Okaloosa County BOCC — August 4, 2015 — Legal Services of North Florida Email

From: Brian Norback To: John Hofstad Cc: Rick Owen Subject: Re: Legal Services of North Florida. Budget review process. Date: Sunday, July 26, 2015 8:48:47 PM Mr. Owen, Please include us on the August 4th Meeting date. Even if just for a few moments. Say 15 to 20 minutes. Presentation materials have been provided previously, and I expect will be updated. I very much appreciate it gentlemen. Brian Norback. LSNF From: John Hofstad <jhofstad@co.okaloosa.fl.us> Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2015 2:26 PM To: Brian Norback Cc: Rick Owen Subject: RE: Legal Services of North Florida. Budget review process. Brian, Please coordinate any presentation materials that you may have with Rick Owen who is copied on this email. From: Brian Norback [mailto:brian@lsnf.org] Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2015 2:08 PM To: John Hofstad Subject: RE: Legal Services of North Florida. Budget review process. John – Yes, that would be wonderful! I will mark the date on my calendar and we will go from there. My presentations, I keep them short and simple, as you may have seen before. Thanks, Brian Norback. From: John Hofstad [mailto:jhofstad@co.okaloosa.fl.us] Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2015 11:18 AM To: Brian Norback Cc: Rick Owen Subject: RE: Legal Services of North Florida. Budget review process. Brian, As the workshop agendas have already been set and approved by the Board, a presentation during one of the remaining workshops is not possible. However, you do have the option of appealing to the Board during a regularly scheduled Board meeting. We can set this up for you if you would like to speak to the Board at the next BCC meeting the first week in August. The Board heard requests from two other non-profits this week during our BCC meeting on Tuesday. By copy of this email to Rick Owen in our office, he will gladly coordinate placing you on the upcoming agenda if this is your preference. Just let us know and we’ll set time aside for you in the Visitors section of the agenda. From: Brian Norback [mailto:brian@lsnf.org] Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2015 10:50 AM To: John Hofstad Subject: Legal Services of North Florida. Budget review process. John - Thanks again for meeting with us in April. Last year LSNF received just over 87,000 dollars from Okaloosa County alone. While this is not our only funding, these funds are extremely important to our work in Okaloosa County and I believe this County assistance makes a significant impact here in our community. Putting housing back on the county tax roll, helping to prevent homelessness, protecting children in neglect cases or victims of domestic violence in family court – these types of legal issues are but a small fraction of the more than 600 cases we closed in 2014 for Okaloosa county residents alone. These were cases where some level of assistance was provided, not mere applications that were rejected.   I believe there remains much unmet need though. That, of course, is why we discussed the possibility of additional funding from the County over and above the amounts already received earlier this year. To that end, though I have been attending as many of our budget workshops that have already been had, but I wonder - what the best way is to get on the agenda for upcoming budget meetings? I did not see where miscellaneous entities or groups would have an opportunity to speak towards these types of funding issues or requests.    Even though finances seem very limited I am happy to speak with the Board briefly, give them an overview of our request, and of course thank them for their continued support at the very least. Attached, an overview of some of our activity in 2014, and our most recent annual report. Please share your thoughts. Thank you very much. Brian Norback, Sr. Attorney, Legal Services of North Florida. Ft. Watlon Beach.