Bills

                               Junior Leagues of Florida
                        State Public Affairs Committee
                     Summer Conference (SPAC) Agenda
                                July 31, 2010
                              Tampa, Florida
9:30                 Registration
10:00               Historical & Inspirational Words Regarding SPAC, Elise Minkoff
10:15               Welcome from Tampa League and SPAC Board
10:20               Introductions by delegates & brief description of their goals
10:50               SPEECH: Children’s Hunger Speaker, Wendy Zella
11:10               SPEECH: Foster Care Discussion, Julia Irvin
11:30               SPEECH: Kidcare, Dr. Avery Rosnick-Slyker
11:45               SPEECH: AJLI Initiatives for SPAC’s Across Country, Becker Holland
11:55               Lunch
12:00               SPEECH: Autism, Katie Leach
12:30               SPEECH: Cyber Predators & Cyber Bullying, Alexis Lambert
12:50               SPEECH: Childhood Obesity, Angel Cicerone
1:10                 Break Out Session for Focus Issue Discussion
2:30                 Reconvene as group & presentation of issues that made cut from each committee
3:30                 SPEECH: Discussion on how to approach legislators, Mary Goldsmith
3:50                 Wrap Up
4:00                       Conference Concludes

Elise Behnke Minkoff is a graduate of the University of South Florida (BA & MA) and Stetson College of Law (JD). She is President of Complex Properties Development Corp., a family owned business. She is Past President of the Junior League of St. Petersburg and her area League of Women Voters. She currently sits on the boards of the YWCA Tampa Bay, the St. Petersburg Free Clinic (Vice Chair), League of Women Voters - St. Petersburg Area (President-Elect), Museum of Fine Arts Stuart Society (President-Elect), and Pinellas County License Board for Children's Centers/Family Day Care Centers. She just completed a two year term on AJLI's Nominating Committee. She was appointed by Governor Crist to Pinellas County's Juvenile Welfare Board and serves as Secretary. She is a graduate of Leadership Florida (Class XXVI) and Leadership Pinellas. She is a very proud wife of Circuit Judge Tommy Minkoff and over the top proud mother to Ensign Michael V. Minkoff USN/USNA 09' and Midshipman Matthew V. Minkoff USNA 12'. (EMinkoff20@aol.com)

Wendy Zella has been the Manager of the Feeding America Tampa Bay Kids Cafe since 1997. At inception, the initiative opened one site that provided meals to children at need and has blossomed into fourteen sites across the county. Kids Cafe provides a hot, nutritious meal in a safe and accessible environment to children who are facing food insecurity both in rural and inner city low income communities. Over 1,000 underprivileged children are served a late afternoon dinner each day after school, totaling 5,000 meals weekly. The program also provides them with tutoring, nutrition education, school supply assistance, and hope.

Julia Irvin has lived in Melbourne, FL since age two. She is a 1991 and 1996 graduate of the Florida Institute of Technology where she earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering with a concentration in semiconductor design and manufacturing. She is president of Oxford Ridge Solutions Group, Inc., a one-person consulting firm that provides a variety of services including engineering and strategic planning. In 2009 she became the Executive Director of Connected by 25 Brevard, a community benefit organization that works to improve the lives of youth in and young adults formerly in foster care. Julia joined the Junior League of South Brevard, Inc. in 1997. She was chair of the State Public Affairs Committee of the Junior Leagues of Florida from 2003-2005, and she was president of JLSB from 2005-2007. Julia and her husband Rick Mason have been married for almost 6 years. They live in Suntree with their one-year-old Russian Blue mix named 'Mojo.' (JIrvin@cfl.rr.com)

Dr. Avery Rosnick-Slyker has over 15 years of achievements within nonprofit, social service organizations. For over seven years, Dr. Slyker has been administrating and managing social service programming; advocating on behalf of women, children, and families; marketing social services; and administering healthy client relations. She is an experienced group facilitator and featured speaker, presenting over 100 workshops, trainings, and lectures focused on community resiliency, team building, and youth empowerment. Dr. Slyker is currently the Program Coordinator for Florida Covering Kids & Families at the University of South Florida. Florida Covering Kids & Families is a statewide program to ensure that all eligible children and families are enrolled in Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, Florida KidCare. Of the more than 9 million uninsured children in the United States, over 700,000 of them are in Florida. Florida Covering Kids and Families serves the hundreds of thousands of state children eligible for health insurance.

Becker Holland has been a league member since 1988, holding many leadership positions, including president of the Junior League of Gainesville. Becker chairs SPAC in her League and serves on the state executive board as Marketing & Public Relations Chair. She also served on the AJLI Nominating Committee and currently serves on the AJLI Board of Directors, where she is the Collaborative League Engagement Task Force chair. Becker is a partner in Grizzly Greek Films, a documentary film production company.

Katie Leach is married with two children, Elizabeth and Colin. Katie works with the Autism Consortium at the Nova Southeastern University as the Director of Consortium Contracts. She was raised in South Florida and holds a bachelors degree in from Florida Atlantic University and masters degree from Nova Southeastern University, both in Exceptional Student Education. She worked for several years as a classroom teacher of students with autism as well as an Autism Program Specialist for Broward County Public Schools and Los Angeles Unified School District.

Katie currently serves on Educational Advisory Board for the City of Ft. Lauderdale, the board of the Fort Lauderdale Children’s Theater and the Junior League of Greater Fort Lauderdale as Recording Secretary. She also previously served on the Metro Board for the Broward County YMCA. (KTLeach@Yahoo.com)

Alexis Lambert grew up in Palm Beach Gardens, FL and is a "triple Gator" with a bachelor's degree in Spanish, a masters degree in education, and a law degree from the University of Florida. After fundraising for Bill McCollum's successful 2006 campaign for Attorney General, Alexis moved to Tallahassee to join the Attorney General's executive staff. In 2008, she was promoted to be the Attorney General's Deputy General Counsel, specializing in Sunshine and Public Records laws. Alexis is also an adjunct professor of communications at Florida State University, where she teaches media law to undergraduate students who are none too pleased with the Gator tag on her car. (Alexis.Lambert@gmail.com)

Angel Cicerone is the founder and President of GetSweaty.com, the first video based website that promotes physical activity for children. This venture represents a new direction for Angel who spent the past 30 years in advertising and publishing, both as a business owner and corporate executive. For a decade prior to founding GetSweaty, Angel was an executive with American City Business Journals, the largest publisher of metropolitan business journals in the country. Prior to that she founded and owned a successful advertising agency and a nationwide newspaper for executive women.

(Angel@AngelCicerone.com)

Discussion on How to Approach Legislators & Local Level Advocacy,

Mary Goldsmith: After receiving her master's degree in public administration from Florida State University, Mary worked for Senators Villalobos and Dockery on legislative and policy issues. She then moved to DC where she worked for the Mortgage Bankers Association, where she lobbied and helped run their PAC. Upon returning to Florida, Mary went back to the legislature and worked for the late Representive Don Davis until his passing at which time she took a job doing business management and government relations for the state’s largest Florida based engineering firm, PBS&J. She has been with them for the past two years out of their Jacksonville office, and spends time in Tallahassee representing them during session. Mary served as legislative analyst on the SPAC board for two years and is going to discuss her experience and best practices with you today.

2010-2011 ISSUES
Issue #1Human Trafficking
Issue: Human Trafficking
League researching Issue: JL of Manatee County
Human Trafficking was a new issue to SPAC last year, was priority #5 out of seven issues. This is also an issue that AJLI is looking closely into at this time.

Issue #2 Family Homelessness & Hunger / Hunger and Food Insecurity
Submitted by League:
Researched by League: JL of Ft. Myers
Task Forces: Children & Families and Health, Criminal Justice, and Environmental
Note: the Health, Criminal Justice, and Environmental task force agreed this was an important issue to advocate for, but felt that legislation was already in place. The JL of Boca Raton produced a brochure that markets the Jack Davis Law, which was a law passed that allowed food establishments (grocery stores, restaurants, etc.) to donate food without liability to food shelters. The thought was that the next step to help with this would be to help with the logistics of transportation of this food (a current problem in the picture). Boca Raton will share the soft copy of the brochure with other leagues. We will continue to debate this issue as a potential, as it is very timely at this point.
　
Issue #3 Childhood Obesity & Nutrition
Submitted by League:
Researched by League: JL of Ft. Myers and JL of Manatee County
Task Forces Involved: Children & Families, Health, Criminal Justice, and Environmental Issues
This general topic ties in with AJLI's 'Kids in the Kitchen' initiative.
The Health task force suggested introducing a bill that would limit junk food purchases from kids at school lunch accounts as a default rather than having parents have to request that they be limited. There are many other options to consider here as well. This is a huge issue, and one that would be a good fit for FL SPAC. May tie in to the Physical Education issue brought forth by the Education task force.　

Issue #4 Bullying and Cyberbullying
League submitted by: JL of the Palm Beaches
League researching: JL of Clearwater and JL of Orlando and Jl of St Petersburg (Erika Rodriguez) and JL of Clearwater-Dunedin
This issue encompasses bullying as well as cyber bullying (child on child bullying taking place in the online arena (example: Facebook), and is a relatively new phenomenon, but one that is rapidly gaining attention throughout the country as a rash of suicides by young girls and violence of child on child as the result of text messages. Cyber bullying may also include 'sexting,' a process where children take naked pictures of each other and of themselves and send them to other children.
Last year, Cyberbullying was combined with Cyber Predators online targeting children, and was our #6 priority our of 7 priorities for the year 2009-2010. This year we are separating cyber predators (adult on child).
Rep. Bogdanoff did pass a law regarding cyberbullying (I discussed this at length with her) but many people know nothing of this (good) law, and perhaps we might be well suited as the league in marketing this law to the community as part of our advocacy efforts. This is an excellent topic for the league, but perhaps with less of a focus on getting bills passed but in making communities aware of what has been passed

Issue # 5 Cybercrimes (adult on child)
League Submitting:
League researching: JL of Clearwater, JL of Orlando, JL of the Palm Beaches, JL of St. Petersburg (Erika Rodriguez), JL of Clearwater-Dunedin
Task Force: Children & Families and Health, Criminal Justice, & Environmental Issues, Education
This is adult on child sexual predators, and they are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. This has been a big push from the Attorney General's Office under Bill McCollum in the past few years. The Health, Criminal justice, & Environmental task force felt that this is where the group felt our focus would be well spent. Palm Beaches have submitted a very detailed focus issue application on this.
　
Issue #6 Childhood Drowning Prevention
Submitted by League: Fort Lauderdale
Researched by League: Fort Lauderdale
Task Force: Children & Familes
Florida leads the state in childhood drownings, a heartbreaking and preventable death for these children. This might be a very relevant and doable issue for FL SPAC.
　
Issue #7 Autism (determination of causation and early intervention)
League Submitting: Fort Lauderdale
League Investigating: JL of Ft. Myers and JL of Fort Lauderdale
Task Force: Children & Families
In November 2008, one if 152 children were affected. In November of 2009, 1 in 92 children were affected. This is proving to be an incredibly damaging and expensive epidemic among young children, and families are devastated by this lifelong debilitating illness. This passed through the Children & Families task force, but the Health, Criminal Justice, and Environmental Issues task force did not feel that we should focus our efforts in this area
　
Issue #8 Aging out of the Foster Care System
League Submitting:
League Investigating: JL of Sarasota
Task Force: Children & Families
This was JL SPAC's #1 issue for the year 2009-2010, and we have for years been successful with raising awareness and funding for children turning 18 and aging out of the foster care system. Currently, they may stay in the system until they are 25, and they receive money each month from the government for living expenses. On the surface this appears a great success for SPAC, but one of our speakers (Julia Irvin, past chair of FL SPAC and currently an executive for Connected by 25) spoke of the problems of this program ("well funded drug addicts"). Also, a letter was passed out to the SPAC delegates from a judge involved in the process in Dade County talking of the problems with this program. This is something we certainly feel strongly about, but maybe we can investigate ways to tweak the system where fraud and damage is avoided.
　
#9 Gender Specific Programming for Girls In the Juvenile Justice System
League Submitting: JL of Palm Beaches
League Researching: Jl of the Palm Beaches
Task Force: Children & Families
For years, FL SPAC has supported a program called GAP. GAP successfully brought in counselors to work with girls in the juvenile justice program to help them get back on track with their lives. This program started in Miami and moved to other locations in the state, including West Palm Beach. Last year, the state decided to replace the GAP program in West Palm Beach with a different program providing the same services. Thus, last year SPAC changed their advocacy efforts from supporting the specific GAP project to supporting the actual process of mentoring these girls under any similar program (from GAP to gender specific programming). Due to funding cuts across the state, GAP has been forced close it's doors in all counties but Miami. Last year at our Fall Conference in Palm Beach, delegates were able to visit a GAP facility and see the girls up close, and it was an emotional event.

Issue #10 Child Abuse / Neglect
League Submitting:
League Researching:
Task Force: Health, Criminal Justice, Environmental Issues
The task force felt that we should monitor for potential bills on this issue and support them if introduced, but did not feel the leagues should sponsor legislation on this topic. Open for discussion.

Issue #11 Physical Education in the School System
League Submitting:
League Researching: Jl of St. Petersburg (Erika Rodriguez) and JL of Clearwater-Dunedin and JL of Orlando
Task Force: Education

Issue #12 Domestic Violence
League Submitting:
League Investigating: Jl of Orlando, JL of Palm Beaches
Task Force: Children & Families and Health, Criminal Justice, and Environmental
The Health, Criminal Justice, and Environmental task force felt this was an important issue, but several people thought that legislation on this topic had passed within the last year. Melissa McKinlay (Jl of Palm Beaches) was going to look into this with the consensus being that if re cent legislation had passed, our efforts would be better spent elsewhere. Note that this topic is also including intimate partner violence for the sake of discussion, but that topic may also be a separate issue for voting purposes.

Issue #13 Backpacks full of food and school supplies for at risk youth
League submitting:
League researching:Jl of Tampa (Sara Evans)
Task Force: Education

Issue #14: Banning / limiting cell phone usage in schools
League Submitting:
League researching: J of Tampa (Sara Evans)
Task Force: Education

Issue #15 Texting and Driving
League Submitting:
League Researching: JL of (Jennifer Sullivan)
Task Force: Education
I did hear Representative Bogdanoff speak about this issue, and why she voted against it in the house. I will find out her rationale and post it. It seems like a no brainer, but let's get more information.

Issue # 16 Senate Bill 6 - Pay for Teachers
League Submitting:
League Researching: JL of Jacksonville (Mary Goldsmith)
Pay for teachers - at least make the staff analysis available to inform and educate leaguers on the issue, maybe don't advocate one way or the other)

Issue #17 Mentoring Services for at risk Children
League Submitting:
League Researching: JL of Ft. Lauderdale (Jamie Garber)
Task Force: Education
Examples: Big Brother Big Sister, Take Stock in Children, Inspire Within

Issue #18 Saturday School and/or extended school days for at risk youth
League Submitted:
League Researching: JL of St. Petersburg (Erika Rodriguez) and JL of Clearwater-Dunedin and JL of Orlando
Task Force: Education
　
　