Mayor part of business that seeks state funding for recidivism pilot project

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A for-profit corporation that Mayor Joe Kilsheimer is a director in is seeking $500,000 in state funds to use for a recidivism pilot project, which would help reduce felons’ chances of reoffending.

The mayor said the idea of helping former felons re-enter society has long been a goal of his. As a result, Certified Second Chance, Inc., came to life in February after incorporation papers were filed.

Kilsheimer said he came up with the business plan for Certified Second Chance after he volunteered several years ago in a mayoral campaign in St. Petersburg and met former felons who had trouble getting a job because they had to check the box on employment applications that asked if the applicant was a convicted felon.

“I’ve been working on this since 2009,” Kilsheimer said. “This is a long-held interest of mine and a long-held passion of mine.”

Not a conflict
The mayor said he received clearance from city attorney Cliff Shepard before getting involved in the for-profit business.

“As long as this is not regulated by the city of Apopka in any fashion, I’m not precluded by the state or city to be in private business,” Kilsheimer said he was told by Shepard.

The City Charter specifies the mayor’s duties: “The office of mayor of the city shall be a full-time job, and the mayor shall pursue no other occupation in such a manner while serving as mayor as to interfere with his official duties and obligations.”

In a memo, Shepard wrote about what the Charter states, “As written, this would mean that having other business interests or even another job would be ‘OK’ unless said interests were to interfere with his official duties and obligations as Mayor.”

Shepard also told Mayor Kilsheimer, “The Mayor must avoid business interests that do business with or are regulated by the City.”

The other directors of Certified Second Chance are Allan Chernoff, Deveron Gibbons, and Bobby Olszewski.

“We are all philosophically aligned in the same direction: That more needs to be done for people for whom incarceration is part of their past,” Mayor Kilsheimer said.

Gibbons is now a senior vice president for Amscot, Inc., which was a client of Kilsheimer’s when he was a public relations consultant before being elected mayor of Apopka in 2014. Gibbons was also the former St. Petersburg mayoral candidate that Kilsheimer volunteered for about 10 years ago.

Olszewski is a former Winter Garden city commissioner and was an unsuccessful candidate last year for Orange County Commission.

Chernoff is the chief operating officer of City of Life Foundation, a non-profit organization in Orlando that works with youngsters in the foster system.

City of Life is also the group that is facilitating Kilsheimer’s “Apopka Begins and Ends with A” program that is designed to improve Apopka-area schools. The city is paying City of Life $44,500 – including $9,500 from a Duke Energy grant – this year to run the program in seven local schools.

The mayor dismissed any conflict of interest in being involved in a business venture with Chernoff.

“This is not an Apopka project,” Kilsheimer said. “This is a project beyond my role as mayor of the city of Apopka. This is a project I’ve been working on since before I was elected, before I was elected as a city commissioner. I’ve been working on this project since 2009.”

An extended version of this story appears on page 1A of the Friday, April 14, issue of the Apopka Chief