Civic Education: Back to Basics
Priore Wants Civics Focus with League
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Reprinted from Wellington Crier, Don Brown, October 3, 2008
Wellington Vice Mayor Dr. Carmine Priore has been a go-to guy since before the village even became a municipality some 12 years ago. His influence was considerably expanded last month when he became president of the powerful Florida League of Cities.
The retired dentist and dean of the Wellington Village Council was elevated to his newest position on Aug. 16 when he was sworn in as leader of the group representing Florida’s 412 municipalities. He follows only three other Palm Beach County municipal elected leaders who have held the office — former Royal Palm Beach councilwoman Carmela Starace, Greenacres Mayor Sam Ferreri and South Bay Mayor Clarence Anthony. Ironically, while several counties are also members of the league, Palm Beach County is not among them.
During his yearlong tenure as president of the league, Priore is in the inner loop of power in the state, a goal that has eluded him since his unsuccessful attempt to become the District 85 state representative in 2002. That race cost him a year off a seat on the Wellington council, which he later won back.
Priore is well aware of his newfound influence in the state and the local clout he has in Tallahassee.
“I can walk in to see the house speaker and the senate president, and I get my calls returned by the governor,” he told the Town-Crier Thursday.
Priore said he hopes that influence can protect Florida’s municipalities, where most of its residents live. “I represent all the municipalities in Florida, and I want to support the issues that affect all cities and towns,” he said. “I have the opportunity to influence decisions that affect them, and I will try to do that.”
Among his first acts as league president was to get the league to support a proposed inland port for the communities around Lake Okeechobee, a proposal initiated by the Port of Palm Beach. “I was able to get the league to support the inland port project, and I’ll be lobbying for it,” he said.
Priore is now hard at work pushing for a Palm Beach County charter amendment that would shield municipalities from future charter amendments that their voters oppose. “The ‘Let Us Vote’ referendum is the right thing to do,” he said.
He explained that some decisions made by the county have usurped the rights of Wellington and other communities throughout Florida.
“We’ve taken a very hard line on the county charter amendment question,” he said, adding that he has been hard at work explaining the issues to groups and the media throughout the area.
Priore said he is already looking at the coming state legislative agenda. “We have five committees that will determine the legislative policies during the 2009 legislative session,” he said. “We’ll be looking at them to see how they impact our municipalities.”
Among the issues under consideration, Priore said he would be looking for anything that might change ad valorem taxes in municipalities.
As president of the Florida League of Cities, Priore also has a civics lesson he wants to teach to all Florida students.
“My priority as league president revolves around the need to ‘go back to the basics’ of civics education,” he said. “And this goes beyond the classroom. My goal is to help Floridians of all ages know about their governments and participate as active and effective citizens.”
Toward that end, he wants to make civics part of the state’s FCAT program. “National and statewide studies show that Americans have limited knowledge of their state, regional and local governments,” he said.
Priore noted that civics is not a classroom priority because it is not tested on the FCAT, and as a result some students to do not learn “the basics.”
“Beyond the classroom, 70 percent of Floridians are non-native and were schooled elsewhere so they do not have a Florida-specific background in civics,” Priore said. “Therefore, materials also must be developed to reach the non-student.”
Toward this end, Priore said he would stump the state, working with schools to emphasize the teaching of civics in their curriculum. “Cities are the level of government closest to the people,” he said. “Most Floridians use local governmental services daily: water, wastewater, solid waste, parks and recreation. And they depend on city services in times of crises such as police and fire. Do they have the knowledge to vote on such services, and to vote for the city leaders who guide the provisions of these services? That is the educational challenge.”
Priore said the Florida League of Cities is designing a program to encourage the lesson of civics he hopes will be embraced by all Florida municipalities.
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