Opening Night Social Event

Transcription

1 Opening Night Social Event Thursday, October 13, 2016 Firehouse Cultural Center 101 1st Ave NE, Ruskin, FL Doors open: 5:30 p.m. Program begins: 6:00 p.m. Cost: $25 donation Stewards of the Land: A History of Florida s Largest Local-Government Environmental Lands Program, Hillsborough County s Jan K. Platt Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP) Panelists Jan K. Platt, Hillsborough County Commissioner ( ) Bob Martinez, Tampa Mayor ( ) and Governor of Florida ( ) Jan Smith, ELAPP Committee Chair Joel Jackson, retired parks planner for Tampa and Hillsborough County Gus Muench, longtime ELAPP advocate, fisherman and eco-tour guide Sally Thompson, longtime ELAPP and sustainability advocate Rob Heath, retired ELAPP manager ( ) Moderator Joe Guidry, retired editor, 40+ years at the Tampa Tribune About In 1987, Hillsborough County voters approved a referendum and property tax to implement the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP). It was subsequently reauthorized in 1990 and 2008, each time with sizeable majorities. Similar to and often in partnership with state-funded programs such as Preservation 2000 and Florida Forever, ELAPP has protected over 62,000 acres of rare and important habitat in Hillsborough County. Learn from these community leaders about how we got here, and what we need to do to ensure the future protection of Florida s natural heritage. Open to the public (festival registration not required), but you must RSVP here:

2 About the panelists and moderator Jan K. Platt Jan Kaminis Platt was born in St. Petersburg and raised in Tampa. At Florida State University, she was elected President of the Student Senate and Vice President of the Student Body, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in She attended law school at the University of Florida, where she was the only woman in the program. Platt returned to Tampa Bay, where she taught history, was a field director for the Tampa Girl Scout Council, and served as volunteer president of the Suncoast Girl Scout Council. She co-founded the Junior Discussion Group, a unit of the League of Women Voters, for young women interested in better government. Jan K. Platt was elected to Tampa City Council in 1974 and served on the 1976 Florida Constitutional Revision Commission. In 1978, she was elected as a Hillsborough County Commissioner and served continuously until An avid fisherman, Platt was a driving force behind the creation of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council s Agency on Bay Management, the Environmental Land Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP), and Tampa Bay s selection into the National Estuary Program. Among her many honors, Jan K. Platt was named a Woman of Distinction by the Suncoast Girl Scout Council, Humanitarian of the Year by the Florida Head Start Association (2010), and received the Herman W. Goldner Award for Regional Leadership by the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. In 2014, Hillsborough County recognized her dedicated service by officially naming ELAPP the Jan K. Platt Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program.

3 Bob Martinez Bob Martinez, former Governor of Florida, is a senior policy advisor with Holland & Knight's Public Policy & Regulation Practice Group. Mr. Martinez is one of Florida's most respected leaders, and his distinguished career in public service spans more than 40 years. Career highlights include serving in the following positions: Cabinet-level office as the nation's second Drug Czar under President George H.W. Bush from , Governor of Florida from , Mayor of the City of Tampa from , and Vice Chairman of the Southwest Water Management District from Mr. Martinez is known for his creation of effective environmental protection programs such as Preservation 2000, the largest conservation land-purchasing initiative in the nation of its time. He has been instrumental in campaigns that created and continue to support Hillsborough County s Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP).

4 Jan Smith Jan Tomlinson Smith was born in Pennsylvania and lived in Michigan before her family moved to Melbourne Beach, Florida. She earned a Business Administration degree from the University of South Florida and then worked at Tampa General Hospital, where she met her husband, Dr. Earl Smith. When he established a private pediatric practice, they worked together for 38 years until retiring in Smith, whose Tampa Bay-area community service began in the 1970s and steadily expanded into the new millennium, has not slowed down in retirement. Her record includes appointments by the Hillsborough County Commission to the Planning Commission, Charter Review Board, Affordable Housing Steering Committee, Hillsborough Area Rapid Transit (HART) Board of Directors, Transportation Task Force, Economic Development Committee, and Economic Prosperity Stakeholder Committee. She has also been involved with protecting and promoting Tampa s historic Ybor City for 20 years. Smith is currently the Chair of Hillsborough County s Jan K. Platt Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP), which reflects her longstanding commitment to this program since its inception. Likewise, she has been involved with Friends of the Hillsborough County Parks since In 2011, she joined The Tampa Bay Conservancy Board of Directors, and has served as treasurer for three years.

5 Joel Jackson Joel Jackson became active in environmental issues in 1969 as a founding member of Save Our Bay, which was formed to fight dredging and filling of nearly 2,000 acres of Upper Tampa Bay. In 1970, he became the parks and recreation planner for the City of Tampa. Between 1977 and 1983, Jackson managed a bond program for Hillsborough County that established new natural resource parks, including Upper Tampa Bay, Lettuce Lake, and Alderman s Ford. Around this time, it became clear to him that public land acquisition was one of the few ways to ensure the long-term protection of valuable environmental lands. In 1986, while again working for the City of Tampa, he volunteered his experience with state and federal environmental land acquisition programs to assist the county in drafting guidelines for Hillsborough County s Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP). Jackson retired after serving 17 years with Tampa and 23 years with Hillsborough County. He continues to be an active member of ELAPP s General Advisory Committee and its Strategic Planning Sub-Committee, as well as a longtime member of the Florida Native Plants Society and Tampa Audubon Society. In 2016, he was recognized with the Florida Native Plant Society s award for public service.

6 Gus Muench Gus Muench was born and raised in Tampa, with a childhood lived like Huckleberry Finn. He worked 32 years with General Telephone Company, and has advocated for the Tampa Bay environment his whole life. Living almost 50 years on Little Manatee River, Muench has been a commercial crab fisherman since Recognizing that healthy waterways require the protection of coastal, wetland and upland ecosystems, he got involved with the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP) in 1986, and he remains active on ELAPP committees to this day. He won environmental accolades including Audubon s Polly Redford Award (1986), the Chevron Conservation Award (1990), and he was inducted into the Hillsborough High School Hall of Fame. Muench is also passionate about the region s natural and cultural history, including the Uzita people who lived here before the arrival of Spanish Conquistadors. Since 2008, he has been advocating for the creation of a coastal Uzita Trail and conservation overlay district for public lands in the south shore area of Tampa Bay.

7 Sally Thompson Sally Thompson moved to Winter Park, Florida, from Baltimore at the age of nine. Two years later her family moved to Tampa. Growing up, she remembers swimming in lakes (with alligators) and the many citrus groves. Florida was a much less populous state then. Thompson earned her B.A. in English from Hollins University (Virginia) in 1965, and her Master of Public Administration degree from the University of South Florida in Returning to Tampa in 1974 after working for several years in New York City, Thompson promptly became involved in environmental causes, first with Save Our Bay and then the Hillsborough Environmental Coalition. Her primary interests were the Tampa Bay ecosystem and environmental land programs. She served on the committee that developed criteria for the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP) in the mid- 1980s. At the City of Tampa, Thompson worked in human resource management and later grants coordination, retiring in 2000 after 25 years. She taught environmental resource management at USF until Thompson has continuously served on ELAPP committees since its creation. Her other environmental bona fides include: Governing Board of the Southwest Florida Water Management District ( ); Chair of the City of Tampa Greenways & Trails Citizens Advisory Committee; Emeritus Member of the Florida Greenways & Trails Foundation; and founding and current board member of the Tampa Bay Conservancy.

8 Rob Heath A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Rob Heath moved to Florida in 1978, where he worked as a ranger for the Florida Park Service. In 1981, he was hired by Hillsborough County and served as the County Naturalist for the Parks and Recreation Department, training park rangers to give guided walks and nature programs, developing natural history interpretive literature and displays, and operating an awardwinning summer nature program for school-aged children. From 1988 to 2002, Heath played an important role in the Hillsborough County Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP), conducting environmental site assessments and supervising county staff responsible for management of the natural lands acquired through ELAPP. In February of 2002, Heath retired from Hillsborough County in order to start the Wildlife Fellowship, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to environmental stewardship. He has recently worked as a seasonal warden and bird monitor for Audubon Florida s Coastal Island Sanctuaries, a senior ecologist for Wildlands Conservation, Inc., and serves on the board of directors for Tampa Bay Conservancy.

9 Joe Guidry (moderator) Joe Guidry, a Tampa native, worked for The Tampa Tribune Company for more than 40 years. He joined The Tampa Tribune Editorial Department in 1984, later became Deputy Editorial Page editor and took over as Opinion Page Editor in 2008, a position he held until the Tribune ceased publication in May Environmental stewardship was a priority throughout Guidry s editorial career. During the 1980s, he undertook a Saving the Bay series, writing more than 50 editorials on the importance of cleaning and protecting Tampa Bay, advocating for such measures as the Surface Water Management Improvement (SWIM) legislation and the selection of Tampa Bay for the National Estuary Program. He raised alarms over proposals to build a marina and an electric plant on pristine sections of the bay. Guidry vigorously championed land preservation efforts throughout the years, including the Hillsborough County Environmental Land Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP), Preservation 2000, Florida Forever, and the Florida Land and Water Legacy Amendment. The University of South Florida graduate consistently defended pollution controls and responsible planning and emphasized the economic payoff of resource protection. His writings have won a number of awards, including the national Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing, the Al Burt Award for journalism that promoted conservation and responsible growth, and the Terrell Sessums Award for leadership in safeguarding Tampa Bay. Guidry has been an active supporter of numerous local non-profit and charitable institutions, including the Boy Scouts, Tampa Bay History Center, Children s Cancer Research Group and Tampa Catholic High School. He is a recipient this year of the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of South Florida.