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Partnership Stumbles

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By LENORA LAKE, Tribune correspondent

Published: October 20, 2007

Updated: 10/18/2007 11:46 pm

UNIVERSITY AREA - Despite plans to revitalize the University Area Partnership, the collaborative canceled its first full general membership meeting in almost two years.

Jan Voyer has resigned as the group's chairwoman.

The four-and-a-half-year-old partnership works to link social service representatives, business owners, faith-based group leaders and residents to improve the lives of residents in the community west of the University of South Florida.

The general membership meeting, which the partnership calls a 'full up,' was to have been Oct. 18. That meeting was announced in July by the group's leadership, called the advisory council.

This week, that meeting was scrubbed when no arrangements, other than the location, had been made.

'We are still going to do a full up. I don't know when it will be or what it will look like, but it is going to happen,' the group's vice chairwoman, Cherryl Franklin, said Monday.

The partnership was established in February 2003, and its first full general meeting drew almost 100 attendees. A social services fair was held later that year. Following that, attendance at the general meetings and the advisory council meetings declined.

At some meetings, members said the group needed more action and fewer meetings. Others said they felt the organization should better define its goals. Some said the group needed one specific area of concern, and others expressed opinions that it needed a broader scope. The advisory council stopped meeting in spring 2006.

In April, Voyer and a handful of others tried to revitalize the volunteer group. However, almost immediately, Voyer had health problems and then a change of employment.
Voyer also said that someone, whom she would not name, told her he did not want her serving in the partnership.

Throughout the summer and early fall, the advisory council tried to keep meeting, but only two to four people showed each month. Some members had conflicts with the meeting time, Franklin said.

Franklin said she is polling the advisory council members to find a time the greatest number can attend. She said she hopes to have an advisory council meeting this month.

'We need continuity and consistency. That will be the key,' Franklin said. 'Our goals are too important to just drop.'

Harriet Scott, director of Positive Support for Parents in Neighborhoods, is one of the partnership founders. She said she would like to see it continue, too.

'I don't think we should give up. I think that it salvageable,' Scott said. 'Too many great things are happening in this community.'

Correspondent Lenora Lake can be reached at (813) 865-4851 or llake@tampatrib.com.

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