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Report to the
Pinellas County Juvenile Justice Council Council Brochure The three-fold Council brochure is now available. It describes the Juvenile Justice Boards and County Councils and what they do. School-related arrests The Council continues to report to the school board on the quarterly charges of school-related arrests as compiled by the Pinellas Juvenile Assessment Center (PJAC). The Council began the “report card” in January 2006, to call attention to arrests of youth in school and to the nation-wide problem of the schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track. There has been improvement. For example, the number of counts of school-related charges against youth in the second quarter (Oct-Dec, 2006) of this school year is down 11% from the 2005-6 school year and down 27% from the second quarter of the 2004-05 school year. The number of counts in the first half of this school year (Jul-Dec, 2006) is down 26% from the first half of the last school year (2005-06) and down 39% from the same period in the 2004-05 school year. DJJ Circuit Board and County Council Chairs’ Quarterly Meeting January 9, 2007 The Pinellas County Juvenile Justice Council Chair, Vice Chair and Membership Registrar attended the statewide DJJ Circuit Board and County Council Chairs’ Quarterly Meeting in Tampa on January 9, 2007. No officers of the Circuit 6 Juvenile Justice Board attended the meeting. Among the items on the agenda were Agency Updates, Strategic Plan Presentation (15 goals in 69 pages), RFP, and Board and Council Updates. The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for May 21-23 in Orlando, FL. During the lunch break, Greg Johnson, Assistant Secretary for Prevention and Victim Services, handed a copy of a letter to the Chair of this Council. The letter was written to Dave Plyer by Calvin Harris, a former PCJJC appointee to the Circuit 6 Juvenile Justice Board. It reads, in part: “…the September 18, 2006 meeting of the Circuit 6 Juvenile Justice Board… approved the establishment of an Advisory council… to provide advice and counsel to the Board as intended in the statutes… With the formation of said council, your group will no longer be recognized as a DJJ council...” A copy of Harris’s letter to Pinellas County Juvenile Justice Council Chair Dave Plyer is submitted for the record. Circuit 6 Juvenile Justice Board Meeting January 22, 2007 This quarterly meeting was the first for 2007. Three of the Pinellas council’s appointees attended—Bruce Wright, Greg Pound and Norm Roche. Also present were former Pinellas council appointees Martha Lenderman and Pinellas County Commissioners Calvin Harris and Ken Welch. The Pasco County Juvenile Justice Council appointed these three former Pinellas council members to the Board. Members who are law enforcement officers or lawyers were absent. After his call to order, Harris immediately declared that the Pinellas County Juvenile Justice Council was not recognized by the Board and that its newly appointed members were to excuse themselves from the board table. A Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputy rose from his chair prepared to remove Wright, Pound and Roche. I shouted, “Point of order!” Harris continued his call to have members removed as the deputy was closing in. Amid this confusion, Pinellas County Juvenile Justice Council Membership Registrar, Cathy Corry, stood as a member of the public and said that she had the Board membership list prepared by DJJ. Corry had spent weeks getting the list. Corry announced that she had gotten the list only after speaking directly with interim DJJ Secretary Cynthia Lorenzo. There was quiet and the deputy stood back. During the lull, I was able to state my point of order. My point was that Harris is no longer the Chair of the Board, due to his lapse in membership, and that the Vice Chair should conduct the meeting and appoint a Nomination Committee. The Nomination Committee would prepare a list of nominees for Chair to be elected at the next Board meeting. Vice Chair McClintock took control of the meeting and initiated the formation of the Nomination Committee with Vance Arnett, representing the State Attorney at this meeting, as Committee Chair. The Vice Chair quickly changed his mind about proceeding with any business that would require a vote. Next, I addressed the letter handed to me by DJJ’s Greg Johnson during the DJJ Circuit Board and County Council Chairs’ Quarterly Meeting on January 9, 2007. I referred to that earlier in this report. I said to Harris, and those present, that I had never received the original of the letter in the mail. Harris then said that he had the letter handed to me so that I could not deny receiving it. At this point, I read Harris’s letter for the record. I followed that by reading my reply to that letter, for the record. My letter explained why Harris had no legal grounds for his action that the Pinellas County Juvenile Justice Council will “no longer be recognized as a DJJ council.” A copy of my reply to Harris is entered for the record, at this time. The Vice Chair adjourned the meeting early, at 2:30 pm, with the announcement that the Board would meet again after the Board gets legal counsel. Next meeting of the Pinellas County Juvenile Justice
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