The Honorable Bernie McCabe served nearly three decades as top prosecutor for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, and two decades as a member of the Juvenile Welfare Board. His legacy for doing what is right, and for being an advocate for children and youth will live on.

To view the full news story by ABC Action News, visit https://www.abcactionnews.com/money/angies-list/local/florida-legal-community-mourns-longtime-pinellas-pasco-state-attorney-bernie-mccabe#:~:text=PINELLAS%2DPASCO%20CO.%2C%20Fla,McCabe’s%20passing%20on%20social%20media.

When Bernie McCabe first thought about becoming a lawyer, the name that came to mind was TV’s most famous defense attorney.

“I was always fascinated by Perry Mason,” he told the Tampa Bay Times in 2018.

Instead, McCabe’s historic career went in the opposite direction: He spent a half-century as a prosecutor and in 1992 was elected to the top job.

As Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney, he spent nearly three decades overseeing the prosecution of murderers, cop-killers and con men in both counties. He also led the office in its unsuccessful prosecution of the Church of Scientology.

McCabe died on Friday. He was 73.

He had been in poor health for some time. In February, he suffered what he called an “adverse health event” before the pandemic and started working from home. McCabe provided no details about his health then.

“It’s no secret he’s been in poor health,” said Pinellas Pasco Clerk of the Circuit Court Ken Burke, a longtime friend of the state attorney.

McCabe leaves behind a wife, Denise, who he married in 1969, and two children.

In a 2018 interview with the Times, McCabe said his job meant everything to him.

“There’s a lot of satisfaction there. I think I would feel a big void (if I wasn’t working),” he said. “I don’t play golf. In fact, I hate gardening. I can cook reasonably well, but I can’t do that all the time …

“I don’t know if there’s anything else that I could find that would give me the sense of fulfillment that I get out of this office.”

When the news of McCabe’s death broke Saturday, the region’s top officials offered praise.

“He was a man with great intelligence. He had a superior insight into our judicial system. He was a keen politician, and he was always mindful of the other justice partners,” said Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge Anthony Rondolino, who had known McCabe since both were young attorneys. “He was a great leader for the state attorney’s office and has a legacy that will be very, very difficult to surpass.”

The state attorney was a “consummate professional, very ethical,” said Bob Dillinger, who retired last week after 24 years as Pinellas-Pasco’s top public defender.

“I’ve lost a longtime friend,” he said.

The chief judge on Saturday appointed Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett, McCabe’s longtime second-in-command and close friend, as acting state attorney.

“Trying to step in for Bernie — they’re hard shoes to fill,” Bartlett said. “I just hope that the public will be satisfied with what I do.”

Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett, left, and Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe, right, confer during the Sept. 23, 2013 re-sentencing hearing of Nicholas Lindsey Jr. He was 16 when he killed St. Petersburg police Officer David Crawford in 2011. Lindsey was again sentenced to life in prison. [ KEELER, SCOTT | Tampa Tribune ]

McCabe’s only contested election was his first one in 1992, and he has run unopposed since. In April he was automatically elected to another four-year term that was to start Tuesday. The governor will have to appoint an interim state attorney, and then voters will elect a new state attorney in 2022.

McCabe’s death and Dillinger’s departure means new faces will fill the Pinellas-Pasco circuit’s top criminal justice positions for the first time in decades.

• • •

McCabe was raised in Mount Dora, where his father once served as Lake County school superintendent. What first drew him to the law, he said, was the school board’s colorful attorney, a cigar-chomping lawyer who drove a white Cadillac convertible with red leather seats.

But when McCabe went to Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, his career path fell into place after his first prosecution clinic in 1971. He said he enjoyed the “satisfaction” of helping people and doing the right thing. He graduated in 1972 and joined the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office.

“It was kind of right place, right time,” he said, “and I came to really love what I was doing.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Ander Crenshaw, left, talks with Pinellas-Pasco Attorney Bernie McCabe at a Clearwater restaurant in 1993. [ Associated Press ]

He spent eight years there, supervising the St. Petersburg and then Pasco County offices. Then in 1980, after his father died, he returned home and went to work as a prosecutor in Lake County. Two years later, then-Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Jimmy Russell asked him to come back. McCabe became Russell’s top deputy, then his heir apparent in the 1992 election.

Under his tenure, the State Attorney’s Office won convictions in some of the worst crimes in Tampa Bay history. That includes the case of Oba Chandler, who was executed in 2011 for the murders of Joan Rogers and daughters Michelle and Christe. The Ohio family was visiting Florida in 1989 when Chandler offered to take them out onto Tampa Bay in his boat. They were found floating in the bay, bound, tied to concrete blocks and stripped below the waist.

McCabe prided himself on personally prosecuting cop-killers. He was on the prosecution teams that convicted the killers of Belleair police Officer Jeffery Tackett, who died in 1993; Pasco sheriff’s Lt. Charles “Bo” Harrison, who was killed in 2003; and St. Petersburg police Officer David Crawford, who died in 2011.

Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe, right, calls a witness into the grand jury room at the West Pasco Judicial Center in 2003. The grand jury indicted Alfredie Steele Jr. in the murder of Pasco County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Charles “Bo” Harrison in Lacoochee, and a jury later convicted Steele. [ ANDY JONES | Tampa Bay Times ]

“Any good trial lawyer first and foremost is preparation, and Bernie did his homework,” said Pinellas-Pasco Judge Jack Helinger, who started his legal career as a prosecutor in 1976. And to jurors, Helinger said, McCabe “was a good ‘ol Mount Dora boy. He didn’t talk down to them. He talked with them.”

He supervised an office of about 165 attorneys that handles roughly 80,000 felony, misdemeanor, traffic and juvenile cases a year. In recent years he complained about the toll austere budgets took on his agency.

In a 2011 interview, McCabe noted one of the most disappointing cases of his career: The failed prosecution of the Church of Scientology for the 1995 death of member Lisa McPherson who spent her last days in the church’s care. In 1998 he charged the church with two felonies, practicing medicine without a license and abuse of a disabled adult. But in 2000 he dropped the charges after the medical examiner changed McPherson’s manner of death from “undetermined” to “accident.”

The most famous white collar crime that McCabe’s office prosecuted was against the Rev. Henry Lyons, the St. Petersburg preacher who was then one of the nation’s most powerful Black church leaders. In 1999 he was convicted of using his position as president of the National Baptist Convention USA Inc. to swindle corporations out of more than $4 million.

McCabe’s decisions also made headlines. In 1996, Officer James Knight, a white man, fatally shot Tyron Lewis, a Black motorist who edged his car forward, knocking the officer onto the hood. That incident sparked two nights of rioting in St. Petersburg. McCabe took the case to a grand jury, and its decision not to charge the officer led to more violence. However, when the Times raised questions about the evidence presented to the grand jury, McCabe insisted the grand jury’s report was accurate.

More recently, McCabe prosecuted a man the Pinellas sheriff declined to arrest: Michael Drejka, a white man who killed a Black man, Markeis McGlockton, in a 2018 dispute over a Clearwater parking spot. The sheriff cited Florida’s stand your ground law, but McCabe charged Drejka and he was convicted of manslaughter in 2019.

• • •

McCabe had a big heart for children, said Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. He supported juvenile diversion programs, which channel children arrested for certain crimes into social services and community services and away from the criminal justice system. He also supported Gualtieri’s move to start a similar program for adults accused of minor crimes.

“What made him stick out was his firm belief in doing the right things and treating people fairly and treating them humanely,” Gualtieri said.

Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe, right, shown here at a Juvenile Welfare Board meeting in 2019.

But McCabe was also tough when he needed to be, the sheriff said, calling him “an icon in the legal community and law enforcement.”

Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls, a Palm Harbor Republican who worked as a prosecutor in McCabe’s office until about four years ago, on Saturday posted a statement on Twitter.

“Bernie was my mentor and my friend,” he said. “I will miss him more than I can put into words, but I also know that I will carry the lessons I learned from him with me through all the days of my life.”

Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe holds out his hand to simulate firing a gun during closing arguments in the 2012 murder trial of Nicholas Lindsey Jr., who was convicted of killing St. Petersburg police Officer David Crawford in 2011. [ KEELER, SCOTT | Times ]

Despite his declining health, Gualtieri said McCabe’s mind was as sharp as ever. And his passion for his work never diminished either.

“I thoroughly enjoy this job and I don’t know what it is, but when I start contemplating not coming to work, I just sense a sort of emptiness,” he told the Times in 2018. “I enjoy coming to work, I enjoy interacting with people, I thoroughly enjoy trying to make the community a safer place, or at least keep it from becoming a more dangerous place.”

Friends and colleagues believe that’s why McCabe continued to run for office, despite his declining health. He once said he’d retire after 2016 — but ended up running two more times.

“It doesn’t get more dedicated than he was,” Gualtieri said, “right to the end.”

Bob Dillinger has been many things to many people over his 40-year legal career: A zealous litigator. A mentor to young lawyers. An advocate for children. A philanthropist, alongside his longtime wife, Kay. A known cryer, so moved by his work that it moved the people around him, too.

As the Pinellas-Pasco judicial circuit’s chief public defender, that passion went a long way. For 24 years, Dillinger took an office tasked with defending those who can’t afford a private defense attorney and broadened it into a social services provider that tried to address root causes such as mental illness, homelessness and childhood trauma.

“Not to get all horoscope-y, but he’s a Leo, and it really shows,” said Pinellas County Judge Lorraine Kelly, referring to the astrological sign represented by a lion. “He is fierce, and he really has always had a heart for the underdog and the lowest of the low.”

Dillinger is retiring at the end of the year. He was first elected public defender in 1996 and served five terms, but Thursday is his last day on the job.

His chief deputy, Sara Mollo, takes over Jan. 5 and said she hopes to continue her boss’ legacy.

“It’s just a massive honor and privilege to follow in his footsteps,” said Mollo, 51, who ran unopposed this year.

Dillinger, 69, leaves behind a legacy of compassion and leadership, coworkers, friends and community leaders said. He spearheaded social programs and racked up awards from legal and social services organizations.

And for more than a decade, he and his wife have helped thousands of local children through the Beth Dillinger Foundation, a charity named after their daughter, who died by suicide in 2006.

“I think we’ve changed the focus,” he said, reflecting on his career, “that public defenders do more than just represent criminals. We actually are involved in the community.”

• • •

Working at the public defender’s office convinced Dillinger to become one.

He was born and raised in Daytona Beach, then moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he studied environmental sciences. He returned to Florida to be closer to his family and attended Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport.

He had an interest in urban planning. But he wanted to try out being in a courtroom and heard the public defender clinic allowed law students to try cases. He tried two cases and was hooked.

He graduated from law school in 1976 and took a job in the Pinellas-Pasco office as an assistant public defender. Soon, he was working on capital cases, experience that led him to help publish Florida’s first death penalty training manual for defense attorneys.

“He was always prepared, diligently studying and learning, with the overlay of great personal concern about the well-being of his clients,” said Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge Anthony Rondolino, who worked with Dillinger in the public defender’s office back then. “It was a tremendous mixture for a criminal defense lawyer, particularly a public defender.”

In 1981, Dillinger left the office to work in private practice. His work included suing the Pinellas sheriff at the time, alleging he allowed deputies to beat suspects with a shotgun and flashlights, and successfully defending a man against a murder charge after arguing his client was taken advantage of due to his cocaine addiction.

Circuit Judge Linda Allan, who shared office space with Dillinger as an attorney then, said he always had a “real yearning” to run for public defender.

He took the leap in 1995, filing to run against his old boss and fellow Republican, Robert Jagger, in the 1996 primary.

At the time, Jagger was believed to be the longest-serving public defender in the country. To Jagger, that meant he brought consistency and experience to the job. To Dillinger, it meant stale and out-of-touch leadership.

Facing a 35-year incumbent, in a race few voters paid attention to, Dillinger used some creative tactics. At a 1995 Bucs-Jaguars game, a small plane flew above the 71,629 spectators with a banner: “Dillinger for public defender.” The next year, days before the election, as all eyes were on the forecast for Tropical Storm Fran, he bought air time on the Weather Channel.

Something worked, because Dillinger beat his old boss with 57 percent of the vote. On his first day on the job, he said he had his office door taken off the hinges — the literal embodiment of an open-door policy.

• • •

Before she was a circuit judge, Chris Helinger was working at the public defender’s office when her newly elected boss asked her to review some case files. Dillinger had a hunch about them.

In one, Gulfport police had pinned a dozen burglaries on a Black man with intellectual disabilities. As Helinger dug in, the case against him fell apart. Police said he’d confessed, but there were no recordings or written records of what he said, and there was no other evidence tying him to the alleged crimes. It was one of several issues within the department that sparked a Department of Justice civil rights probe.

Another case was a Madeira Beach man who was facing charges of armed robbery and sexual battery in a series of hotel robberies on the beach. Dillinger told her the man insisted he was innocent, and that there was another man in jail — accused of murder and bank robbery — who looked just like him.

A description of the so-called “beach bandit” was that he was wearing a distinctive shirt with the word “Meridian” on it. So, during an interview with the lookalike’s girlfriend, Helinger asked if she had any of his clothes. The girlfriend said she did.

In an unprecedented move, Dillinger’s office pursued a search warrant — a legal maneuver usually employed only by law enforcement. There, at the top of a bag full of clothing, was the shirt.

“I’ll never forget that moment,” Helinger said. “I have such fond feelings for him because he enabled me to do those things. He was very good at picking out where the talent was and where it wasn’t.”

One of Dillinger’s most high-profile victories was the exoneration of Dale Morris Jr., who the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office accused of the 1997 rape and murder of his 9-year-old neighbor, Sharra Ferger. Dillinger, convinced of Morris’ innocence, threw his office’s resources at Morris’ defense.

The state’s case hung on a bite mark on the child’s shoulder: the sheriff’s dental expert said it matched Morris’ imprints. Defense experts came to the opposite conclusion. Then, just a few weeks before Morris’ 1998 trial was set to start, crime labs determined that hair found on the girl’s body matched another man, not Morris.

Dillinger said he’d never forget the call from a prosecutor, letting him know the state was abandoning the charge. The court document dismissing Morris’ case is framed in his office with this brass engraving: “These actions are the direct result of total dedication by an entire office.”

• • •

It wasn’t just defending clients in the courtroom that Dillinger excelled at.

“His view of his job … went way beyond the traditional role of defending someone in a courtroom,” Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.

Dillinger said he came into the job with a passion for mental health after seeing how much it played a role in his clients’ cases.

He drew attention in the early 2000s to an issue that still persists today, that a broken mental health care system led jails and prisons to become de facto mental hospitals. He won a grant in 2003 for a program that has since diverted more than 7,000 jail inmates with severe mental illness into treatment.

He was instrumental in creating programs that helped with substance abuse disorders and homelessness. And he cared deeply about children. Dillinger saw a link between dependency cases, a civil action that occurs when a child is suspected to be a victim of abuse or neglect, and delinquency cases, in which a child faces criminal charges. He described it this way to the then-St. Petersburg Times in 2008:

“They push somebody in a foster care home, they act out because they feel they’re being abused or not being treated right,” Dillinger said. “And they end up with delinquency charges.”

That resulted in one of the programs he’s most proud of: Crossover for Children, which pairs a child with the same public defender for both cases. The program not only gives children legal help, he said, but also a consistent advocate in lives often marked by uncertainty and trauma.

Outside the office, the Dillinger family grappled with their own tragedy. He and his wife’s only child, daughter Beth, killed herself in 2006. She was 32 and engaged. Her parents went from planning her wedding to planning her funeral.

The Dillingers channeled their pain into helping other children. The year after her death, they started the Beth Dillinger Foundation.

It began with Beth’s Closet, a boutique of clothes and accessories for at-risk teens served by the Pace Center for Girls and has grown to offer several programs, including Nourish to Flourish, which provides meals on weekends to thousands of children whose only access to consistent meals was at school during the week.

“Within a single meeting you could find him passionately nearly being in tears about children in hunger and seriously holding people accountable,” said Beth Houghton, chief executive officer of the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County, on which Dillinger served for 20 years.

“He brought out the side of him that was needed at the time.”

• • •

So what does slowing down look like for a guy like Dillinger?

It was going to include traveling and museums and nights out to dinner, before the coronavirus pandemic swept the world. For now, it’s books, a little Netflix, and lots of time at his house on the Withlacoochee River, fishing for large-mouth bass, elusive amid the panfish. He and his wife will also continue their work with the foundation.

Retirement may include some doctor’s visits, too. Dillinger is on his ninth round of chemotherapy since he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2007. He feels fine, he said, but the cancer has racked his immune system, making his last year in office particularly challenging amid a pandemic.

View the full news story by Tampa Bay Times at https://www.tampabay.com/news/pinellas/2020/12/26/bob-dillinger-was-far-more-than-pinellas-pascos-public-defender/

Grace House, a long-established Clearwater homeless shelter, is set to lose funding worth almost $400,000 a year over concerns about the facility’s finances and management.

The Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County, which awards property tax revenues to local social service programs, voted earlier this month to terminate its contract with Hope Villages of America, the nonprofit that runs the shelter. In a memo provided to governing board members, the Welfare Board said it was concerned that the nonprofit failed to adequately fix long-running financial and administrative issues that had led to it being placed on a corrective action plan.

That worry reached new levels in September, when a Welfare Board monitoring team interviewed Hope Villages employees. Some of them accused their managers of speaking to residents they serve in a harsh and belittling manner and said they feared retaliation if they filed a grievance at work.

“We remain committed to being accountable and responsible with taxpayers’ dollars, and as such, made the prudent decision to terminate the Grace House contract,” said Welfare Board CEO Beth Houghton in an email.

The Welfare Board had funded the shelter, which has 90 beds, since 2005. It agreed to continue funding only through the end of February, leaving a shortfall of about $224,000 for 2021.

Hope Villages of America was known as Religious Community Services Pinellas until changing its name in October.

President and CEO Kirk Ray Smith said the shelter, which costs about $700,000 a year, is well run, with 90 percent of those who stay going onto permanent housing. The shelter also works with families and individuals at risk of becoming homeless. It provides counseling and services such as financial literacy training and family budgeting and serves about 600 people each year, Smith said.

Smith and Chief Operating Officer Melinda Perry said they had addressed many of the issues raised in the corrective action plan. Smith pointed out that the Welfare Board is continuing to fund The Haven, a domestic violence shelter for women that Hope Villages also runs.

We’ve never had an opportunity to challenge a lot of what they’ve written,” he said. “the timing couldn’t be worse with what’s happening with COVID and people in need.”

Kirk Ray Smith was hired as president and CEO of Religious Community Services Pinellas in 2016. In October, the group renamed itself Hope Villages of America.

Smith also questioned the timing of the decision by the Welfare Board, which he said had previously asked whether he would consider allowing another nonprofit to run the shelter.

“When I decided we’re going to go ahead and continue the course, then immediately I was given notice that the funding would be discontinued,” he said.

Hope Villages plans to keep Grace House open, but must find a new funding source.

This is not the first time the leadership of the nonprofit has faced criticism.

Three former employees sued the group and Smith in 2019, accusing him of making demeaning and inappropriate comments to female employees and retaliating against those who complained. The case is pending.

The three and a fourth former employee also filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging discrimination based on their age, sex and race. The commission dismissed three of the complaints, saying it was unable to conclude whether discrimination took place, but granted the women the right to sue the nonprofit.

When asked about the complaints alleged by employees in the September interviews, Smith said he has no contact with those staff members, nor the residents of Grace House.

Perry, the COO, said that only one employee, who is no longer with the nonprofit, had made those complaints. Other employees left because they did not like the direction the nonprofit was taking, she said. Managers recently had an open meeting with staff to discuss any concerns.

“The team we have in place are incredible, and they’re all on board with the changes we’re making,” Perry said.

But according to the Welfare Board, three of the four employees interviewed expressed concerns over the management of the shelter. The interviews were conducted after the board received a letter from a former employee expressing “compelling concerns” over the program’s leadership.

The Welfare Board placed Hope Villages on a corrective action plan in August 2019 after reviews found that the nonprofit did not have on file background screenings of employees who worked with children at the shelter, according to its memo.

There were also concerns about high staff turnover, financial management and the death of two people in the shelter from suspected overdoses. Perry said the shelter took in people who had issues such as addiction.

“It’s not anything that we would have been able to control,” said Perry.

The remaining balance of the 2021 money earmarked for Grace House, roughly $224,000, will now go to a family housing program run by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.

View the full news story by Tampa Bay Times at: https://www.tampabay.com/news/pinellas/2020/12/23/clearwater-nonprofit-loses-almost-400k-for-shelter-after-oversight-concerns/

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/