Mixing religion and politics can be a recipe for disaster — or great comedy.
But tonight we checked out an event that's pretty much an exception to that rule, even if hymns aren't really our thing.
The annual FAST (Faith & Action for Strength Together) Pinellas conference, which took place at the Trop, was a gathering of religious leaders and their flocks. There were hundreds of people there from multiple faiths (though we think Zoroastrianism was underrepresented).
Their purpose?
To ask ask elected officials at the city and county level to support policies that help the poor and disadvantaged, instead of ones that sweep them under the rug or criminalize them.
What's cool about this event is that leaders from various denominations can scrutinize each politician's record and press him or her on why he or she doesn't support a particular helpful policy.
One of these policies was requiring firms that contract with the city to hire more disadvantaged people for city projects. A panel asked Mayor Rick Kriseman and the City Council to make sure they support a disadvantage hiring ordinance, that the definition of "disadvantaged" includes ex-offenders and people who make less than 30 percent of the local median income, that it apply to projects that cost $2 million or more and that 15 percent of those hired be disadvantaged workers.
Each City Council member agreed to do all of those, though Council Chair Charlie Gerdes said he thinks one of those criteria doesn't go far enough.
“I think it should include ex-offenders and people who are making 50 percent of the median income,” he said. "I think it should include more people, not less.”
Kriseman agreed. He said that there's a particular sense of urgency on local hiring because there are attempts at the state level to preempt local efforts to pass hiring ordinances.
“There are bills in the state legislature that would preempt what we are trying to do now,” he said. “They are bad bills.”
The group then asked the County Commission to support various efforts to tackle homelessness by moving forward on spending $10 million in county money on affordable housing, set aside nearly a million dollars for a pilot program to help people with mental health issues and prioritize early intervention programs for behavioral health.
All of the commissioners in attendance, Charlie Justice, Pat Gerard agreed to all three, as did Commissioner Ken Welch in an email to conference organizers ahead of the event.
Other issues addressed included youth arrests (Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gaultieri agreed to pursue policies that reduce the number of youth arrests for non-serious crimes in the county) and discipline of students (members of the Pinellas County School Board agreed to tackle the rate of out-of-school suspensions for defiance, for example).
At the next conference of its kind, FAST members will likely applaud officials who kept their promises and grill those who didn't.
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2015.