After two years of intense community debate, voters will decide in November whether now is the time to impose a new property tax aimed at addressing children’s issues. 

A proposed referendum to launch a Leon County Children’s Services Council has been met with both sweeping support and sharp scrutiny. 

Here’s a snapshot of what voters should know. 

What’s a Children’s Services Council?

It’s a special taxing district with the power to levy ad valorem taxes no greater than .5 mills. Florida has nine independent CSCs, and if approved by voters, Leon County would be the 10th. 

Created in 1945, the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County is the oldest. The newest CSC to be created was the The Children’s Trust of Alachua in Nov. 2018.

By Florida statute, CSCs generate revenue to tackle children’s issues tailored to individual counties. Each one has a 12-year lifespan that goes before voters for renewal. 

They are managed by either a 33-member or 10-member council; the latter is proposed for Leon County.

The local option calls for five statutorily mandated members, including the Leon County Schools superintendent, a school board member, a Department of Children and Families district administrator, a county commissioner and a judge assigned to juvenile cases. The governor appoints the remaining five members.  

In April 2018, Lee County commissioners opted to not allow a referendum to go on the November ballot to create a Children’s Services Council, while Orange County commissioners decided a needs assessment was in order before going to a referendum (Leon County Commission did the same thing in 2018). 

What will a CSC do in Leon County?

Specifics aren’t clear at this time — a gnawing detail that fuels criticism.  

A Leon County CSC Planning Committee finalized its recommendations in a 118-page report in 2019. The report does not advocate for or against the proposal. 

Instead, it outlines areas of concern surrounding local children, including arrests, infant mortality and school readiness and potential consequences if left unchecked. The report offered three general priority areas: success in school and life; healthy children and families; and stable and nurturing families and communities.

Keeping things general, it said, allows a CSC to work from a road map provided by the now disbanded planning committee. The Leon County CSC would finetune and execute the plan. An executive director would be hired to drive the plan forward.

What’s on the table for Leon County?

It could impose a property tax rate of up to half a mill or $42 per $100,000 in taxable property value per year — representing up to $8 million per year.

If approved, a Leon County CSC will begin receiving money in November or December of 2021.

What proponents say

Main points: Supporters say Leon County is approaching a tipping point that warrants intervention. 

They say the COVID-19 pandemic is only making current conditions worse for children in need. In addition, as Florida looks to improve its workforce for the future, an increasing number of business leaders say early intervention is paramount in helping children success in school. Business and community leaders also are calling for more targeted efforts to reduce youth violence by tackling the root causes. Get the Coronavirus Watch newsletter in your inbox.

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Endorsements: They include the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce, Big Bend Minority Chamber of Commerce, Capital City Chamber of Commerce, United Way of the Big Bend, United Partners for Human Services, Whole Child Leon and Institute for Nonprofit Innovation and Excellence.

What opponents say

Critics: They include the Network of Entrepreneurs & Business Advocates and a loosely formed grassroots group called the “No Blank Check Committee,” consisting of concerned citizens. 

COVID-19 pandemic: While Leon County’s 5.6% unemployment rate in August is an improvement from July’s 8.5%, critics say businesses are hurting.

They say a pandemic is an absurd time to raise taxes and voice sustained concern over how new tax revenue will be effective, adding efforts to address children’s issues can be achieved with existing groups or revenue sources. 

To view the full news story by Tallahassee Democrat, visit https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/tlhelections2020/2020/10/03/voters-guide-leon-county-childrens-services-council-referendum/3491965001/

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist joined Pinellas County leaders to discuss voting, health and wealth among the local Hispanic community.

“Voting is the most powerful tool we have to create change in our country, our state and our communities,” Crist said kicking-off the discussion. “It is the most important responsibility we have as citizens — a responsibility we have to our neighbors, our friends, our children and grandchildren.”

The event is part of the Hispanic Outreach Center and Intercultural Advocacy Institute’s Hispanic Heritage Month Lunch and Learn Series to inform viewers on the challenges the Hispanic community faces in regard to voting and healthcare.

Crist urged members of the community to make a voting plan and to consider voting by mail or voting early this election cycle. Voting guides are available in English and Spanish. Crist also suggested to those who are already civically engaged to consider running for office.

“When you vote, you’re telling the people in power that you matter,” Crist said. “You’re holding people like me and other public servants accountable to represent you. But quite simply, you’re the boss.”

Liz Lebron, outreach manager for the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office, discussed the challenges Hispanic voters face as a bloc.

“When you don’t vote, you let people in elected office know that perhaps they don’t have to pay as much attention,” she said.

In Pinellas County, Lebron pointed out that election turnout is good in general elections, but falls flat in other elections — the Pinellas County Hispanic community had about a 70% turnout rate in the 2016 General Election, but in the March Presidential Primary Election, the county only saw a 23% turnout of Hispanic voters.

However, Pinellas is still doing better than national numbers. Nationally, Hispanic voters have a significantly lower turnout than other populations, even in Presidential election years.

Why? Lebron listed a couple of reason, including that the American Hispanic population is younger, and younger people tend to have lower turnout. Education level also plays a role, she said. People are more likely to vote if they are a college graduate.

“Outreach is the number one thing,” Lebron said. “It’s that person to person contact, which has been really, really difficult during COVID to do.”

After the discussion on voting, Maria Jimenez, representing the Family Healthcare Foundation, discussed how the Hispanic community has been hit hard by COVID-19.

For example, Hispanic children receive less attention from health care providers, but make up 40% of COVID-19 cases. Also, Hispanic children are less likely to have access to health insurance, at 1.5 times more likely to be uninsured.

Yaridis Garcia, the community planning manager with the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas, moderated the discussion. Garcia emphasized the importance of voting in order to improve health care in the community.

“If you don’t count, you are throwing away crucial benefits as it (relates) to (having) access to health care,” Garcia said. “Access to health care is an ongoing struggle among Latinos, and now more than ever, we need to make sure that they are aware (of) the resources available in our community. A healthier community translates into a healthier workforce.”

To view the full news story by Florida Politics, visit https://floridapolitics.com/archives/372487-youre-the-boss-charlie-crist-joins-local-hispanic-leaders-to-discuss-voting-healthcare

ST. PETERSBURG – Barbershops hold an almost mythic quality in the Black community in America and around the world. Classic movies and plays have been set in barbershops; historic images of the past barbershops have made it to the National Museum of African History and Culture. The barbershop has been revered and written about in academic journals, news articles and books. It’s even been written about a source for community health interventions.

So, it’s really no surprise to find that one of St. Pete’s own master barbers has continued the legacy of the barbershop as a place of power, and taken it to the next level — a space for growing and impacting youth literacy.

Antonio Brown, owner of Central Station Barbershop & Grooming, located at 2325 Central Ave. in St. Pete, has community-mindedness in his blood. He comes from folks who made a difference, including a grandfather, Charion Brown, who ran recreation centers across the city, and a grandmother, Hermeen Murph, who spread love and care among the many neighborhood children she watched in her home as a babysitter.

Born and raised in St. Pete, Brown’s educational career took him in several different directions. After graduating from The Boca Ciega High School, he started at St. Petersburg College and switched to Pinellas Technical College, where he earned his plumbing certificate while he worked telemarketing jobs.

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Eventually, plumbing no longer held his interest, and he decided to pursue the field of barbering. Brown said he had already been prepared by his grandmother to bring something else to the field besides clippers and scissors, though he may not have known it.

“My grandmother used to keep a lot of kids in the neighborhood. I grew up around her — a very loving and giving individual. I didn’t realize what she was instilling in me at the time, but it spilled over into my community endeavors,” Brown acknowledged.

Brown shared that most people who knew him realized he was a “very creative person” and that creativity sparked an un-tried concept: using his skills and place of business as a place of learning.

“Being a barber, you watch children grow up right before your eyes if they stay loyal to you and continue to come back to you as clients. I decided to try to take advantage of a niche that I didn’t see happening in this area.”

Brown said he wanted to “tackle issues that I felt that were important and impactful, that I was passionate about.” He originally started the book club concept in 2016, focusing mainly on trying to help the children who came into the shop.

“I didn’t get a very good response at the time because I really wasn’t trying to get it out into the community as much as I am today. At that time, I was really focused on trying to help the kids, and you know, do something different.”

When COVID-19 hit the community, Brown said he decided it was time to bring it back and relaunch it.  This time it’s been a hit. “I’ve gotten many great comments and feedback; it’s just been amazing.”

Brown holds the book club on Wednesday afternoons from 4-6 p.m. “They (the children) know that they’re coming in and getting books; they know they’re coming into a safe space where reading is okay.”

Treats and a reward may also be on the table if the kiddos come in and read to him. Along with providing free haircuts, he sometimes offers gift cards as well as the books.

While Brown said he doesn’t have any formal training, his methods sound like the kind of high-quality, low-pressure, care-filled instruction that most schools today seem to lack sorely. Most of the children who come in read to Brown while he’s cutting their hair, and at times he will read along with them.

“As they’re reading, if they slip up, or if they have any problem words that they come across, that’s when I interject,” he explained. “They might be reading a story, and a word may come up that they have a problem with the pronunciation. And I help them sound it out.”

Brown said they’ll talk about the context of the sentence and how the word is being used; he may help them look up a definition.

“It’s just little small things, you know, and their parents also pick up on what I’m doing,” he noted.

Brown acknowledged that some of his know-how comes from years of dealing with children in the chair, kids who might be afraid and crying when they come in for the first haircut, who may be afraid of clippers, or just overwhelmed at the new experience. That’s when Brown has to sit down with them, put the clippers away, and just talk to them. Learning to ease children and make them feel safe has worked just as well in the Barbershop Book Club.

His compassion and empathy for young boys who struggle is also informed by his own experiences.

“I had peers and friends I grew up with who couldn’t read and were just pushed along in school. That touches me today.”

Brown said he tries to find books that will speak culturally to his young clients, so he purchases his shop’s collection from Cultured Books, owned by Lorielle Holloway, which specializes in Black books for children.

“I’m trying to find images that look like them; stories that reflect what they’re going through as inner-city kids.”

Working with the Shirley Proctor Puller Foundation, Junior League of St. Pete, and the Juvenile Welfare Board, Brown helped launch the Community Barbershop Book Club with several other Pinellas barbers.  They have also committed to holding similar book clubs throughout Pinellas.

Now, this St. Pete master barber is hoping that people will help supply these other barbershops with culturally relevant books so that the love of reading and learning in community barbershops grows.

Brown is on fire when he talks about the expansion of his dream and vision, and it’s obvious why that is: “It’s just something that I love to do. And because I’m excited about it, I think the kids are excited about it as well.”

For appointments at Central Station Barbershop & Grooming’s  Barbershop Book Club, download the Booksy app and make appointments online at www.csbg2325.booksy.com. To reach Antonio by email, write to csbg2325@gmail.com, or call 727-710-6427.

To view the full news story on The Weekly Challenger, visit http://theweeklychallenger.com/master-barber-antonio-browns-barbershop-book-club-expands/

When the pandemic hit, and everyone had to stay inside, Jen Jones worried about her youngest brother.

He was 28, living with two roommates in a Town and Country apartment, unable to go to the video gaming academy where he competed or hang out with friends.

He had quit his job in a medical customer service center and was afraid to leave his room. “He was always a germaphobe, so the threat of that virus really got him upset,” Jones said. “And he already struggled with depression.”

She feared what the isolation, and lack of income, would do to him, “on top of all the uncertainty and fear everyone was feeling.”

In late March, a week after the state shut down, Jones got a call. Her brother had been playing online video games and acting strangely. He told teammates he had taken a bunch of pills. One of them called 911.

He had been involuntarily committed under the state’s Baker Act and was in an emergency room.

Jones raced to the hospital, but because of the coronavirus, she wasn’t allowed to see him. She wrote him a note and left it with a nurse: “Please call me. Let me help you. There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for you.”

Two days later, she learned he had been discharged and was back in his apartment.

“How do you release someone who’s struggling like that to the isolation of their 6 x 8 room?” she asked. “How is that a good idea?”

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As early as April, mental health specialists across the country were warning about how the coronavirus and lockdown would cause more people to struggle with anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. A Gallup poll released that month showed 60 percent of American adults reported feeling stress, up from 46 percent the previous summer. The polling company called the findings “unprecedented.”

In May, a group called the Well Being Trust in California released a study predicting that this first U.S. pandemic in a century could lead to 75,000 “deaths of despair” from suicide, alcohol and drug abuse. Stressors like unemployment, fear, dread, isolation and uncertainty — and the combination of all of those factors — is causing people to lose boundaries on their behaviors, the report said.

During late June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 40 percent of U.S. adults reported struggling with mental health or substance abuse — and 11 percent had “seriously considered suicide.” Young adults, racial and ethnic minorities, essential workers and unpaid adult caregivers had even higher rates — with more than 20 percent of essential workers reporting suicidal thoughts over the previous month.

Between June and August, calls jumped 15 percent at the 211 Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, according to CEO Clara Reynolds.

“PTSD takes about six months to set in, so we’re bracing for a real onslaught in October and November,” she said. “This crisis hasn’t even really started yet.”

All summer, across Tampa Bay, people were posting about friends and family who died during the pandemic — some from suicide. “Isolation during these trying times was probably a factor,” one Facebook user wrote of a friend. “My friend just took her life,” another wrote. “I really can’t take much more from 2020.”

According to medical examiners’ offices, the number of deaths by suicide hasn’t increased in Hillsborough or Pinellas counties. But calls to crisis centers have spiked.

Early in the pandemic, Reynolds said, most calls were from people worrying about their physical health — contracting the virus and dying. In April, the calls were more about economic concerns — losing jobs, not being able to pay rent. Politics, protests, hurricanes and retirement funds also are adding to the distress.

“Now, we’re shifting to seeing an increase in calls to the suicide prevention hotline,” said Reynolds. Over a three-month period last summer, about 1,300 people called the hotline. During that same period this year, the volume increased 17 percent.

Kristin Mathre, chief operating officer of the Suncoast Center in Pinellas County, said about 1,500 people now have “active suicide prevention plans.” This time last year, she said, that number was about 540.

The most heartbreaking calls, Mathre said, are about children who are afraid to leave their homes. “This is a new population dealing with agoraphobia,” she said. “We’ve never seen 11-year-olds scared to go outside. They’re worried they’ll get the virus or bring it back to their families.”

Overdoses also are increasing in Pinellas, said Diane Clarke from the addiction treatment center Operation PAR. Since the pandemic began, she has seen a rise in overdoses from Fentanyl, amphetamines, opioids and cocaine. Alcohol sales, she said, are up as high as 35 percent.

“People are struggling,” said Reynolds of the 211 center. “We’re getting callers saying: ‘I’m all alone. I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve lost loved ones. I think my family would be better off without me.’”

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A month after Jen Jones’ youngest brother was released from the hospital, at 3:30 p.m. on April 27, a Hillsborough deputy knocked on her door.

“I have some news about your brother,” he said.

“I hope he’s not in trouble?” she asked.

The deputy paused and looked down. Then he met her eyes. “He was found deceased. I’m not sure of his actual date of death. He had been there several days.”

Jones doesn’t remember how she reacted or if she said anything. She couldn’t process what he was telling her or believe her brother was really gone.

The officer gave her the name and number of her brother’s roommate, who had called 911. For days, the roommate told police, he had been texting from his own bedroom in the same apartment, asking if Jones’ brother wanted to play video games, wondering why he hadn’t been online. After a few days, he started smelling something and banged on the door. No answer. When he turned the knob, it was locked. He got a screwdriver and let himself in.

Her brother was on his back, on his bed, with his arms spread out. He’d left a note. And instructions on who should get his prized Yugioh cards.

“This might hurt some people. And I might be called selfish. … But what about what I want?” he had written. His handwriting in the next sentence was hard to read. Jones’ sister thought it said, “I’m sore and tired.” Jones thought he’d written, “I’m alone and tired.”

“I don’t know what went through his mind. I don’t understand depression. I’m a fixer, but I couldn’t fix this,” Jones said. “If he’d just held on one more week, to see a few more sunsets, everything would have started to open up more and maybe he would have had the opportunity to change something — or everything.”

Jones, a 51-year-old mortgage broker, had always worried about her youngest brother. She’s 22 years older and has a different mother. His mom left when he was 7, their dad died when he was 12.

From then on, Jones raised him, “like a sister-mom,” in her Tampa home.

“He loved making other people happy. He gave great hugs and would listen intently. But he never shared much about himself.”

She took him to a therapist, then another and another. “The more you’d push him, the more he’d pull away.”

Her guilt is crippling. She keeps running through regrets and what-ifs. He must have known how loved he was, she said. But that wasn’t enough.

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Since July 1, the Hillsborough crisis center has hired nine additional counselors to augment their 40-person call center staff. Before COVID-19, calls averaged seven minutes. Now, Reynolds said, counselors spend an average of 20 minutes talking to each client.

“This is not just because someone is depressed,” Mathre said. “It’s because we’ve layered on more than we have the coping skills for. Having someone to lean on is the best coping strategy, and we have a pandemic that’s isolating people. “

Before the lockdown, Mathre said, almost all of their counseling was in person. Now, it’s nearly all online. The mental health mobile crisis response team set up to help people up to age 25 now responds to callers of any age.

The Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County is piloting a program with the University of South Florida to train mental health supervisors to better support counselors. The agency also is working with the Community Health Center of Pinellas to train pediatricians how to spot signs of family stressors and connect parents to resources. And a group called Zero Suicide Pinellas brought 28 community organizations and stakeholders together to synchronize training tools, assessments and safety plans. Educators from BayCare are even giving gun shop owners posters and pamphlets about suicide prevention.

“We need to help everyone feel comfortable reaching out for help,” Mathre said.

People also can do things to help themselves through the crisis, said Jennifer Young, who runs a Largo counseling center and specializes in trauma. Her advice: Stay connected, even if it’s only virtually. Stay physically active. Go outside. Try an app to practice guided meditation, or mindfulness. Find a new hobby. And, if you’re holed up at home with family, don’t be afraid to ask for time alone. “Human beings need to be away from loved ones as much as we need to be together,” she said.

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Jen Jones had some of her brother’s ashes encased in a silver dragonfly necklace, which she wears every day. She set his cello in her living room. Keeps his favorite boyhood Furby by her bed. While she works from home, she sits in his gaming chair. Sometimes, in the evening, she pulls on his well-worn jeans. “It’s comforting,” she said, “to feel him with me.”

Jones’ other brother and sister didn’t want to share their youngest brother’s name or photo. But Jones wanted to tell his story, to remind anyone who is suffering to ask for help.

“It’s okay to be sad. You don’t have to put on a show. I know it’s hard to ask, but people are here for you,” she said. “And for those of us who don’t have mental illness, be kind. Be open to what others are going through. Show extra love. Reach out — and keep reaching.”

This story is part of a collaboration with Frontline, the PBS series, through its Local Journalism Initiative, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Editor’s note: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, resources are available to help. Please see resources below under “Need help?”.

Reach Lane DeGregory at degregory@tampabay.com. Follow @LaneDeGregory.

Need Help?

Contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or suicidepreventionlifeline.org or call the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay by dialing 2-1-1.

To view the full news story by Tampa Bay Times, visit https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/10/05/hurting-right-now-this-florida-woman-wants-you-to-know-youre-not-alone/