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Strife erodes a voice for kids

By WILL VAN SANT
Published April 30, 2007

It was 1993 and youth crime in Florida had nearly doubled in the previous decade, spurring state leaders to overhaul the juvenile justice system and create a network of local groups to stem the lawlessness.

Legislators created regional Juvenile Justice Boards whose members would be appointed by County Juvenile Justice Councils. Both groups were to "provide advice and direction" to the new state Department of Juvenile Justice.

But in 2007, such a noble mission and clear goal has all but disappeared locally. After two years of venomous feuding between citizen mavericks and longtime leaders of the Pinellas council, the infighting has spread to the larger, regional Pinellas-Pasco board.

The group has devolved into chaos and name calling. In January, Pinellas County Commissioner Calvin Harris, long a board member, ordered a sheriff's bailiff to remove the upstarts from a meeting. It's now unclear just who makes up Pinellas' council or the Pinellas-Pasco board.

"It's been such a volatile atmosphere in the year that I've been on there I don't know what we've accomplished, " said Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch, whose position on the board is in dispute. "As I understand it, we are supposed to be advocates for youths in the juvenile justice system."

A showdown is likely today at a Pinellas-Pasco board meeting where state juvenile justice officials are expected to mediate. Among the questions they may ask: What has any of this to do with helping troubled youth?

* * *

It wasn't always this way. For many years, the monthly meetings of the Pinellas Juvenile Justice Council drew as many as 75 attendees, the largest camp being from nonprofit organizations in the business of providing youth crime prevention and intervention programs.

The councils were self-appointing. The only membership requirement was attendance at two consecutive meetings and a willingness to sign up. Much of the work involved recommending to the Pinellas-Pasco board how state grant money for youth programs should be spent. The board then sent its proposals to the state juvenile justice department.

But roughly three years ago, an element outside the established circle of providers and local officials began to make its presence felt at Pinellas council meetings. These advocates saw the council and the entire juvenile justice system as incompetent and at worse corrupt.

Leading the skeptics was David Plyer, a retired electrical engineer from Clearwater who had spent 30 years with AT&T. For Plyer and his allies, the council was too much an advisory group and not enough a tool for reform. He wanted the council to help end the shackling of juveniles in courthouses and stop schools from calling law enforcement for minor violations.

"Nothing got done, " Plyer, now 60, said of the council last week. "There were virtually no issues discussed. What was discussed was what programs were getting funded."

Vance Arnett of the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office once chaired the council and witnessed the group's climb to power. Arnett praised the group's goals, but said its abrasive tactics poisoned the council, causing veterans to drift away.

The tension escalated in early December 2005, when the council's old guard officers, disgusted with the change in tone, abruptly resigned. By the end of the month, Plyer called an emergency meeting where new officers were elected, including Plyer as chair.

"Some people said they hijacked the council, they did not, " Arnett said. "People just stopped going and theirs ended up being the only voices in the room."

* * *

The schism came to a head in October 2006, when Plyer's council refused to reappoint Harris to the chairmanship of the Pinellas-Pasco board, as well as Welch and others. Instead, they appointed their own slate, including Norm Roche, who had just lost a Democratic primary to Harris; Chimurenga Waller, president of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement; and the Rev. Bruce Wright, a homeless advocate.

But in a development Plyer was unaware of, the Pasco County Juvenile Justice Council earlier in the month had reappointed Harris and Welch to the board. Both men said they made no overtures to the Pasco council beforehand. Mark Phillips, then Pasco's chair, concurs.

"We felt they would be strong board members, " said Phillips, who did not recall another instance of the Pasco council appointing Pinellas officials. "They are passionate in their commitment to kids."

State officials largely steered clear of the dispute, saying the spat should be resolved locally. But at a Tampa meeting of Florida's boards and councils in January, Greg Johnson, a state juvenile justice administrator, delivered Plyer a letter from Harris.

In the letter, composed on Pinellas County Commission stationary, Harris told Plyer the Pinellas-Pasco board had decided it needed "more broad based input from community groups and providers" and would no longer recognize the Pinellas council. A new advisory committee would be formed, Harris wrote.

On what authority did Harris create an advisory board and dissolve the council? That question was put to him repeatedly at a tart Jan. 22 meeting of the board at which both those appointed by the Pasco council and those with Plyer's backing squared off.

Harris, who during the meeting asked a bailiff to remove Plyer's appointees without success, did not answer.

"I'm not going to play any mind games, " Harris said during the meeting. "What I'm telling you is that these people are not going to be seated. They are not part of this board. And that's that."

In a recent interview, Harris said county lawyers told him that when the council's officers resigned in December 2005, the group ceased to exist and that when the council was resurrected by Plyer, it did not have the array of members called for in the council's bylaws.

County assistant attorney Carl Brody, who is advising Harris, confirmed his client's interpretation. But Brody granted that neither the council bylaws nor state law anticipate the events surrounding the council in December 2005. In fact, Brody said, the law could use some tuning up.

"The statute is a mess, " Brody said. "You have no clear designation of membership anyplace."

The rancor has so hobbled the board that even those required by state law to be members, like Pinellas Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger, have stopped going to meetings and now send designees.

"They're just getting nothing done, " Dillinger said. "It's just totally dysfunctional."

At today's meeting, state officials have agreed to show up and help bring some resolution to the conflict. Though not ready to cede his position to bring peace, Harris too said it's time for the strife to end.

"We need to clean it up, " Harris said, so that the Pinellas-Pasco board "won't be the only laughing stock in the state."

Will Van Sant can be reached at vansant@sptimes.com or 445-4166.

[Last modified April 30, 2007, 01:47:08]