration House is located at 609 W 7th Street in Fort Pierce. They have 14 beds and are on campus classrooms. This is the fint live-in program in 5 counties. It is a non-profit organization. NEXT MEETING: The next Concerned Citizens meeting will be held on Thunday, June 5, 1997, at the St. Lucie County Courthouse in the Jury Assembly Room at 5 p.m. /Is ;- CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALS I I' 9} DECEMBER~, 1996 / ø J ~ COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service hours worked in November and December provided by C.O.RE. are as follows: 12/96 11/96 10/96 9/96 8/96 5/96 Treasure Coast Food Bank 660 1,239 Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches 848 866 Ft. Pierce Police 274 438 PSL Parks and Recreation 627 1,171 Safes pace Thrift Shop 58 367 St. Lucie County School 188 Miscellaneous 1,213 1,070 TOTAL 3,943 5,151 7,848 6,040 6,744 7,439 ., The hours through the Sheriff's Department and the County program are in additional to the hours mentioned above. The combined number of community service ~ours assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for November was 6,921 and for December was 6,382. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community hours paid instead of served at the rate of $5 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department 11/96 $ 6,495.00 $ 3,155.00 $ 2,000.00 $ 1.125.00 $12,775.00 12/96 $4,056.00 $ 300.00 $2,000.00 $2.540.00 $8,896.00 JUVENILE ASSESSMENT CENTER: At the last Concerned Citizens meeting Ken Pruitt and Dale Trefelner discussed what funding might be available for the Juvenile Assessment Center. A separate meeting was going to be held as a follow up. Dale stated that they are exploring a number of options. They are still lacking funding for adequate law enforcement. They are exploring space requirements for expansion and want to be more centrally located in the heart of the county. Fort Lauderdale is using their old Sheriff's Administration Building. Clearwater uses their old County Annex. Is the land on Selvitz Road available? ill mœrnowrn ill ~311991 CO. ADMIN. OFFICE 1" There is a $3 assessment for Teen Court and $3 for Sheriff's Dept. for the Juvenile Assessment Center. Teen Court monies are applied to traffic. Have prepared a bill that would modify this to allow those excess funds to be used for the Juvenile Assessment Center. Both $3 allocations were authorized in the same statute. Broke out separate with 2 different methods of allocating. Any changes would have to be made in Tallahassee. The Legislative Delegation meeting is on the 18th. In order for this to be brought to their attention, it needs to be on the Agenda. Dale will contact Ken Pruitt to get it on the Agenda and follow up. If a good Bill is drafted, it would be a great help. BOYS & GIRLS CLUB: Dr. Dannahower is on the committee for the Boys & Girls Club acquisition of property in Port St. Lucie. The preliminary contract is ready. The owner wants to sell and the county wants to buy so this should happen soon. JAIL: The jail population today was at 750. With Weekenders, the population is over 800. Tents are utilized for the Weekenden to offset the overpopulation. The minimum security quonset huts are helping with population problems. Ultimately an additional pod will be needed. Per Tom Kindred, the booking area needs to be expanded and they are trying to hold on to the money to do this. Some administrative offices would also expand into this area. Looking for additional money to do a maximum security lock down pod. This would give them the ability to better use the housing they have. This will need to be addressed through the Public Safety Coordinating Council. Now is the time to address the Council. It would be a bond issue to build any other pods. There is $60,000 in the budget for the farm project. May be able to use those funds for low security housing. The work farm is on' target and may move the nursery project there. Still talking above moving from the Oleander site to Rock Road. Could use the plants for right of ways, etc., to beautify the streets. Is an area they want to move forward on. A lot of the schools could use landscaping and might be able to use the plants there. Would make an impact to beautify these areas in this way. To get off center, it is a matter of regrouping with the Sheriff. The contact person within the Sheriff's Department would be Major Miller. There is $260,000 available for the maximum security lock down. The architect did the preliminary cost but still need to complete the design. ASSISTANT COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR: Effective January 1, Doug Anderson will be the Assistant County Administrator and will be attending the Concerned Citizens meetings. They have been meeting with jail personnel re the Sheriff's work program to use people sentenced to weekends to work on public works projects. Have run into two problems - the Sheriff's office on ,~ r weekends does not have transportation or supervision. The county is funning lean on staff. To reschedule staff on weekends would hurt the weekday schedules. Will use a couple of vans to transport. Ran into a problem with the union. The union says they should feceive time and a half for working on weekends and should get a higher rate of pay since they will be supervising people. Create a couple of part time positions for this program? Is an idea being discussed to avoid problems with the union. Three retired New York policemen volunteer on Saturdays to supervise the juvenile justice program for community service. Parks Department employee there with dump truck, tools, and gloves. Caseworken are there every Saturday. Out behind the Civic Center area has been used for overflow parking. Lots of debris. Are cleaning out this entire area. If they have a problem with an offender, they are not allowed to come back to the program. Also planning to move them into the Savannahs and Mets baseball stadium to do work. Volunteers feel kids are getting some good out of it. There are about 30 participants each weekend. KEN MILLS: Want to create a bustling viable place to live instead of an eyesore. This one of the worse areas statistically in the nation and this is an opportunity to make improvements and make an impact. Want to make history and change the community. Dr. Dannahower worked with them and got involved. He got the Commission to help fund some of the programs. There was a march down Avenue D last week. Energy was generated by police, the Mayor, etc. If we work together, we can make significant change. The newspaper reported there were 60 people at the Saturday march. The number was actually higher. There was a nice group of young people ready to get involved and get active. A vocational center would be an excellent opportunity to give back and help make some of the young people use some of that energy that is just going to was~e. The jail is overpopulated with these people. The Rebuilding the Wall program is a plan of action to tear down the wall separating the different ethnic groups. Want to reach back and give these boys an opportunity and tear down the wall of fear that separates us. Started a group to be visible at certain street corners. The corner of 9th & D is making a tremendous impact. These are people who want to get involved in their community. People are ready to try to do something. Need to consider doing a program for a facility such as Save Our Children on a greater scale. -' , Some funding has been approved through Children's Service Council. There is a waiting list for children to come in. Some reading and tutorial programs are planned. There is such a tremendous need. Working with Chief Mahar to do something together such as recruiting police officers. The Right of Passage mentoring program had 8-15 young men who will be graduating. They are feeling mentally ready to enter the work force. Don't have to wind up on Rock Road. They need to realize they have alternatives. A Vocational Center in the neighborhood to train them and teach them skills would take a bite out of crime. Help is needed to help the children. Some of the kids have done community service there. If the job is not up to par they do not get credit. With the proper facility set up, they could have a place to do community service. In meeting the criteria, we can spare some of the young men from going down the prison trail. Some of the seeds of love planted in them will impact their lives in the future. One young lady who grew up in the program is now tutoring and mentoring at the Center. She has gone to college and has come back to teach others how to use computers. A conscious effort is needed through this section of town to stamp out the blight. Ken is working on a proposal. He is looking at property. He wants to give back to Fort Pierce. He will make a presentation to the Commission to thank them for their help. Vocational training will be the salvation of getting people working. A lot of people are not going to school and need training so they will be qualified to do something else. They need to be challenged. There is a need to refocus vacational training effort to gear to these people. Ken is excited about working with the kids to help save them. Need to bring qualified people on the staff. It is a real challenge to take on. He wants kids to be challenged. Help is needed getting into some of those doors where there is funding so they can serve more kids and families. NEXT MEETING: At the next meeting, we plan to discuss further: · Plants project · Juvenile Justice · Vocational Training ,. The next Concerned Citizens and Officials meeting will be held on Thunday, February 6,1997, at the Jury Assembly Room at the St. Lucie County Court House in Fort Pierce at 5 p.m. /Is ~ Ð11¡7W q CONCERNED CIT~ENS AND OFFICIALS JUNE 6, 1996 COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT: The monthly figures for community service hours worked in May provided by C.O.R.E. are as follows: Treasure Coast Food Bank Ft. Pierce Parks and Beaches Ft. Pierce Police PSL Parks and Recreation PSL Police Safespace Thrift Shop St. Lucie County Schools White City Cemetary Miscellaneous 5/96 4/96 3/96 2/96 1/96 12/95 1,177.00 1,622.00 1,097.00 1,812.00 151.00 643.00 235.00 115.00 587.00 o TOTAL 7,439.00 5,248 5,882 5,950 4,623 3,691 The combined number of community service hours assigned by County Judges Vaughn, Walsh, and Midelis for last month was 10,838. Judi Miller of Big Brothen/Big Sisters reported that they could use office help and might be able to use this service. She also mentioned that there may be a way to utilize the school system as a provider for community service houn. Could maybe use these people to clean up the inside of the school busses. One professional painter doing community service time for DUI painted the Port St. Lucie Police Station. COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS CONVERTED: The following agencies received these amounts back from monies collected for community hours paid instead of served at t~e of $5 per hour: St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Port St. Lucie Police Department Florida Highway Patrol Fort Pierce Police Department $10,552.58 $ 6,475.00 $ 5,725.00 $ 1,750.00 c JAIL: The first phase of video visitation went into effect in June which has helped with manpower needs in surveillance. It reduces the need for manpower during visitations. This program was paid for from the Inmate Welfare Fund. .. The groundwork has started for Tent City. Hoping that this will be up and running in early July. This facility will be used primarily for weekenders and will be inhabited primarily at night. MENTORING PROGRAM: Dr. Dannahower spoke with Ken Mills today. Mr. Mills is still having a problem getting black men involved in the mentoring program. He will continue to work on recruiting men for the program. YMCA: The new YMCA director will be in town this month. She was born in West Palm Beach and has been residing in Knoxville. She will be coming to Port St. Lucie to begin some programs and will meet some of the community leaders to better undentand the problems. KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS: The Knights of Columbus building was for sale with the asking price of $550,000. The city of Port St. Lucie offered $475,000 and the offer was refused. The city of Port St. Lucie wanted to buy the building and move the people in the Youth Center into that location. They were going to then rent out the Youth Center to tbe Boys and Girls Club for $1 per year. NON-DENOMINATIONAL COMMUNITY CENTER: Betsy Stier has set some land aside to build a non-denominational community center. Although she will be working at Hospice in West Palm Beach, she is encouraging the congregation to continue with the project. ADDITIONAL JUDGE: An additional judgeship has been approved and funded. Bob Kilbride has declared and Jim Minix is expected to declare. The judgeship is an election, not appointed by the Governor. BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE FACT SHEET: Capt. John Skinner distributed a Bureau of Justice Assistance Fact Sheet from the U.S. Department of Justice which gives details about the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program. The Fact Sheet shows what is required to obtain the money and addresses the matching grant situation. The money is distributed locally and gives flexibility on how to use the money Finding the money is always a problem in local government and this may be of some assistance. Fort Pierce Elementary was able to do the $750,000 roof repair this way. SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS POSITION: J udi Miller updated the status of the opening for Superintendent of Schools in St. Lucie County. Tbe selection search process has started. The deadline for letters of -- intent is June 15, 1996. The position has been advertised nationally and so far 30 responses have been received. They expect to receive 75-100 responses. Consultant Jim Hulke has done searches nationally and is very well respected in the field of education. He is helping with the process in our search. A series of panelists will ask questions of the candidates with questions being solicited and reviewed. The more questions received, the more questions will be considered. Let Sch.ool Board members know if you are interested in participating. It is hoped that the new Superintendent will be on board in mid-September. The Interim Superintendents are Queen Townsend and Tom Clancy. SUMMER SCHEDULE: It was discussed and decided that the Concerned Citizens and Officials meetings will not be held during the summer months but will resume in September. NEXT M The nex Concerned Citizen meeting will be held on Thursday, September 5,1996, at the St. Lucie oun ourthouse Jury Assembly Room, Fort Pierce, at 5 p.m. /Is