Letters: Calling great young minds to move the city — and country — forward

The United States has enjoyed prosperity from being at the top of the world order for more than 50 years. But now, the U.S. is quickly losing its ranking as other nations are on the rise.

There are many factors driving this change in world order, but the core drivers are education and innovation. And the U.S. is rapidly falling behind.

Retired Adm. William McRaven, a former U.S. Navy SEAL commander and head of U.S. Special Operations Command, recently said “Education is our biggest national security issue.”

Today, a very small percentage of the U.S. is generating net new value to society. These individuals are educated, inventing new technology and building things that the U.S. and the rest of the world needs to move generations forward.

Unfortunately, this portion of the population is not enough for the country to retain its status as a world leader. We need many more educated and ambitious individuals to bolster this subset.

To get started, we need all ambitious young adults to become educated to their highest potential, regardless of background.

Many young adults have the resources to get a higher education, but they are a small minority and won’t provide enough headcount to keep the U.S. on top. But there is a larger portion of the population that is ambitious but does not have access to higher education. This is where we need to focus.

In Jacksonville, there are several programs that give access to higher education for ambitious young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as Achievers for Life, Bright Futures scholarships or Big Brother Big Sister. Now, there is a new program, local to Jacksonville, called Hive Mind.

Hive Mind is a comprehensive and proven three-year program that empowers high school students from under-represented, low-income and/or diverse backgrounds to achieve college readiness and success. Hive Mind has developed a successful program incorporating tutoring, mentoring and enrichment experiences that prepare students for bright futures.

If you know an ambitious sophomore high school student in District 2 who might be interested, contact info@hivemindjax.org.

Programs like this are critical for us to grow the great minds that can innovate and build our tomorrow.

Alex Taheri, president, Hive Mind

Food insecurity and mental health

Numerous studies have made it clear that food insecurity is linked to increased rates of depression and anxiety. Undoubtedly, when one of your most fundamental needs — for nutritious food — goes unmet, your mental health suffers. That’s why Florida’s seven managing entities, which oversee the state's behavioral health safety net system, are partnering with Farm Share, Florida’s largest independent food bank, to address both issues.

Under the partnership, a card will be included in each bag of food distributed at Farm Share events. The card provides important information on how to contact a managing entity to connect with mental health and substance use disorder providers that accept clients without health insurance. Behavioral health services include treatment for mental health issues and substance use disorder, as well as “wraparound services” like transportation, child care, employment and more.

Florida’s seven local Managing Entities work with a network of over 300 behavioral health care providers, who deliver services to more than 300,000 of Florida’s most vulnerable residents — including children, expectant mothers, veterans and the chronically homeless.

We recognize that food insecurity and poor mental health are interrelated, which is why we’re raising awareness about behavioral health services at food distribution events. The National Alliance on Mental Illness has long recognized access to food as a social determinant of health. They acknowledge that food insecurity can lead to mental health issues and, conversely, that untreated mental health issues can impair a person’s ability to find and keep a job in order to access food.

People who have fallen on hard times and can’t afford food may not know that behavioral health services are available, regardless of their ability to pay.

The goal of both of our organizations is to help Floridians get back on their feet. By providing nutritious food and information on how to access the treatment people may need for anxiety, depression or substance use disorder, we can help people tackle the multiple challenges they may be facing.

These are hard times; we’re here to give a hand up.

Natalie Kelly, CEO, Florida Association of Managing Entities and Stephen Shelley, CEO, Farm Share

Sex workers have rights, too

Needless cruelty by Jacksonville city leaders can be seen in legislation from 2020 and 2022 burdening exotic dancers and adult club staff with irrational work identification card requirements. These threats of penalties have surely caused suffering to numerous dancers and other adult club staff. Kudos to the adult clubs and dancers who are standing up for their rights via a lawsuit.

The core provisions of the 2020 dancer licensing ordinance were found by court action in 2021 to be unconstitutional; yet, the 2022 dancer licensing ordinance introduced by Leanna Cumber and Matt Carlucci is still needlessly cruel. It requires women who want to work as dancers to provide photos and other personal information to JSO in order to obtain a work identification card.

Even locations and descriptions of their tattoos are required. The ordinance also requires adult clubs to maintain a file of photocopies of dancers’ work identification cards for two years under threat of penalty.

These requirements are burdensome, invidious and depraved. They violate dancers’ constitutional rights and human right to privacy. Moreover, they endanger dancers to potential stalking and/or sexual assault by police who can access the file at any time. Because sexual misconduct by members of law enforcement is a documented problem.

The dancer licensing ordinances were also developed in a sneaky manner, with little or no effort to get input from the impacted public. Jacksonville does not need cruel, sneaky, rights-violating leaders. If the city really wanted to prevent human trafficking, then they would do their part to fully decriminalize consensual adult sex work as recommended by human rights organizations.

Adam Stuart, Jacksonville 

Invest in schools, boost property values

Many years ago, while living in an affluent Boston suburb with an acknowledged excellent school system, a modest property tax increase was proposed for needed school renovations and teacher raises. The issue soon became quite acrimonious, with nasty personal attacks and involvement of out-of-state opposition groups.

The proposal passed on a close vote. Afterwards, the outspoken lead opponent issued an expletive-laden diatribe against “the crazy wasteful spending liberals” who supported the increase and that he was moving out of our “BS” town. A person happy to see him depart documented his very substantial home value increase over the years he resided there.

After location, school system quality is the major determinant of local property values (apart from the house itself). The opponent was mockingly berated for steadfastly refusing to invest in maintaining an excellent school system that had profited him greatly by significantly increasing his property value. He responded with a derogatory insult.

The point to remember is that wise school and teacher investments provide a substantial return through property value maintenance and enhancement, including for those who may no longer have children in school.

Michael Miller, Ponte Vedra Beach 

Clear choice for District 2

I believe that parents and legal guardians have a right and responsibility to be involved in their children's education. I also believe that what one parent or group of parents want for their children's education may not be what others want for our children's education.

Unfortunately, we have a governor who has politicized education and signed legislation to solve non-existing problems.  

On Aug. 23, voters in District 2 have a clear choice. We can choose between a former teacher, mental health counselor and current member of the school board — or someone whose only qualification (as far as I can discern) is having two children in the DCPS system.

I know who I am supporting — Elizabeth Andersen. I hope others will, too.

Michael Connelly, Jacksonville Beach 

How much is too much for Heekin?

The front-page headline in the Times-Union on Aug. 3 referred to 348 lawsuits filed against Jacksonville orthopedic surgeon David Heekin over the last three to four years. A little arithmetic indicates this to be nearly one lawsuit every four days. Put this together with the tsunami of TV and internet advertising from hungry law firms and you can see how that affects the idea of fairness.

Dr. Heekin, a West Point graduate, had more than 35 years of experience. The point is that it shouldn't have taken hundreds of lawsuits to conclude the man was sick — someone, somewhere, needed to act. Now we get to see just how many legitimate cases are found.

Tom Raffo, Jacksonville 

Hanging up on landlines

Regarding the Aug. 4 article on landlines phones, Ma Bell [AT&T] is its own worst enemy. We were paying upwards of $40 for a landline without long distance capability. We continually asked for lower rates and were denied, being told nothing could be done.

Only when we told them to cancel our service was there an offer of a small rate cut, but it was too little, too late. As the customer base declines, the rates continue to climb, which exacerbates the issue. It's too bad they put so much effort into cellular service at the expense of the then-existing customer base.

K. Shacter, Arlington 

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Letters: Calling great young minds to move the country forward