Depress ctrl and + keys together to increase text size; depress ctrl and – keys together to reduce
Letter to the editor in today’s Key West Citizen (keysnews.com), I added photo:
Peary Court purchase will have repercussions
Ten years ago, the real estate market was booming. Inflated property prices justified by exaggerated appraisals were pledged as collateral for risky mortgage loans to borrowers with inadequate income to service the debt. The result was financial disaster, which prompted Congress to pass legislation such as the DoddFrank Act (see Title XIV of the act) in an effort to prevent such a recurrence.
This may help to explain why banks are avoiding a mortgage on Peary Court, according to the specifications of the City of Key West. Can you imagine the reaction of bank examiners upon finding a $46 million mortgage loan on a property that last sold for $35 million, on the tax rolls for $29 million, the debt to the serviced from below-market rents on public housing? And, of course, the loan is supported by appraisals justifying a $55 million purchase using comparables from far and wide: Duval, St. Lucie, Orange, Brevard and Collier counties and assuming a down payment of 25 percent and a balloon payment in five years (see Meridian Appraisal, pages 111 and 133). The City of Key West is planning to pay only 18 percent down ($10 million); and I have seen no report of a five-year balloon payment. What would be the source of that payment? Bottom line: The appraisal does not reflect real estate in the Lower Key or what the City of Key West has stated that it is ready and willing to do.
The political establishment of Key West may succeed in obtaining approval to send $55 million to Miami (the principal address of White Street Partners, LLC) to buy Peary Court. Appraisers will afterwards use the $55 million purchase as a comparable to justify higher property values in the surrounding neighborhood. The upward spiral in real estate prices and rents will climb ever higher and the cry for affordable housing will continue unabated.
The bubble will grow .. and grow .. until .. until?
It’s deja vu all over again.
Merle Dimbath
Key West
In its most recent editorial on Peary Court, the Citizen Editorial Board told the voters to vote YES for the city purchasing Peary Court. The Citizen also published a really long letter to the editor, way over the 350 word limit, from Ed Swift telling the voters to vote YES for the city buying Peary Court. Hold those thoughts …
Email from me yesterday the Citizen’s Editor on the school district tax referendum, sans cartoons supplied today:
Sloan Bashinsky
To: editor@keysnews.com;
Tue 3/8/2016 6:59 AM
Here is the school district tax referendum wording:
RENEW FLEXIBLE FUNDING FOR
MONROE COUNTY SCHOOLS:
The District’s objective is to continue to make
available a portion of the existing capital ad
valorem tax levy for operations – such as
teachers, school nurses and classroom
materials. The District intends to continue its
reduced millage for capital projects, and
continue to make available the equivalent
amount for operations.
Shall the district continue to enact a yearly ad
valorem tax of .5 mill, for four (4) years
beginning July 1, 2016, for operating
purposes?
When I ran for school board in 2012, I repeatedly said not passing this tax that year would be Armageddon for the school district.
I also repeatedly said the school board and school district administration is terminally dysfunctionally insane, and the only possible cures are either the state of Florida takes over the school district, or each school votes itself to be a charter school, and thus has its own individual school board, which does not answer to the county school board, while the county school board has to continue, by state law, funding said new charter schools.
I also repeatedly said the school district is teaching to standardized tests, and not what students need to learn; the school district views college prep curriculum as all that’s important, even though most keys high school students don’t enter college, and a large majority of those who do enter college drop out, and most of whose who do graduate from college can’t find work that pays them a living wage even on the mainland.
I repeatedly said the school district should put most emphasis on vocational training in high school, that all students should be able to touch type by the time they leave grammar school, that all students should be bilingual in English and Spanish by the time they leave grammar school; and I repeatedly said the school district is using the cookie cutter approach, trying to cram each student into the same mold, although no two students are alike, although no two students have the same aptitude, although each student has his/her own abilities which need to be met by the curriculum.
I repeatedly said the school district needs to centrally locate its administration in Marathon High School, which was way over-built under pressure from Marathon parents who wanted a high school as big as Key West High School. Centralized administration would be more efficient and economic.
I repeatedly said the School Board should sell off its Key West real estate, and the white elephant nursing home next to Marathon High School, which it bought with grandeur of making a killing in real estate. I flat opposed the school board giving the City of Key West Glenn Archer school. I flat opposed adding a grammar school to the new Horace O’Bryant school. I flat opposed busing Bahama Village grammar school students (predominantly black) around two grammar schools in Key West (predominantly white), to the grammar school on stock island.
I loudly and longly called for a full, in broad daylight investigation of the hazing of Key West High School student Matthew Gelleran, because he was gay, which led to his shooting himself to death with his father’s pistol, which one school board member, Robin Smith-Martin, blamed on his father having a pistol in the home, while all school board members, including Ed Davidson, as I recall, did nothing about the tragedy.
I saw the school district continue to stonewall Kathy Reitzel, who had blown the whistle on the Acevedos, and for that and for being the State Attorney’s star witness against the Acevedos, Reitzel was told by the school board to resign, or be fired, because she had waited too long to blow the whistle, school board member Andy Griffiths told me, guaranteeing there would be no future whistle-blowing in the school district, which is how the school board and the school district like it.
I watched the school board, in the wake of the Acevedo scandal, create its own appointed volunteer Audit & Finance Committee to make it look like the board was serious about changing school district money oversight; then I watched the school board ignore the Audit & Finance committee’s many efforts and recommendations to improve the school district’s financial operations.
I watched the school district repeatedly ignore requests for public records made by Dr. Larry Murray, who had been an outspoken member on the Audit & Finance Committee, until he was fired by the school board member who had appointed him, by not renewing the appointment. Then Larry ran for that now retired school board member’s seat on the board, and did not even make it into the runoff, even as he continued dogging the school district and the school board, and he continued not getting his public records requests honored, although state law requires such requests to be honored, and if a court has to force it, the requester’s attorney fees and court costs have to be paid by the school district. Ed Davidson won that school board seat in 2012, after moving from one part of Marathon to another, solely to be able to run for that school board seat.
The school board still does not let citizens who attend school board meetings speak to action items, but only allows citizens to speak once, for 3 minutes, during a school board meeting. I attended many school board meetings in 2011 and 2012, and spoke for 3 minutes, and it was obvious the board appreciated no citizen input.
After the Acevedo scandal, I watched the school board choose a new superintendent of schools, Mark Porter, who was clearly inferior to another candidate, Dr. Ed Shine. Porter had been fired by his school district in Minnesota. He was out of a job. Shine had served with distinction as superintendent of schools, and was loved by students, in two different New York state school districts. Dr. Shine made our school board members look like rank amateurs in education, and illiterate, and immature as adults during the public part of his vetting by the school board members at Marathon High School.
I have seen nothing change for the better in our school district since 2012. Most of our students would be better served by being home schooled, or by going to work in some trade and being taught how to make a living wage somewhere, if not in the Florida Keys.
So, guess what? I voted NO yesterday on extending the school board ad valorem tax for operations.
Sloan Bashinsky
P.O. Box 2861
Key West 33045
(305) 407-4285
Kay Harris <kharris@keysnews.com>
Reply|
To: Sloan Bashinsky’ <sloanbashinsky@outlook.com>;
Tue 3/8/2016 10:46 AM
Sloan, The Citizen does not publish guest columns. In addition, as early voting is now underway, we are not printing letters regarding items on the ballot. Thank you, Kay
Sloan Bashinsky
Reply|
To: kharris@keysnews.com;
Tue 3/8/2016 6:50 PM
Kay, you publish long letters to the editor from Ed Swift, which are guest columns.
Voting has been underway for some time, and you have been publishing letters (Peary Court referendum) and Citizen editorials.
Sloan
Sloan Bashinsky
Reply today|
To: kharris@keysnews.com;
Wed 3/9/2016 8:00 AM
Morning, Kay -
There is a letter to the editor in today’s Citizen, advising voters why they should not vote YES on the Peary Court referendums.
Perhaps I was remiss describing what I sent to you as a “column”. Perhaps I should have called it a “guest editorial”. Or, simply a letter to the editor.
Go back and look at the times the Citizen has let Ed Swift run way, way over your 350 word limit, for letters to the editor.
I have not submitted anything to the Citizen in a very long time.
What I sent to you is something the public needs to be reminded, or learn or the very first time, from someone who was there, eye and ear witness, who does not work for the school district, or for the Citizen, or have kids in local schools.
I don’t expect you to change your mind. I will publish our email exchange in today’s post at goodmorningkewyest.com, and perhaps in other ways.
Sincerely,
Sloan Bashinsky
sloanbashinsky@outlook.com
