The Lee County Extension of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, or IFAS, holds its third annual sustainability conference tomorrow.  The day-long event includes an expo featuring local leaders and innovators in the clean and renewable energy sector as well as lectures from policy makers and university researchers.  We caught up with Martha Avila, IFAS’s SustainabLEE program coordinator and Jayne Coles with Lee County’s Pollution Prevention Department to talk about the conference and what attendees can expect to find. 

Retired DEA Special Agent, Bob Stutman is in Naples this week giving talks to parents about what he says is really going on in the U.S. with kids and drug use.  WGCU’s John Davis has more.

SAT results released earlier this month indicate a forty year low for reading scores.  The College Board says the decline is due to a more diverse group of students taking the test, but a standardized test watchdog group says that’s not the whole story.  WGCU’s John Davis reports.

Scientists are tracking the red tide algae detected earlier this week in Gulf Waters near Manasota Key in Charlotte County. WGCU’s John Davis reports the impacts of the noxious algae bloom have been mild so far.

A study from the University of Florida published earlier this month says Florida has the worst invasive reptile and amphibian species problem in the world. 

The report, published by the journal Zootaxa, traces the introduction of 84 percent of these exotic species to the pet industry.

Overall, 137 exotic reptile and amphibian species are identified in the study.

“It’s not a surprise to me. We see them every week,” said Melinda Russek of the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium in Fort Myers.

“In about 2008 we started to take in in exotic species because of so many of them found,” Russek said.   

“A lady found a Ball Python on her kitchen counter when she went to make coffee. Pythons are found in schools, backyards. We’ve had three African Spur-Thigh Tortoises which get to be over 100 pounds brought to us this year within six months,” she added.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Exotic Species Section Leader Scott Harden said prosecutions against those who release an exotic pet are “almost non-existent” and that his efforts instead focus on public education to combat the problem.

“I hope truly that we continue to make some inroads on people being aware that releasing an exotic species is illegal, it’s unethical and it’s generally inhumane,” said Harden.

The report identifies 56 exotic species with established populations in Florida including more than 40 kinds of lizards, several snake, frog and turtle species, and a type of crocodile called the Speckled Caiman.

More than one hundred people are expected to attend a panel discussion tonight in Fort Myers as builders and developers discuss the state of Southwest Florida’s new home construction industry.

The Lee Building Industry Association is holding the forum which will focus on the survival and growth of companies in new home construction. The glut of foreclosures has become a leading competitor to the new home construction industry in an already down market. 

“I’ve seen a lot of change and a lot of good people go without a job, so yeah, it’s been very difficult, I think, to be inside the industry,” said Jonathan Pentacost, purchasing and land acquisitions manager for D.R. Horton, Inc.  He’s also a panelist for Tuesday night’s forum.

“I think that the worst times are behind us and better times are ahead.  Companies are starting to rehire again at various levels of their organization. There’s also a major shift inside the homebuilding business.  A lot of the long standing senior management teams are slowly retiring and that’s creating opportunity to move up inside various companies.”

Other discussion panelists include State Representative Gary Aubuchon of Cape Coral and President of Aubuchon Homes along with representatives from Miromar Development, Pulte Homes, Stock Development, Toll Brothers and WCI Communities.  The event begins at 5:30 at Pelican Bay Country Club in Fort Myers.

Administration on Aging's Report -PDF
Elder Affair's Response -PDF

The Federal Administration on Aging found Florida in violation of the Older Americans Act in a report released in early September that investigated allegations of interference in the Long-Term Care Ombudsman program.

Active in all 50 states, the Long-Term Care Ombudsman program was established to investigate complaints from residents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities (ALFs).  

The report has sparked bipartisan outrage in some state lawmakers. Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, is calling for immediate legislative hearings into what the report has uncovered regarding interference and retaliation by the state Department of Elder Affairs against volunteers and staff in Florida’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program.

“I was appalled by it,” says Sobel. “The governor’s office has sent out memos stating that they are not to speak with the media, not to speak with the legislature.  And that definitely has a chilling effect on these volunteers who want to help people who are vulnerable living in ALFs or living in nursing homes.”

Sobel says she’s planning legislative hearings in the Senate Health Regulations committee, which she co-chairs to address the investigation’s findings.

 “This is a must do, and a must fix.  We have the largest population of seniors in our state compared to every other state in the United States and if the message goes out that we don’t have a model program for seniors in nursing homes and ALFs and people who are helping to make these facilities the best they could be then we’re going to have some big problems in the future.”

At a meeting of the governor’s Assisted Living Facility Task Force on Friday, Sen. Rhonda Storm, R-Valrico, requested independence of the state’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program.  Once completed, the Task Force will pass along its report to the governor, which could then be submitted to the state legislature for consideration.

The Administration on Aging’s report says the Florida Department of Elder Affairs violated the Older Americans Act a number of times.   It accuses the agency of controlling interactions between ombudsmen and the state legislature and preventing the ombudsman and volunteer advocates from speaking to the media.  The report also accuses Elder Affairs of improperly firing volunteers who investigate complaints from Floridians living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

For example, the report cites “grave concerns” over the April firing of former Venice volunteer Lynn Dos Santos, because of e-mails she sent to other volunteers.

The Department of Elder Affairs says Dos Santos’ actions violated Florida’s Sunshine Law. 

The federal Administration on Aging’s report questions Elder Affairs’ interpretation of the state’s open records law stating it would require ombudsman volunteers to provide advance public notice of their intent to have discussions with each other before talking about their work.

“Even if we’re discussing a case which is confidential, we’re allowed to discuss cases.  We’re allowed to talk things over amongst ourselves,” Dos Santos said.  “I didn’t break any rule.”

Dos Santos says she was thrilled with the report.  “At least the Feds see what Florida and the governor have done to the ombudsman program.  They have made it a sham of what it was.  People have resigned left and right.  They’ve been firing people.  It’s just been a nightmare.”

The day after the report came out, Clare Caldwell was fired from her position as the program’s Miami administrator.  She was never given a reason for her termination.

No one from the governor’s office or the Department of Elder Affairs would grant us an interview about the report, but in a written response to the Administration on Aging, Elder Affairs Secretary Charles Corley defends his firing of Dos Santos, as well as the forced resignation of State Ombudsman Brian Lee in February.  It was Lee’s termination that sparked the federal probe. 

The 31-page compliance review falls short of calling Lee’s dismissal a violation of the Older Americans Act, but it does not accept claims by Department of Elder Affairs staff that his removal was part of the normal turnover of a new governor.  Lee had served as ombudsman under both Gov. Charlie Crist and Gov. Jeb Bush and was described in the report by Department of Elder Affairs management as “‘the most dedicated public servant they had met.”  In his final year as state ombudsman, the program handled a record number of complaints to the satisfaction of residents served.

The report reveals that “DOEA (Department of Elder Affairs) has asserted that the State requested Mr. Lee’s resignation because of a desire by the EOG (Executive Office of the Governor) for the program to go in a ‘new direction.’” 

After Lee’s termination, the Ombudsmen program’s legal advocate, Aubrey Posey, took over the reins of the program as interim State Ombudsman.  Former Ombudsman volunteer Win Hoffman of Ft. Lauderdale says Posey quickly changed the tone of the program issuing “two gag orders” that volunteers were not to speak with legislators or the media.  The report says Posey testified in support of a house bill (HR1171) to limit volunteers’ ability to perform on-site facility inspections, which Lee had opposed.  The bill later died in the House Health and Human Services Committee.

Hoffman says he and other volunteers on the program’s executive committee went to Tallahassee to lobby legislators against the bill despite the gag order.  Hoffman was decertified as an ombudsman volunteer in June and like Clare Caldwell, he was never given a reason for his termination, but says he believes it’s because he talked to reporters. 

“My decertification came about clearly because I refused to subvert my rights under the first amendment to free and open communication with the media,” said Hoffman.  “As a volunteer and a public citizen, there can’t be any organization that deprives a citizen of their right to speaking to their legislator, to speak to the media.  And if that’s how the ombudsman program was beginning to be controlled by the Department of Elder Affairs, I guess I’m proud to have been decertified if those are the reasons.”

When she was interim state ombudsman, Posey also reversed a request Lee had made through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for corporate ownership information of Florida’s 677 nursing homes.

 “Why can’t we know who owns these facilities?  Why is it a big secret?” asks Dos Santos. 

 In an interview this past spring with board member with the non-profit advocacy group Voices for Quality Care, Inc., Jerry Kasunic explained why ownership transparency is important.  

“What ends up happening in some of those cases, especially for those poor performing nursing homes is that there will be a corporation that’s been set up to shield the main body or owner from having any legal or advocacy actions actually presented to them,” said Kasunic.  “So a lawsuit will go to a shielded corporation that is pretty much broke.  And so there is no reward at the end of a lawsuit or there is no accountability at the end of a legal advocacy action.”

The Administration on Aging’s report details an incident with one of those poor performing facilities in describing the “information dissemination environment” faced by workers in the ombudsman program. The instance occurred in December of 2009 when the Ombudsman State Advisory Council voted to hold a press conference about an assisted living facility Dos Santos and Lee identified as the Munne Center in Miami. 

“Pretty much anything you can think of as far as complaints whether it’s food, being lack of food for residents, lack of staff, there was a rape that happened there by another resident,” said Lee.  And we had just on-going problems that had never been resolved. Working with the regulatory agencies being AHCA and the ombudsmen were fed up.”

Program staff wanted to announce their recommendation to revoke the Munne Center’s license.  The report says the Department of Elder Affairs secretary at that time forbade the press conference from going forward. 

The report states, “The reason given for the instruction to cancel the press conference was that going ahead would be embarrassing to the facility licensing agency. The press conference was cancelled.  Senior department of Elder Affairs managers have described the instruction to cancel as being ‘intimidating’ and that it would be reasonable for the long-term care ombudsman to have concluded that his job was on the line if the press conference went ahead.”

Department of Elder Affairs Secretary Charles Corley’s written response says the report’s telling of the event is “one-sided” and that the press conference was unnecessary as the Agency for Healthcare Administration, or AHCA, had already taken steps to bring the Munne Center into legal compliance.

But the Miami Herald reports an inspection earlier this year found ongoing problems including unsanitary bathrooms, failure to recognize patients suffering with life-threatening pressure sores, broken furniture and an inability of staff to keep track of residents among other complaints.

Lee says the situation has gotten worse under Gov. Scott’s administration. 

“The volunteers told me directly that they don’t want to talk to the media because they were afraid they would be fired like Lynn Dos Santos was fired,” said Lee.  “And this is a prevailing sentiment through the program.  So if you have volunteers who are afraid to talk to the media about issues that are important to residents then the program has been crippled and compromised.”

“Let’s call a spade a spade,” says Dos Santos.  “Gov. Scott was in the healthcare industry.  All these owner/operators are his friends. This was his chance to come in and get rid of, so he thought, the watchdog.  Well, obviously it’s not that easy.”

The report also says operating Florida’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program under the Department of Elder Affairs creates an organizational conflict of interest.  Elder Affairs creates licensing rules for assisted living facilities, but in Florida, also has the authority to fire an ombudsman.  The Older Americans Act contends that members of the ombudsmen staff need to be able to criticize those policies without fear of retaliation. Sobel says that’s also something she wants to fix.

 “We are not following federal law in the way our ombudsman program is designed,” said Sobel.  “It was designed to be like an independent auditor.  We need to look at the program and follow the Older Americans Act as to what the original intent was when this very good legislation came into being.”

Federal officials gave Florida’s Department of Elder Affairs until the end of September to submit a corrective plan of action to bring its policies and procedures into compliance with the Older Americans Act. 

Elder Affairs Secretary Charles Corley immediately requested an extension and has challenged the Administration on Aging’s interpretation of the Older Americans Act as well as the functions of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program.

The federal agency has not yet responded to Secretary Corley’s request.   

The Literacy Council of Bonita Springs is merging with Literacy Volunteers of Lee County to create the Literacy Council Gulf Coast. 

The non-profits serve more than 3,100 children and adult students in programs including basic reading and writing, computer literacy along with GED and U.S. citizenship test preparation courses.  The Moms and Tots family literacy program has parents learning English side- by- side with their children.

“We work very hard at the literacy council to try to reach those children while they’re still preschoolers and their mothers who may have come from countries where they had very little education or where literacy was not a very important part of it,” said executive director of the newly-formed council, Susan Acuna.

 “Reading to their children, for example, might not have been an important part of their parenting,” said Acuna.  “We send books home with the families where they can develop a library so that the children and their siblings will be encouraged to read and to learn to love reading.”

Resources and classes are all provided to students free of charge.  The organization is funded through grants and donations.

Before the organizations joined forces the Literacy Council of Bonita Springs was already one of the largest literacy organizations in the country.

A recent national assessment of adult literacy finds about 13 percent of adults in Lee County read below a basic literacy level.  The number is 17 percent in Collier County and 20 percent statewide.

Acuna said the merger will help expand the number of students served.

The number of dead and dying fish washing up on Collier County beaches is declining. But hundreds of marine animals from crabs and lobsters to eels and nurse sharks were seen on beaches or swimming near the beach Monday and Tuesday. Experts think the fish kill was caused by an algae bloom which created a so called dead zone in the Gulf…an area with very little dissolved oxygen. WGCU’s John Davis spoke with Carli Segelson of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute which is monitoring the situation.

Florida’s Medicaid overhaul will impact the state’s nearly 3 million poor or disabled recipients as lawmakers work to save money by shifting patients into private managed care networks.

As the Agency for Health Care Administration travels the state soliciting public comments on the plan, one concern being voiced is an amendment that allows health care providers to deny certain treatments if they raise a religious or moral objection.

“If a woman came in for healthcare, she could be denied family planning services if the particular healthcare provider decided that he or she didn’t believe the woman should have birth control or anything included in family planning services,” said Wendy Grassi of Planned Parenthood of Central and Southwest Florida. “Which by the way include women’s gynecological exams, breast and other cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and also birth control.”

The amendment was added by Sen. Joe Negron (R-Palm City) on behalf of Catholic services.

“There’s been some misunderstanding about the amendment,” said AHCA Deputy Secretary Roberta Bradford. “As part of the application process, a provider would indicate whether they would be willing to provide a service, not necessarily deny a service, so to speak. If they are unwilling, it would still be available to the individuals and the agency would work with the individuals on how to obtain that care.”

The federal centers for Medicare & Medicaid services have to approve the plan before it can be implemented, Bradford added.

AHCA will submit the Medicaid overhaul plan for federal approval by August 1. Statewide implementation of the plan is slated for completion by 2014.