Recent editorials from Florida newspapers:
___
March 3
The Miami Herald on how the state is handling the coronavirus:
Anyone who remembers Greater Miami as Ground Zero for HIV infection, Zika, dengue - you name it - won’t be shocked if, or when, coronavirus crosses the county line, lands at the airport or cruises into the port.
The “when” might be here. However, a Miami woman told by doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital that she “likely” has COVID-19 - coronavirus - could not get the diagnosis confirmed. As first reported by Jim DeFede at miami.cbslocal.com, state and federal would not conduct the testing needed to confirm it.
This is not to way to allay public fears of the contagion, contain it and treat those who need it as quickly as possible. Turns out, state health officials are following ridiculously narrow federal guidelines to test a very small pool of people who have been to China or who are critically ill.
We urge Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor who has President Trump’s ear, along with that of Vice President Pence - the nation’s putative coronavirus czar - to ditch the political spin they’ve swirled around this health emergency and get serious about saving lives. Pence has inspired little confidence so far in his ability to handle this potential pandemic. Here’s his chance to prove otherwise.
In Florida, other hard-learned lessons of disasters past, however, appear to have taken hold. DeSantis spoke transparently and with authority Monday in confirming two cases of coronavirus in the state. The governor briefed the public in Tampa after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed two “presumptive positive” cases of the virus: One is a man in Manatee County; the second is a woman in Hillsborough County. A third case was reported on Tuesday.
Monday, the state’s surgeon general, Dr. Scott Rivkees, even copped to the 24-hour delay between learning the CDC’s preliminary findings and the announcement to the public, though his explanation - that the patients were being monitored during that time - was fuzzy and not reassuring.
ALERT PUBLIC EARLY
Given the virus’ spread - and its potential to be fatal - the state should err on the side of flagging cases to the public sooner rather than later to better contain the contagion. New cases are a given as Florida expands testing.
South Florida and - Miami, in particular - must be especially vigilant. It is a major point of entry by land, sea and air. Coronavirus has had a wide-ranging journey - from Asia to Europe to Africa to the Americas, including the Dominican Republic, where an Italian national was confirmed to harbor the virus. A smattering of other cases have been confirmed in other Caribbean countries.
As troubling as the discovery of coronavirus is in Florida counties to the north, the Caribbean is truly our “neighborhood” in South Florida. The familial links of strong; so is the lure for tourists. Both could affect us here.
This community will have to be prepared to protect itself, while likely coming to the aid of compatriots among the Caribbean to help check the threat and manage the aftermath. It will be in the entire region’s best interest.
SAFETY AT ULTRA
Locally, commend Miami Mayor Francis Suarez for requesting that the organizers of the Ultra Music Festival this month deliver a plan for protecting the thousands of attendees who will descend upon Bayfront Park downtown for the three-day celebration of electronic music.
While he’s at it, Suarez also needs to make sure that the Calle Ocho festival and Carnavale have such plans in place, too.
Good to see, too, is Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez taking on the creation of a plan to shield the elderly, one of the most vulnerable populations. The deaths in a stiflingly hot nursing home in Broward County after it lost electricity during Hurrincane Irma still haunt the South Florida community.
Many Floridians have shaken their heads over the years at late evacuation calls as hurricanes bore down, at aerial spraying to kill potentially Zika-carrying mosquitoes - without knowing exactly where it was going to occur - at closed or chaotic storm shelters.
Florida could be on its way to getting its response to this potential coronavirus pandemic right.
It has to.
Online: https://www.miamiherald.com/
___
March 3
The Daytona Beach News Journal on the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence organization’s scandal involving inflated compensation given to its former CEO:
The shocking revelations surrounding the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence accumulate by the day. But don’t blame your local organizations that must confront domestic violence. This is a strictly top-down scandal.
The Florida Legislature doesn’t often hold full-fledged investigative hearings during the regular session, but last week members of the House Public Integrity and Ethics Committee grilled the management of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence about the breathtaking levels of compensation bestowed it on its former CEO, Tiffany Carr. The revelations have been stunning.
The coalition is a nonprofit organization that the state uses to distribute more than $50 million a year in state and federal funds to domestic violence shelters around the state. Since the Jeb Bush administration, the coalition has been the “sole-source contractor” for this work.
Questions about Carr’s inflated salary – $761,000 a year, as The Miami Herald reported in 2018 – have been floating around for years. The Florida Department of Children and Families had been trying for almost two years to shake information out of the coalition and has been continually thwarted.
It turns out that Carr’s inflated salary was only one part of the problem. In testimony before the House committee, organization officials confirmed that Carr received more than $7.5 million in compensation over three years, including $4 million by gaming the organization’s paid-time-off policies.
“It appears to me that the employees, along with Ms. Carr, worked collectively to cheat the system,” Rep. Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach, chairman of the committee, told reporters. He said Carr looked for ways to “bonus herself up” in addition to her already controversial salary.
“It’s one of the ugliest things I’ve seen in my time in the Legislature,” said House Speaker Jose Oliva.
By midweek, the Senate moved with unaccustomed urgency to pass a bill (HB 1087) that ends the coalition’s sole-source status and gives more oversight to DCF. The governor signed it Thursday.
But these are only the first steps needed to restore faith in the system.
The revelations so far suggest an alarming looting of an organization that was set up to benefit some of society’s most vulnerable women. Florida is not known for being overgenerous in funding needed social services on the local level. So when this much money gets diverted at the top, it’s the frontline shelters that feel real pain.
So don’t take it out on your local shelters. These are good people doing the difficult work of trying to stretch limited resources to people in crisis. The vital services they provide have been victimized by the actions of the coalition’s management. In addition to being shortchanged by actions at the top, local shelters may face funding delays as state agencies deal with all the fallout.
Leek’s committee has done an admirable job in getting to the bottom of this deception. Meanwhile, it’s going to fall to DCF to fix the system, restore accountability and, in doing so, avoid further choking the flow of money for overwhelmed local shelter programs.
Online: https://www.ocala.com/
___
Feb. 23
The Florida Times-Union on young girls feeling safe in their environments:
There is a crisis for girls in Jacksonville and the state.
But Jacksonville can be proud that solutions are being found here.
The Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center, led by CEO Lawanda Ravoira, has been blowing the whistle on the crisis and calling for action.
The policy center has partnered with the Children’s Campaign, a statewide agency.
The two agencies presented the results recently of a new report, the Status of Girl Well-Being in Florida, to a packed audience at the Jessie Ball duPont Center.
The statistics are shocking for Florida and generally worse in Jacksonville:
- In Duval County, 1 in 5 girls don’t feel safe in their neighborhood.
- In school, it’s worse: 2 in 5 girls don’t feel safe in school. And 1 in 3 girls don’t have access to talk to a teacher.
- Bullying is bad: Almost 2 in 3 girls report being verbally bullied while 1 in 3 have been physically bullies or cyber bullied.
- Problems start early with 1 in 4 girls not reading at grade level in third grade. By the time they get older, some literally drop out of society with over 1,000 teen women ages 16 to 19 not attending school or the work force.
- The indicators of low self-esteem are disturbing: 1 in 3 girls say “life is not worth it,” 1 in 2 girls are using substances and 1 in 5 girls are thinking about suicide.
Sex traffickers statewide often focus on teen girls, those who are vulnerable to what seems like positive attention at first, but grooming often becomes sexual exploitation.
Previous reports have documented the fact that girls in trouble too often are placed in detention where they too often are victimized again. This is due in part to a lack of alternative services for girls.
Statewide, over 9,000 girls were arrested last year, over 2,000 were placed in detention and 340 girls were in lock-up residential programs.
Clearly, many girls feel alone and abandoned. A physician in the audience during the rollout of the report asked what she should do when she encounters a girl who needs help.
Ravoira responded that beyond notifying the Florida Department of Children and Family Services, a simple contact to the Weaver Policy Center can direct girls to supportive services.
The local DCF chapter has been leading the state in providing family services in order to avoid sending children away from home to foster care.
One important piece of positive news in Duval is the rapid use of civil citations, which frees girls with low-level issues from entering the justice system and provides rapid feedback and positive support.
Statewide, 62% of juveniles who qualify received civil citations in 2018-19. In Duval, the rates are much higher with 78% of black girls, 83% of white girls and 93% of Hispanic girls.
In many cases, girls are living in poverty with families that can’t afford decent housing. Without a stable home, the rest of the services become far more difficult to provide.
“Housing first” has been proven to be essential. That is why Miller asked the people in the room to contact their legislators to support full funding for the Sadowski Fund.
This is a special trust fund provided from documentary tax stamps paid from home sales. It provides affordable housing revenue to every county in Florida on a pro-rata basis.
It has been impressively successful in producing affordable housing and jobs with a coalition of business, government and nonprofits.
Proof that funding works is that homelessness among veterans has been reduced by 82% thanks to federal funding help.
Florida can’t afford to lose a generation of girls. They are the future of the state.
The Weaver Center’s motto is “See the Girl.”
It could also be, “See the future.”
Online: https://www.jacksonville.com/
Please read our comment policy before commenting.