For more information on this project, contact Charles Henry, Environmental Health Director at the Sarasota County Health Department.
SARASOTA COUNTY PACE EH
March, 2006
Progress Report
Summary of the PACE EH Assessment Team
Meeting held on March 29th, 2006
Agenda Items
Welcome/Introductions
Announcements
Goals and Objectives
Development of Survey Tools
First Community Meeting
Old Business
Attendance List:
SANDRA DANU
HEALTHY GULF COALITION
DON CHANEY
HEALTHY GULF COALITION
JERRY MANNING
CITY OF NORTH PORT UTILITIES
TIM RUMAGE
RINGLING SCHOOL OF ART, ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
KATHY MEAUX
WATER RESOURCES
MICKEY HEALY
VENICE UTILITIES
DON JACOVIT
VENICE UTILITIES
LYMAN ROBERTS
MOSQUITO MANAGEMENT
GEORGE TATGE
SC GOV. BEACHES & NATURAL AREAS
CHUCK HENRY
EH DIRECTOR, SCHD
ROBERT BOLESTA
ENGINEERING MANAGER, SCHD
DAVID POUSO SCHD
HEALTHY BEACHES PROGRAM
After the welcome and introductions, the
announcements generated the following discussion:
Consistency and participation of
assessment team membership was discussed with a suggestion the members
sign a voluntary commitment form. The group was given a draft of a
commitment form for our PACE EH project and asked to review it for
discussion next meeting.
Don Chaney gave the group a brief update
regarding the Sierra Clubs hiring of Stuart DeCew, a Red Tide
specialist for Sarasota. The group may wish to include Mr. DeCew in
future meetings.
David Pouso provided the team with an
update on activities in the Healthy Beaches Program. This included the
results of our shoreline red tide sampling, discussion about new red
tide beach signs created by DOH and START (Finished Product Shown), and
HEALTHY BEACH signs for locally monitored beaches. Rob Bolesta and David
Pouso shared information about the new PACE EH Web Site, (Ourhealthygulf.net).
This site domain was purchased by Sarasota County for our Coastal
Communities PACE EH project. The site (still in development) was shown
to the group, and a brief tour given. The site includes information on
beaches and red tide, links, current events, and an online version of
our survey. We will review the site status & content at the next meeting
and begin to plan for public announcement of the site.
Chuck Henry shared the status of the 2006
FEHA annual meeting. It appears as though all presentations slots have
been reserved, but encourages our group to attend as a whole, updates
regarding the FEHA meeting will be shared with the group as they become
available.
Next the team briefly reviewed the project goals and objectives which
moved the discussion to development of our survey tool. A revised draft
of the survey was presented which included previous suggestions such as:
providing a simple but clear definition of environmental health,
Emphasizing environmental health in all of the questions, defining terms
like water monitoring to ensure a common understanding, including a
place to indicate the status, (resident, visitor, part year resident),
as well as an optional section to allow entry of name, address and phone
if desired. New suggestions were given which included: defining coastal
community, more information at the top of the survey as to the purpose
of the survey, changing the check box answers to positive & negative as
opposed to strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree, Adding a
short list of environmental health issues to give examples of what
environmental health is, placing more information about the PACE EH
process on the back of the survey including a watershed map. David Pouso
will make some updates to the survey draft and e-mail it to the group.
Please e-mail comments & suggestions to David Pouso (dpouso@doh.state.fl.us)
prior to our next meeting, so an updated version will be available for
discussion at the next meeting. It was again suggested that we conduct
several small scale test surveys to refine the tool before we complete
it. Possible locations to test the survey included Healthy Gulf
Coalition meetings, area beach events, and the Farmers Market. The
health department staff will incorporate these ideas into the survey and
present a new draft at the next meeting.
Planning for our first community meeting
was next on the agenda. Plans are still for holding the meeting in
early-mid May. The Siesta Key Association meeting was suggested as a
possible first meeting place. Group will wait to hear back from SKA
regarding availability. Several key speakers were identified and will be
contacted for potential dates, possibly getting Andy Reich from DOHs
Aquatic Toxins Program to speak. Suggestion made to record our guest
speakers and look into the possibility of POD CASTING the talks.
Discussion was also held on the breakout segment of the planned
meetings. The team agreed that emphasis should be places on seeking
results-orientated responses for the participants. The team will develop
questions that encourage such responses. Job descriptions will also be
developed for the breakout group facilitators.
A short discussion was held about meeting
times. The team agreed to keep alternating between afternoon and evening
times.
The next meeting was set for Wednesday,
April 26, 2006 from 3:00 to 5 p.m.
| Past
Sarasota County Updates |
February, 2006
January, 2006
December, 2005
October, 2004
August, 2004
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