Legislative Town Hall Featuring Representative Smith and Representative Mercado

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I went to Acacia Banquet Hall (1865 Econlockhatchee Trail Orlando, FL 32817) to learn what I could about the 2018 Legislative Session. I had seen the invitation from Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith  Representative Amy Mercado for a Legislative Town Hall. They provided an update on priorities, issues impacting our community and they took questions directly from constituents. Special guest Monivette Cordeiro of the Orlando Weekly will be moderating this important event. Montivette has since moved on to become a court reporter for the Orlando Sentinel.

Carlos Guillermo Smith is a community activist, lobbyist, and politician from Orlando, Florida. He is a Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives . Upon his election in 2016, Smith became the first openly gay Latino to serve in the Florida Legislature. I was very pleased to see he recently got married.

The Florida Legislature meets in session every year for sixty consecutive days. Legislative proposals may be in the form of bills, resolutions,
concurrent resolutions, joint resolutions, or memorials. A bill is a
proposed law, and it may be either a general bill or a local bill.   A
general bill would have a general impact within the state; a local bill
would affect only a particular county, city, or town named in the bill. A
majority vote is required to pass a bill, unless otherwise provided in
the Constitution. The Florida Legislature is largely Republican so proposals for progressive democratic bills have an uphill battle.

The bill, cited as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, sought on its surface,to comprehensively address the crisis of gun violence, particularly gun violence on school campuses. Components of the bill included, among others, provisions to enhance school safety policies, procedures, and personnel on the state and local level, to improve and expand mental health services, and to revise laws and empower law enforcement and the courts to limit access to firearms by young adults or by individuals exhibiting a risk of harming themselves or others. The bill also created and or revised operating and  capital funding policies and provides appropriations to implement the provisions of the bill.

Endangers positive school climates by: 

•Allowing school employees, including some teachers, to carry guns; 

•Requiring the placement of armed personnel in every school; 

•Requiring educators to “consult with” law enforcement whenever a student commits more than one misdemeanor or “exhibits a pattern of behavior . . . that would pose a threat to school safety;” •Creating an anonymous reporting mechanism without proper due process protections.

The one take away for me was that the Florida Legislature feels bad that students were killed in Parkland, and therefor it is important to get guns in the hands of volunteer school employees and or teachers. It would seem $400,000,000 was appropriated to get more guns into more hands. Carlos voted against this bill which fights gun violence by providing more guns on school campuses. The bill was approved by the governor on March 9, 2018. Welcome to the Gunshine State.

Newsweek reported that “More children have been killed by guns since Sandy Hook than U.S. soldiers in combat Since 9/11.”

Parkland Collection Effort Townhall Meeting

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On Valentines Day, February 14, 2018 a student entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida and began a shooting that killed 17 people and wounded 14 others. In March almost one month after the shooting Jeff Schwartz from the Parkland Historical Society invited Pam Schwartz from the Orange County Regional History Center went to Parkland to give advise on how items left at the Parkland Memorial might be collected and archived.  Several memorials had formed in Parkland following the shooting. One was at the high school along the fence that ran along the road in front of the school and another at the main stage at Pine Trails Park. An event was planned for the park so the memorials needed to be removed. A similar situation was faced in Orlando following the Pulse shooting in that makeshift memorials at Lake Eola had to be removed because of July 4th fireworks the following month.

The Parkland Historical Society is a small organization so they did not have the same resources that the Orange County Regional History Center had in Orlando. Instead of trained museum staff they needed rely on volunteers to collect and store memorial items. Pam offered practical advice on how to collect and preserve. A City hall employee took notes and a discussion began on the best practical approaches. Emotions ran high at the meeting since there is no one right answer about what is best for the community.

Volunteers dismantled the makeshift memorials on March 28, 2018. They took
away the 17 white crosses and Jewish stars bearing the names of the
students and faculty killed in the Valentine’s Day shooting. At this City Hall meeting it was decided that it made sense for students, parents, and friends and family of victims, to take part in the effort. Teddy bears, posters, and hand written letters and poems were stored in cardboard boxes. They went to climate controlled storage at Florida Atlantic University and will be saved so that 100 years from now the memories will always remain alive.

Zachary Knudson, a sculptor who has done several public works of art and memorials, teamed up with other volunteers to donate their time and resources in planning a permanent tribute. There was talk among Parkland Historical Society members of vacuum sealing some memorial tribute items inside a glass container. However humidity and the intense Florida Sun make even vacuum sealed items impractical to preserve. This sculpture proposed by Zackery is more like a 15 foot tall prism or stained glass sculpture. Kevin Roth, the CEO of the
Vistaglass Direct, a glass fabrication company is donating glass for
the project. There have been talks of possibly placing the sculpture at Stoneman Douglass High School.

On February 14, 2019, one year after the shooting the community gathered at Pine Trails Park (10559 Trails End, Parkland, FL 33076) to remember and honor the 17 victims with a moment of silence. The
City also hosted a brief Interfaith ceremony for the community. The park was be open both before and after the ceremony. Therapy dogs
and counselors were be onsite throughout the day. In lieu of
mementos, cards, flowers, pictures, or other such expressions of
condolences, people were asked to bring a canned food items to support efforts as a day of service.

The Legislature passed a package to address school safety in wake of the
mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the package
included $1 million for a permanent memorial to the 17 victims at the
high school in northwestern Broward County.

Parkland, Florida Memorial

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I spent the morning sketching jury selection for the Noor Salman Trial here in Orlando and then Pam Schwartz and myself drove south to Parkland, Florida where 17 students and faulty had been killed on Valentines Day in a mass shooting. Now, one month later memorial  items had to be cleared because an event was planned for this main stage in Pine Trails Park. The first impression of the town was that it is highly manicured giving the impression of suburban affluence. Seeing the memorial of course immediately reminded me of Pulse. 17 angels stood on stage with golden wings. I read the names of those killed on poster boards for the first time. In the field behind me there were 17 event tents protecting the 17 crosses. Some crosses had been switched out for stars of David.

It was a very windy day. Several tents had been blown over and more would do so as the storm progressed. Loose paper items from the memorial were blowing around, only stopping when they got wedged up against a fence. I heard that someone from a home in the neighborhood brought back items that had blown into her yard. Pam inspected the memorial and then began to return items and anchor them down.

Two high school students were looking at the memorial as I sketched. The girl collapsed to her knees. The boy put his hand on her shoulder waiting for her to regain her composure. It had only been about one month since the shooting. Then he approached me. I braced myself, he might consider my sketching to be disrespectful. Most people don’t understand why I do what I do. What he said took me off guard. He said, “I appreciate that you are sketching. We need to remember. People view sketches differently than they view photos. Thank you.” Considering that he must have been in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on the day of the shooting, this was an incredibly enlightened view. I got choked up, but cleared my eyes so I could finish the sketch.

Jeff Schwartz who heads up the Parkland Historical Society had invited Pam and I to stay at his home for the night.  Later that evening we would be meeting at City Hall so Pam could share her experiences and offer advice on how to collect and preserve the items from the memorials in Parkland.

Unloading Pulse Memorial Items at Off-Site

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After clearing memorial items away from the Pulse Nightclub,we drove to the onePULSE Foundation storage facility. While all the staff and Barbara Poma went upstairs to the air conditioned storage facility, I remained behind with the truck in the entrance bay. Call me paranoid but I didn’t want to leave the truck unattended. In Parkland, Florida where 17 students and faculty were killed in a mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, there was a memorial set up outside the high school with thousands of flowers, banners, teddy bears, and pin wheels. A drunk and disorderly couple were seen by a witness taking items from the memorials of the Parkland shooting victims and putting them in their truck.

A witnesses said they saw 37-year-old Michael Shawn Kennedy and
40-year-old Kara O’Neil taking items from a fence outside the High School. When police arrived they found the items in the couple’s car. A deputy also saw Kennedy placing a box of pinwheels in the vehicle. They claimed they were going to set up their own memorial. One deputy noted that Kennedy said, “I ripped down the anti-gun banner because I am pro-gun.”

According to the incident report, these items from the memorial were
found in their car: a Parkland athletics trophy, a shadowbox with photos
of the 17 victims, 17 white metal angel pennants, dedication plaques
that say “The Mighty Seventeen” and “MSD Parkland Strong”, 3 white teddy
bears, an anti-gun banner, 25 pinwheel lawn ornaments some with the
victims’ names, American flags, and a red stone that says “Never Again.” It is hard to imagine what was going through their drunken heads.

After leaving the onePULSE Foundation facility, the Orange County Regional History Center staff went to the off site facility for their museum collection. After Hurricane Irma, that storage facility suffered damage when an air conditioning hatch blew off and gouged multiple holes in the warehouse roofing. Water soaked drop-ceiling insulation and tile panels, until they were so heavy that they crashed down exploding on the concrete floor like bombs.  All of the inside walls in the warehouse had to be replaced to keep the historic items from being over run with black mold. Dehumidifiers ran for weeks to suck moisture from the air. Pulse memorial items still on the floor were once again subjected to water, but a heroic effort was made to dry and restore everything and not a single item was lost.  The new Pulse memorial items were paced on palettes. With the two year exhibit opening on June 2, some of these memorial items might end up on display, which will be up much longer that the 7 days that the One Year Later exhibit was open last year. That exhibit had to come down to make way for a wedding reception. This year’s exhibition will focus on the new stories the History Center has learned and on what has changed for Orlando since last year.