APA Florida Wins Chapter Leaders Award for Outstanding Outreach to the Community

APA Florida will be honored with the 2019 CPC Karen B. Smith Chapter Award for Outstanding Outreach to the Community for our response to Hurricane Irma. Additionally, former chapter Treasurer, Tony LaColla, AICP, has been selected as the CPC Leadership Award Chapter Volunteer Service Recognition for his innovative K-12 Teaching Guides.

Hurricane Irma hit Florida on Sept. 10, 2017, just two days after the scheduled completion of APA Florida’s annual conference in Daytona Beach.  Because many members could not make it to the conference and evacuations were in order, the final day, Friday, of our conference was cancelled. With our members always at the forefront of our decision making, APA Florida took the following actions in response to Hurricane Irma:

• After each update from the National Hurricane Center, the leadership team evaluated if the conference should continue. At each meeting, we balanced the safety of our members with the knowledge that many of our members rely on the conference to fulfill their CM requirements. Ultimately, the conference continued from Tuesday evening to Thursday evening albeit in altered format with the final day having to be cancelled.
• During the conference, the Conference Committee worked tirelessly to rearrange sessions each night and keep an updated conference schedule in the conference center. This effort ensured: (1) those who were in attendance had sessions to attend to earn their AICP CM credits; and (2) those speakers in attendance were able to put on their presentations.
• Full refunds were given to any requesting member who did not make it to the conference. After the conference, APA Florida staff organized a Virtual Conference featuring the sessions that were scheduled for the conference but ultimately did not happen. The chapter hosted eight webinars for 9.25 AICP CM credits and made them available free of charge to any conference registrants. The Virtual Conference was very well-received by our members. Of course, keeping our members in mind, after a few months, we made these sessions available to all members.
• As our final conference day was cancelled, our luncheon speaker was unable to present. APA Florida worked with our speaker, Joe Minicozzi, to schedule a Circuit Rider program instead. Mr. Minicozzi visited Florida in the spring and hosted five events offering 15.75 CM credits in four sections over the course of a week.  The circuit rider events were free to all members.
• Finally, while we certainly did not plan it, when Hurricane Florence bore down during APA North Carolina’s annual conference this year, we did reach out and offer our advice which included many of the ideas explained above.

Tony LaColla, AICP, is rightfully being recognized for his years of service to the chapter. Tony, who now lives in Washington, DC, developed educational materials and teaching guides for grades K-12, which our members can download free of charge. Tony eagerly offered to spearhead the development of the teaching guides, which had long been a chapter goal.

Tony's other contributions to the chapter include:

• 2005 & 2010 APA Florida Annual Conference Committees
  
• Sun Coast Section Chair
  
• Vice President of Section Affairs
  
• Chapter Treasurer

His volunteer work outside the chapter is also why Tony is worthy of this recognition. Tony was significantly involved in the planning, economic development, and historic preservation efforts of his Ybor City neighborhood in Tampa. He took on all the activities listed above while working full-time for the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission. 

Both awards will be formally recognized at the NPC in San Francisco this spring.