Florida Agenda

By Cliff Dunn

CORAL SPRINGS – Tara Tuttle, 35, may be a day older, but it’s hard to say if she’s deeper in debt. The Coral Springs woman, who told state officials that she had carried an unscratched lottery ticket with her for more than a month, is the winner of $10 million in the Florida Lottery Billion Dollar Blockbuster scratch-off game, the largest lottery prize awarded so far this year in Broward or Palm Beach counties.

Tuttle, who purchased her winning ticket at a Publix supermarket on North University Drive in Coral Springs, told officials that she purchased the ticket after learning that her partner of seven years, Cary Tullos, of Cooper City, had tested negative for breast cancer.

“I had a feeling that it was a lucky ticket but I didn’t want to find out quite yet,” she told lottery officials.

After the shock of winning wore off, Tuttle and Tullos took their two children to Florida Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee to claim the winnings. With her total ticket investment at $20, Tuttle told officials that she would opt for the lump-sum payment of $6.5 million, rather than having the $10 million doled out over ten years.

Tuttle told reporters she plans to use part of the winnings to donate to fighting cancer. According to state lottery officials, although most casual players are familiar with Powerball and the Florida Lotto, scratch-off games account for about 57 percent of statewide ticket sales, and that the “payback” on scratch-off games is approximately 70 percent (compared to 50 percent for “draw” games).

Before Tuttle, the largest prize this year was a $6 million Florida Lotto win in January. No Floridian has won the top Powerball prize this year. In addition, five $10 million and 74 $1 million prizes still remain in the scratch-off game.

CORAL SPRINGS – Last week, the editor of community news and information Web site Coral Springs Talk.com called upon the mayor of Coral Springs and other area chief executives to sign on to the national “Mayors for Freedom to Marry Campaign,” the bipartisan association of U.S. Mayors who have pledged to support marriage equality for LGBT couples.

In a July 3 online posting, editor Sharon Aron Baron wrote, “The City of Coral Springs and Parkland have many residents that are in same-sex relationships, yet do not enjoy the same legal rights as their neighbors.” She called upon Coral Springs Mayor Roy Gold, and “other South Florida Mayors to join the other 240 Democrats and Republicans that are already showing their support.” Baron cites the “several South Florida Mayors that have signed up to show their support” for marriage equality, including Pam Donovan of Margate, Marilyn Gerber of Coconut Creek, Judy Paul of Davie, Gary Resnick of Wilton Manors, Mike Ryan of Sunrise, and Anne Salle of Oakland Park.

Quoting San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican and the chairman of Mayors for the Freedom to Marry, Baron wrote, “Allowing loving and committed couples to join in marriage has benefits not just for couples and their families—but also for society. Marriage encourages people to take responsibility for each other, provides greater security for children, and helps our country live up to its promises set forth in our founding documents. These are important values for a strong society, and we should encourage them.”

CORAL SPRINGS, FL – An 83-year-old man was so moved by the recent screening of the movie Bullied: a Student, a School and a Case that Made History that he pledged to donate $25,000 to efforts aimed at combating bullying and other hate crimes in Broward County.

The Jan. 30 screening, sponsored by the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO), was an encore showing of the film Bullied at the Coral Springs Center for the Performing Arts. The film chronicles
the story of Jamie Nabozny, a gay Wisconsin teen who fought his bullying tormentors in the federal courts and won. The suit led to a landmark decision that holds school officials accountable when anti-gay bullying persists.

“In 2010, the Sheriff’s Foundation of Broward County donated money on behalf of Sheriff Al Lamberti and BSO’s Hate Crimes and Anti-Bias Task Force to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to help produce the documentary,” said Capt. Rick Wierzbicki of the task force. “BSO was the only law enforcement agency in the nation to help produce the film.”

Following the screening, audience members were invited to ask questions of a panel assembled for the event. Instead of asking the experts a question, Leonard Solomon of Fort Lauderdale announced that he was so moved by the film and Nabozny’s story, that he would donate $25,000 to the cause of educating the public about the evils of bullying in particular and hate crimes generally.

“The movie made me realize the size of the bullying problem,” Solomon said. “There was a lot that struck me about it–the lawsuit–how lax the school administration was. I knew I wanted to get involved.”

BSO, in conjunction with the SPLC, premiered Bullied to South Florida audiences last September. Capt. Wierzbicki  says, “the message of the film, which was really Jamie Nabozny’s message to the bullies who made his life hell, is that all children and teens are entitled to attend school in a safe environment that’s free from harassment and abuse.”

The donation from Solomon, 83, will be split among three agencies: the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, and BSO. Wierzbicki says that a portion of Solomon’s generosity will be directed towards supporting future public screenings of Bullied. In addition, BSO will create a new hate crimes/anti-bias/bullying financial account that will help pay for future town hall-style hate crimes and bullying forums, and disseminating information to the public about bullying and hate crimes.

“The generous gift from Mr. Solomon will enable the Anti-Defamation League to provide our Names Can Really Hurt Us assembly program at two high schools in Broward County,” said Robert Tanen of the Anti-Defamation League.

In spite of the Nabozny decision, bullying against LGBT students remains a national problem, with more than 80 percent of LGBT youth reporting harassment at school. Despite this, many schools across the country remain unwilling to address anti-gay bullying.