Coral Gables Environment, Politics and Government
July 20, 2010 Leave a comment
Coral Gables needs a Center for Community Dialogue so that citizens, organizations, Commissioners, businesses, students, faculty and others can debate and analyze the future of business, civil society and the greater community.
July 19, 2010 Leave a comment
Decision: Commission decided to go to court tomorrow to challenge the Somerset Academy’s charter school.
The Somerset Academy has been quite adept at mobilizing future parents of students to support their request to, in effect, start operating outside the rules of Coral Gables and under threat of a suit against the City to enforce their expansion into a quiet, local neighborhood.
Somerset Academy continues working with the City of Coral Gables to obtain the necessary approvals to open Somerset Academy at UBC this fall. With your continued support, we are very confident that the school will open in the fall with enough spaces to fill the needs of our families, while maintaining the fabric of the community and neighborhood surrounding the school.
The City of Coral Gables Commission will meet this Monday, July 19th, at 4:00 pm to consider Somerset Academy’s request to open the Somerset Gables Charter School at UBC. The City Commissioners will meet privately from 4:00-5:00pm.
A public meeting will follow immediately at 5pm in the Commission chambers at Coral Gables City Hall. THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR SOMERSET GABLES IN PERSON. The school will present evidence to support its request for sufficient capacity to satisfy the overwhelming parental demand. The public will have an opportunity to speak to the Commission, time will be limited.
Somerset Academy thanks you for your continued support of Somerset @ Gables.
Notes from the Discussion: None of the Commissioners want to go to the judge and lose. At the start of the discussion of this matter, Mayor Slesnick favors an agreement with the school but for around 180 students and Commissioner Anderson favors an agreement with around 200 students. Commission Cabrera favors more and better schools, he criticizes the lack of information that he has gotten from the City’s staff, he cannot agree to a large number of students, 525, that the Somerset Academy is proposing. Commissioners seem to want a total number of students in the agreement of about 200. Somerset Academy takes time to discuss among themselves.
July 19, 2010 Leave a comment
…is a disaster. In the middle of a detailed presentation by a lawyer representing neighborhood interests against a charter school, a Spanish language news program was broadcast simultaneously. What a shame and what incompetence.
July 19, 2010 Leave a comment
I decided to walk around the 100 and 200 blocks of Miracle Mile today. I was taken back at the sad shape of the patch worked sidewalks, broken walks, discolored transitions to store fronts, a feeling of dirty storefronts, many closed businesses. There were one or two two new businesses “opening soon” (I guess they are new to the City’s permitting procedures). One may wonder how the new businesses will do with the crumby look of the city.
I compare Coral Gables to a walk around I had in Washington, D.C. and Chevy Chase, MD where one was struck by the culture of organization, cleanliness and a feeling of invitation into stores and businesses (although there were clear signs of the Great Recession). Coral Gables has a long ways to go to bring the City up to national standards even though the City Managers claims this is the best place in the country. We may excuse him for this hyperbole.
