School Daze

Planning and Zoning was presented an application.  And a proposed Ordinance to enable it.  The Church (you remember the Church) wants to host a school (no, not that school...yet) which is for the moment calling itself a pre-school.  It needs (sort of) the Village's accommodation of its existence.

Here's the story.  We begin with an unnerving reverse "Catch-22."  The State requires us to make provision for a school in our Comprehensive Plan, known as our EAR.  I forgot what EAR stands for, but it's the same as a comprehensive plan.  So we included this provision in our EAR, which we were required to do, even though we didn't want or need a school, and no one was proposing one.  This turns out to be what you might call a time bomb, or, in computer parlance, a virus.  Because now, a pre-school wants to set itself up in the Church, and our attorney tells us we cannot object, because why?  Because it's in our EAR.  How can we block a school, if we said we want one?  But we only had it in our EAR, because the State made us put it there.  Nasty, right?

Ms Busta, the head school ma'rm, brought some troops with her tonight, and she included her attorney.  They were representing themselves in their application for the school, an application that was presented at the P&Z meeting, which doubles as the Local Planning Board meeting.

The school people, let's call them the vendors, prepared an application.  So now, they're the applicant.  But they didn't prepare a proposed Ordinance.  Our Village Attorney did.  On our dime.  Her explanation for why she did this, and why we have to pay for it, was unacceptably thin, in my opinion.

And to make matters worse, although she said it wasn't her intention, she impressed several of us as advocating for the school, and running interference for them.  (She says she's been fighting a school application for five years in Palmetto Bay, and she's losing at every turn.  Maybe she decided to represent the winning side this time.  Whatever it was, it was deeply unsatisfying.)

But there's a problem for the school. It can't slide into the slot for a school at the Church, because that slot has sealed over, by virtue of the Church's having failed to keep active their non-conforming use status. This turns out only to be a minor problem. It would have been a slam-dunk Plan A, but Plan B may be just as good. Plan B is to get the Commission to approve an Ordinance that legitimizes a school on the Church's property. And because of the reverse "Catch-22," the Commission can't refuse. What the Commission can do, and P&Z could have begun this process, is to control the structure of the school, in terms of number of children and other details like that.

Here was some of the argument tonight.  Ms Busta used to work at some Presbyterian school, but something happened, and she left.  Her attorney, when asked to state her case, only said he had his kid in her school, and he, the attorney, thinks the world of her.  That was his statement of the school's case, which he bolstered by getting choked up.  Barbara Kuhl noted correctly that his whole case was a personal testimonial to Ms Busta.  Ms Busta needs a place for her business, her attorney needs a place to send his kid, and the Church needs a tenant, to stay afloat.  What all this has to do with Biscayne Park is not clear.  Nor did it get clear.  Jeanne Bergeron said the Park probably needs a school, and she noted that four houses on her street are empty, a fact she took the liberty to attribute to the absence of a school in Biscayne Park.  That was her admitted speculation.  Barbara Kuhl pointed out that one of those houses got vacated, because the owner panicked at the last threat of a school in Biscayne Park, and jumped ship.  "Our" attorney, Eve Boutsis, pointed out that schools are important to people, and that people move to communities precisely because of the schools.  (This is an example of her appearing to advocate for the school, at the expense of the Park, which she denies.)  I agreed with her, but I suggested that perhaps some people move to a community specifically because it does not have a school.  Aren't we allowed not to want a school?  Evidently not.

So we're getting something.  We just don't know exactly what it will be.  Enter Gage Hartung and Doug Tannehill.  Very smart guys.  They advocated to permit the pre-school, and to regulate it, as much as we can.  Their thinking, which did not persuade a majority of their colleagues, is that if we try to keep the pre-school out, the Charter School can dance right in.  And as much as none of us, except Jeanne Bergeron, wants any school, we don't want a Charter school, which has a much bigger scope, more than we don't want a pre-school.

Ms Busta was questioned about her vision for her school.  She was a little vague, but she did reveal that she really wants a full elementary school, and she's aiming for about 120-130 children.  P&Z might have had a way of limiting her to many less children, and very few "grades," but it missed that boat.  Perhaps the Commission will do what P&Z didn't do, since the Commission is under no obligation to take P&Z's advice, which by consensus was to say no to the enire application.  Ultimately, thanks to the reverse "Catch-22" perpetrated by the State, we can't do that anyway.