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CNN Live Today

Florida Child Welfare Chief Quits

Aired August 14, 2002 - 11:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's go across the country to Florida, the case we talked about earlier. And Florida's Child Welfare Agency has been under fire because of missing, misplaced and endangered children. Well, now, the head of the agency has resigned four months after the case of a missing 5-year-old came to light.
CNN's John Zarrella is following that story for us now. Let's check in with him. He is live from Miami this morning.

Hello -- John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Leon.

Well, it probably doesn't surprise anyone, certainly not in the state of Florida, that Kathleen Kearney sent a letter of resignation yesterday afternoon to Governor Jeb Bush, because for the past several months, her agency has been embroiled in one high-profile fiasco after another.

The first, of course, beginning with Rilya Wilson. As many of our viewers probably remember back in April, the agency found that Rilya Wilson had been missing for 15 months, before they even knew she was missing. The little 5-year-old girl to this date has still not been found.

Following that revelation, there were several others that followed closely on the heels of that. Half a dozen girls, age 11 to 15, found to be staying unsupervised in a Palm Beach motel. They were all under the protection of Florida's Children and Families.

A boy over in Tampa, 1-year-old, found murdered on the side of the road. On the same day that he was murdered, a state agency worker said that she had visited the boy. In fact, she had lied and had not visited the boy.

And then, even most recently down here in south Florida, another case where a child welfare worker was found passed out in the seat of a car with an infant child next to her. She was supposed to be watching over that child.

So again, no surprise that the letter of resignation was submitted yesterday afternoon, and in part, Secretary Kearney wrote in her letter: "I would like to believe that during my stay here it can be said that -- quote -- 'she believed, she hoped, she tried, she failed often enough, but with God's grace, she often accomplished more than she rationally could have dreamed'." The governor, for his part, Jeb Bush, responding, saying: "I again thank Secretary Kearney for her tireless devotion to the protection of Florida's children. We will now move forward quickly to continue the work of making our child welfare system function better for these most valuable Floridians."

At this particular point, no successor has been named. Again, the resignation effective September 3.

The final straw may have come over the weekend when the south Florida Fort Lauderdale "Sun-Sentinel" published an article, where they found in just a matter of a few days nine missing children out of 24 that they started to look for out of some 500 that are missing in the state of Florida. And these nine they found were children that the state agency said they could not find and were unable to locate.

So again, that may have been the final straw, Leon, and it was becoming a political issue for, of course, Governor Jeb Bush, who is up for reelection this November.

This is John Zarrella reporting live from Miami -- back to you folks.

HARRIS: All right, good deal. Thanks, John -- appreciate it. Have a good one.

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