A day in the life of McClatchy's Miami Herald, as viewed by a reader who's largely given up on them fixing their problems, or surviving long-term

Above, November 12, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier of a Miami Herald vending machine on U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway in Hallandale Beach, Florida.

UPDATED 11/13/10

I guess I hardly need mention to anyone living in South Florida that the prices posted on this vending machine haven't been accurate for quite some time, but then the Miami Herald management's foolish insistence in the recent past that only charging Broward readers a quarter, while already charging fifty cents in Miami-Dade, would get them more readers and eyeballs on their ads, never made any sense either, though from a distance, it might've sounded good in theory.
Say from Sacramento, Calif., the home of McClatchy Company, which owns the Herald.

Even their own reporters and columnists knew this, as prior to their finally charging the same amount in both counties, it would've been rare for any phone conversation I had with a Herald reporter or columnist to end without them bringing the subject up, which told me in no uncertain terms that it was clearly a sore subject.

For the better part of the 14 years I lived in suburban Washington, D.C., in Arlington, VA, and caught the Metro train into downtown Washington for work during the week, whether from the Clarendon Metro station or the Ballston station, I happily paid fifty cents for the Baltimore Sun from a vending machine on my way down into the station -since the 1990's- while paying less for the Washington Post, because it was a very smart, well-written and well-edited newspaper.

The Sun, a newspaper I first read as a kid in North Miami Beach while growing-up a devout Orioles fan, is not what it once was, owing to a lot of curious moves made by parent Tribune Company, but on any given day, it's still usually much better than the Herald and the Tribune-owned Sun-Sentinel combined, and was well worth the price.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/

People in South Florida, especially serious people, will always be willing to pay more for quality, but they want to see it first.
That quality they seek is seldom if ever seen in the current version of the Miami Herald.

So what's the plan for the Herald's future, if any?

Exactly.

Back on September 18th, I emailed the following thoughts of mine, most of which were written while once again exasperated by what kind of product the Herald was producing.

I sent it to a couple of dozen or so of the usual well-informed, media-centric folks I know in Florida and around the country who get my observations before I usually share them here with you all later in the day, often after getting insightful comments, corrections or head's ups from them about related (or worse) MSM screw-ups closer to them geographically.

In light of what I wrote here on November 3rd about the Herald's truly dreadful coverage of the recent Giants-Rangers World Series, that is, their mentioning NOTHING about Game 2 the following day, on a Friday morning, while the South Florida edition of the New York Times, printed up in Deerfield Beach, 25 miles north of me, had a page-and-a-half of stories and columns, plus nice photos and box score info.

The Miami Herald's dismal Pony Express-style coverage of The World Series -compared to the New York Times- is a bad omen for readers
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/miami-heralds-dismal-pony-express-style.html

The following email is also in that vein, and all came together one particularly frustrating day about nine weeks ago, when I was checking the Herald's website for some information and noticed something quite troubling, which was not good news for either Herald readers or serious-minded people in South Florida who continue to ponder this simple question:
What's going on at One Herald Plaza?

-----

The Miami Herald's staff finally smells the coffee.
But is it too late?

Back on Sept. 1st, I sent an email to Edward Schumacher-Matos, the Herald's Ombudsman (the one without either a blog or a weekly column, but rather some once-in-a-while thing) because that was the day where an armed intrusion took place at the Discovery Channel HQ in suburban D.C. -a Maryland building I've been in dozens of times- yet it took the Herald hours to put something about it online.

This, even while a nice but not great photo of actress January Jones of Mad Men fame remained online just below the masthead for hours, while nothing about the story up in Silver Spring, being shown on LIVE TV for hours on the cablenets, was there.

It was just the latest in a VERY long line of jaw-dropping and galling editorial and content decisions at the Herald in the recent past that befuddle the Herald's dwindling number of readers.

In fact, I was so dismayed that I actually wrote Hallandale Beach Blog fave, Alan D. Mutter, creator of Reflections of a Newsosaur blog fame, and mentioned here often,
http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/ and asked him -only half-jokingly- if there was any chance that one of his savvy Venture Capital friends in Silicon Valley might want to reinvent themselves, and play the role of a media mogul, and perhaps take the Herald off of McClatchy's hands?

I even told him, "Trust me, the concerned and conscientious people in South Florida would've be very much indebted!"

Sadly, Alan replied that he didn't know of such a person.
But then I presumed that such a person even exists, oui?

-----

Date: Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 4:52 PM

Subject: Surprise! Takes over THREE HOURS for Herald website to mention hostage drama at Discovery Channel HQ in Silver Spring. Sleeping on the job, Just like Herald's Broward coverage!

To: Edward Schumacher-Matos

September 1st, 2010
4 pm

Dear Mr. Schumacher-Matos:

Nothing in this email is about the Herald's spotty coverage of Broward County in general or Hallandale Beach, and to a less degree, of Hollywood, in particular.
The paper's unsatisfactory coverage of them is what is is.
Reality.

Did you know that there are media sites overseas that have had something about this hostage story for a while now, yet the Herald has nothing almost three hours later but STILL has prime space at the top for

Kardashians

New fashion collection

They're cute girls and all and I get their appeal, but why has the paper completely
OD'd on them?
Seriously..

You should have one of the Herald's interns check and see how many times in the past six months there hasn't been something about them in the Herald.

Or how many times, since she was hired two years ago, Myriam Marquez has written anything at all about something going on in Broward County or of particular interest to readers there.

Trust me, it won't be pretty.
In fact, it will be grim.

Consider that your Sunday public policy section, Issues & Ideas, did not have the word "Broward" in it anywhere.
Or any story or column about some issue, personality or idea of particular relevance in Broward
Again.
For at least the second week in a row.

Do you know how many times THAT fact pattern has been true this year?
I did, I really did, but I stopped counting because it was so disturbing.
And pathetic.

The other day, in reference to the glacial and practically non-existent coverage of the Broward School Board races last Tuesday, and their lack of updates online, I compared the Herald's pace to the Pony Express on my blog.
In retrospect, I might've been exaggerating, but not quite in the way you might imagine.

In a day or so, I'm going to show that a careful analysis of Herald stories since last year's approval of the Marlins Stadium by the M-D County Commission, 5 of the 9 commissioners who approved it never had a story written about them in the ensuing 14 months that ever said anything at all about them and their vote on the stadium's financing, or any possible second-guessing or doubts from constituents.
ZERO.

That explains a lot.
Like why the paper was beaten soundly by a website on the stadium financing story due to a leak.

If someone with that info had tried to give the info to the Herald, unless they immediately got savvy reporters Matthew Haggman and Charles Rabin on the phone, unlikely, do you know what the Herald reporters and editors would've said or done?
Nothing.

The same response that Herald readers in South Florida routinely get from reporters and editors, like Beth Reinhard, Jay Ducassi and dozens of others when they contact them.

Those Herald employees first response is to call other people rather than call you back or return your emails about solid news you know or possess, even when you have photos that corroborate everything you say.

I know this first-hand and so do many other people I know who closely follow what goes on in Broward County and South Florida.

And guess what, the Herald daily shows that lack of context or understanding of the area they purport to cover, which is why so many readers constantly complain that the Herald's local news and govt. stories have an unusually high degree of fact and context problems, and are usually more notable for what is left out, often the most important aspect of why something happened -or didn't.

But unless you are there in person, like I am so often, you wouldn't know anything about it.

Seriously, when are we going to see the positive changes the Herald needs to make it viable and engaged?
What's the plan?

Not the silly one that got in print a few months ago, but a real plan that actually benefits readers who want real news?

The Herald's current plan of ignoring news because it's not in Coral Gables, Doral, Miami or Miami Beach is NOT working and is repelling readers from both the physical paper and the website, for reasons like why I wrote this in the first place: sleeping on the job!

From my perspective, the ship is still listing and there are NO ships around to rescue any survivors, if any.

I will leave to another day the confounding situation with reporter Alfonso Chardy and why his disingenuous professional behavior is allowed to continue apace, like nobody really noticed what he did a few weeks ago, blatantly lying to Herald readers in a news story.
But notice we did.

Not just me, but full-time print and TV reporters from around the state.
I know that because they contacted me to tell me they noticed, too.
And those are facts.

(About an hour later, after some website magic happened, I added.)

P.S. Congrats! It only took over three hours and continuous coverage on the TV cablenets for someone at the Herald to finally post something online. I can only imagine how things will be in the future when some blogger scoops the Herald that Fidel Castro is dead.

------

Well, as you might imagine, despite having exchanged cordial emails with him in the past, I never heard back from the Ombudsman, whose email address I have since deleted from my computer, since really, what's the point?

If the Herald's current and recent management care so little about their own readers that Schumacher-Matos lacks the tools or frequency he needs to be taken seriously by Herald readers, the sorts of things other large newspapers provide -and the facts clearly show they do- why continue to kid myself and think my emails to him will accomplish anything other than temporarily venting some of my dismay?

Which is why many of the past emails I've penned to him over the years but never actually sent, keeping in DRAFT instead, will be now be revisited here on the blog when similar situations occur in the future at the newspaper, as they inevitably will, since the Herald keeps making the same mistakes over-and-over.
They won't stop digging the hole they're in.

To use an image that I've often used here in the past, their behavior is akin to a dog chasing-its- tail -initially amusing, but ultimately, fruitless and irritating.
Like many current network TV programs.

I forgot to mention above in my prologue that in my second email to my media-centric pals, friends and acquaintances here in Florida and around the country, I also sent them a link to Bob Norman's spot-on Daily Pulp post of Sept. 17th about the greatly rising frustration level of the Herald's own employees.

It's so good, I have it here and urge you to read the entire thing, including the reader comments, whose frustration with the newspaper and its management is clear .

BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
Herald Reporters to Management: Stop Mimicking Twitter and Focus on Serious Journalism

By Bob Norman
Friday, September 17 2010 @ 5:57PM

The following letter appeared yesterday on the Miami Herald's internal memo board, Readme. Signed by numerous veteran reporters and editors, it was posted the same day 49 more layoffs were announced at the depleted newspaper.

-----------

Sept 2010
OUR HOPES FOR A BETTER HERALD:

So, it's Saturday night, and you want to hear live music. Among your choices: going to the Hard Rock Cafe to hear Shakira (or Seal or Ringo Starr or Reba McIntyre); or going to a bar with an open mike. At the Hard Rock, you'll hear a polished, professional artist.
At open mike night, you'll probably hear people with day jobs singing Sweet Caroline ... perhaps lustily, probably off key.

Nothing intrinsically wrong with that open mike bar. But we'll bet most people, with
the ability to choose, would go hear the pro.

The Miami Herald, we would argue, is becoming the newspaper equivalent of open mike night. Or a flea market.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/09/miami_herald_reporters.php

There are 177 reader comments!

See also McClatchy Watch on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/McClatchyWatch

McClatchy Watch website, while defunct since before last Christmas, is still online:
http://cancelthebee.blogspot.com/

Informed speculation on the future of "South Florida blogs" on the Miami Herald's website. Hmm-m-m...

Towards the bottom of the Miami Herald's webpage in the space between BLOGS and COLUMNISTS, you'll find the link for South Florida blogs.

Not that most of you who come to this site regularly have been wondering about it but... yes, people have noticed the minimized role of the South Florida blogs on the Miami Herald's website since they tried to persuade certain bloggers to become part of their News Network.

See my earlier post on this topic from April 13, 2010, and at the bottom of this post, see the article the Herald's own Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos felt compelled to write about certain other Herald news partners.

A week ago today... the road not taken with the Miami Herald and some 411 about Beth Reinhard to consider http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/week-ago-today-road-not-taken-with.html

In fact, to be honest, though I noticed it myself many weeks ago, most of the people who have noticed this change for the worse and mentioned it to me are bloggers who get many more daily hits than I do, and since many of them run ads, unlike me, this change in focus is actually co$ting them, even while it has no real effect on me.

And, lest you forget, I remind you that the Herald went ahead and listed me on their webpage without ever contacting me about it, as I noticed it only after I'd been on the "Communities" list for a bit and someone emailed me about it.

If their emails are any judge of what they're really thinking, it sounds to many South Florida bloggers currently on the Herald's site that the newspaper is just trying to string them along until some time in the near-future, possibly the Holiday season, after they've achieved what they deem to be the optimum geographic coverage they've always wanted.

Then they'll "reluctantly" announce a change of plans and simply eliminate the listed blogs they don't have agreements with.

That's a long way to go to cut your own throat, but it wouldn't be the first time this year the Herald's management has made what I and many other readers paying serious attention believe are critical or fatal errors, since for many months, after a lot of initial promotion on the website, as you can see for yourself from the photo I snapped above around 1 a.m., there's currently no photo, graphic or interesting eye-catching icon to call your attention to the "South Florida blogs" on the Herald website.
Just a link in black - South Florida blogs

Personally, I don't think that's by accident.

Miami Herald
OMBUDSMAN
When partner goes too far, who is responsible?

May 23, 2010

By Edward Schumacher-Matos

It used to be said that the best way to get your opinion heard in a newspaper was to own one, a privilege -- and abuse -- that still reigns at some small community papers.

The Herald has recently entered into online alliances with several of them as an innovative way to aggregate community information across South Florida into one site for readers and advertisers. Some, such as The Key Biscayne Times, maintain high professional standards, but Herald editors are finding themselves entangled with the owners of others whose ethics are challenged by readers.

"I cannot believe that The Miami Herald is allying themselves with the Community Newspapers," wrote Doug and Yvonne Beckman, for example, of a 12-paper chain in South Florida. The Herald has partnerships with the chain's South Miami, Cutler Bay and Pinecrest editions, and the chain's owner, Michael Miller, says he is negotiating to add more.

Yet, the Beckmans (no relation to the late Commissioner Jay Beckman) continue: "There [is] no worse example of yellow journalism I have ever seen. In South Miami that rag is commonly known as the 'Mullet Wrapper.' For years and years the owner has openly interfered with politics in South Miami in the most egregious way."

"Michael Miller is no journalist," wrote another reader, Dean Whitman. "He is not governed by any standard of journalistic ethics with regard to accuracy, objectivity or disclosure of conflicts of interest. His goal is simple, to change the zoning governing height and density of commercial property that he owns on 62nd Avenue in South Miami. This property adjoins a residential neighborhood to the west and Miller wishes to increase the currently zoned height from two to four stories."

NOT HIDING
Miller in an interview acknowledges that he writes about the building, for which he has been suing to change the zoning since 1997, but he said he does so openly in his column, without hiding his self-interest.

Reviewing a number of past issues of the South Miami newspaper, I found that most articles were straightforward, offering information on local events and services. Most of the reader complaints, however, concern Miller's weekly "Around Town" column, and I can see why.

It is a compilation of often unsubstantiated political gossip, much of it harmless, some of it playing favorites.

One column was offensive, making reference to an anonymous death threat letter received by Vice Mayor Valerie Newman, an opponent of Miller's zoning change. The letter said she might end up like Commissioner Jay Beckman, who was allegedly shot to death in 2009 by his teenage son.

Miller wrote: "If you know who just might want to waste their time sending such a note to Valerie, please let the police know as they would love to add this to her package of goodies. And speaking of packages, I hear that Valerie will soon get her day in front of the Ethics Commission on the charges that were initiated by the late Jay Beckman.

"Hmmm . . . One big mouth civic activist told me a few months ago that Jay Beckman had 'turned against us.' Golly, I thought, then the guy winds up dead?"

Whitman noted: "Consider what the response of your readers would be if an esteemed Herald columnist such as Carl Hiaasen, Fred Grimm, Leonard Pitts, or even Glenn Garvin wrote such things. Certainly such things have no place in a legitimate newspaper."

Of course, the column did not appear in The Herald itself. The Herald links to its community newspaper partners from the home page of MiamiHerald.com. But the Herald does highlight on its home page some of the articles from the partners. Two or three Herald articles in turn appear on the partner sites. The Herald pays to help develop the partner sites, and splits advertising revenues with the partners.

The arrangement greatly expands the local news in the Herald's Web edition without having to pay for the reporting, Miller noted. The small allies get to tap into The Herald's large Web traffic. Both sides win economically. Readers are better served by the deep information offered by The Herald's site.

'INVENTIVE'
"The partnership with community sites is one of the most important and inventive things we've started this year," Herald Executive Anders Gyllenhaal told me.

And what of the ethical concerns? Is The Herald tarred when one of its partners commits a transgression? Separately, is The Herald validating those transgressions by featuring or linking to them on its home page?

UNDEFINED LIMITS
"Any new project like this will have its struggles, and we are going to continue to work on how this all fits together," Gyllenhaal said. "The idea is that each of the sites has independence, but that we share the website, the content and also the ad revenues.

"Readers' complaints and objections about coverage are going to come up no matter what the publishing system is. If readers don't like something originated by The Herald, we're the ones who respond. If they don't like something from one of the partners, the partners are the place to go with the concern."

My position is that there is a limit -- undefined, still -- about how much The Herald can accept in its partners. The community papers are valuable for being close to the ground, and in a practical sense can't be held to the same rigorous standards as The Herald. But Miller, at least in his South Miami paper, goes too far. The Herald should rein him in, or cut him off.

Geography as destiny and column-inches in the South Florida news world of 2010

Geography as destiny and column-inches in the South Florida news world of 2010.
Or, say, did you see WHERE..
But when it happened here, South Florida newspapers completely ignored it.

The following is a corrected version of an email I sent on Friday July 2nd to Douglas C. Lyons , the senior editorial writer and columnist at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Edward Schumacher-Matos, the Ombudsman of the Miami Herald, with a cc to the Herald's Executive Editor Anders Gylenhaal, and bccs to dozens of concerned residents throughout Broward County, including state, county and municipal elected officials and public policy activists.
(See http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/sfla-opinion-lyons,0,2553034.columnist)

----

Oh, say did you see... these charter school stories in the newspaper, yet curiously, there was never anything about Ben Gamla losing in HB, despite all of former congressman Peter Deutsch's verbal threats against us. Actually, I mean to say did you see WHERE...

The first of three stories is from Thursday, Carli Teproff's thorough follow-up to her May 7th story. She continues to be one of the most-accurate and fair-minded reporters at the Herald.

But tell me, why is it that when former congressman Peter Deutsch and his Ben Gamla group were met with firm resistance from Hallandale Beach citizens who opposed his zealous efforts to shoe-horn a high school into a single-family residential neighborhood, months after Deutsch first threatened them and their city officials at a public meeting in Hallandale Beach, saying quite emphatically that there was "nothing" that they or anyone else could do to prevent him from getting what he wanted, there was nothing about it in either the Herald or Sun-Sentinel?

(Deutsch's first application to the city of HB was for 200 students, but then we were told that was just a "mistake," he was really only going to have 500, yet Broward County Schools says that he can have nearly 900 anyway.
Seriously, after reading Teproff's recent story, does Peter Deutsch honestly seem like the sort of person who will not fight for every single student he can get when he's sees competitor Somerset ready to go to war and sue the City of Coral Gables?

Ben Gamla in HB would've brought in well over $2 million a year for him and his partners, before costs, but then when you force kids to eat outside for lunch, as Deutsch personally reminded everyone he would, in fact, do, when others thought that was just a joke, well, it was hard not to see this enterprise more as a license to print money, with HB as the physical warehouse, than as a sincere effort to help improve the quality and options for Hallandale Beach students and parents.who are literally desperate to have a quality school for ALL Hallandale Beach students and residents to be proud of.

Deutsch wasn't interested in the latter, though, just the former, and continually employed his petulant bully card. Having seen him and his over-the-top bullying ego in action in person many times, yes, we know EXACTLY what he will do!)

As for the Herald and Sun-Sentinel completely ignoring the community successfully rallying to defeat this well-known bully, or the the city's staff recommending rejection because he and his team, despite all their bluster, failed to meet the legal requirements for the zoning variance he sought, over-and-over, and his subsequently pulling of the application... what exactly?

Again, NOTHING in print or in any of your newspaper's blogs.
Not a crumb.
It's like it never actually happened at all.

We all know that actual meaningful news happens even when your company consciously chooses to ignore it, but if you think that your ignoring it does you any favors in the future with the residents of this community, far from it.
But we get it, though.

If a tree falls in HB, the question of whether it really make a sound is moot since it's in HB, right?
But if that same tree were to fall in Pine Crest, South Beach or near Brickell, stop the presses!

Mr. Schumacher-Matos, the Herald's recent track record is quite clear that your editorial team fervently believe that Coral Gables is, inherently, VERY IMPORTANT, while Hallandale Beach and Broward County and what happens to its citizen taxpayers is, inherently, insignificant, and, at best, an annoyance, which I guess is why a Herald reporter has attended exactly one HB City Commission meeting since June of 2008, despite everything that has happened here in the interim, almost all of which has been very. very bad for its beleaguered citizen taxpayers.

And I suppose that also explains why your newspaper completely ignored the successful citizens fight against the Diplomat LAC proposal that may well turn out to be the poster child for Amendment 4 in the weeks leading up to November's election, even while giving coverage to an addition to an apt. complex in Kendall.

I perfectly understand why the affected Kendall community is upset, I really do, but why a news story on the front page of Sunday's local section about 92 units and NOT one about a development of four or five 25-30 story condo towers, a project so large that the Broward County Commission had to vote on it -twice?

Despite protest, Kendall tower OK'd
The Kendall Community Council approved a new apartment building west of the
Palmetto Expressway -- to the dismay of some residents.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/27/1702951/despite-protest-kendall-tower.html

http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2010/06/downtown-kendall-plan-and-residents.html

Okay, point taken.
Actions and words, or rather the lack of them, could hardly make this point any more clear.

My fellow concerned HB and Broward residents will know better in the future than to think
that the actual news value of any particular story is based on what's actually happening (or might) and other germane news parameters, not just where it happens.
No, as The Who correctly pointed out, "we won't be fooled again."

I will be happy to post any response you make in the future.

-------
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/01/1709646/charter-school-firm-sues-city.html

Posted on Thursday, 07.01.10

CORAL GABLES

Charter-school firm sues Coral Gables

A dispute between Coral Gables and a charter-school company is headed to court.

By Carli Teproff

A charter-school company sued the city of Coral Gables on Wednesday, demanding that the city approve a new 675-student school in a residential neighborhood.

Somerset Inc., a nonprofit firm that runs charter schools in Miami-Dade and Broward, wants to open a K-8 school on the campus of University Baptist Church, off Segovia Street near the Coral Gables library.

But the site isn't zoned for a full-size school, and the city has only granted approval for 110 students -- the same number as had attended a previously approved preschool on the church grounds.

Now Somerset wants a judge to declare that the school doesn't require city zoning approval. Somerset cites a state law saying that a church can house a charter school ``under their preexisting zoning and land use designations.''

The company says this law trumps city zoning rules, and cites a 2008 Sarasota Circuit Court ruling to that effect.

Somerset wants a Miami-Dade Circuit judge to order Coral Gables to allow the school.

Marcos D. Jiménez, a lawyer for Somerset, said Wednesday that his client had done everything it is supposed to do.

``We have come to a point where we need to invoke the protection of the state statute,'' he said. ``We think it is clear and on point.''

Somerset Academy has until July 26 to show the Miami-Dade school district that it has received city approval for a charter school at the church, 624 Anastasia Ave. The School Board approved the application in November 2008, but the petition did not specify a particular site.

Charter schools charge no tuition and receive taxpayer money to operate, but are run by someone other than the county school board.

`QUALITY OF LIFE'

City Attorney Elizabeth Hernandez said she was still reviewing the complaint Wednesday evening. She said the city is trying to look out for residents' interests.

``We are going to take all the appropriate action to preserve the quality of life including that of single family residential areas,'' Hernandez said.

She added that the city simply wants Somerset to follow the same procedures as everyone else for getting a zoning change.

Neighbors have complained that a charter school would bring too much traffic to a residential street -- an issue that normally would come up when the city commission considers a zoning change.

`SURPRISED'

Tucker Gibbs, who represents The Biltmore Neighborhood Association -- a group formed to fight the school -- said Friday he was ``somewhat surprised they filed a lawsuit.''

``They requested the certificate of use for 110 students,'' he said. ``They got what they supposedly wanted. So why are they suing the city?''

Jiménez called getting the certificate of use for 110 students ``a first step.''

``We can not operate without the larger number of students,'' he said. ``It's not feasible.''

----------

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/28/1704044_new-miami-beach-charter-school.html

Posted on Monday, 06.28.10

MIAMI BEACH

New Miami Beach charter school offers classes in Hebrew

Parents interested in having their children learn Hebrew as part of their schooling attended an open house Sunday for the new Ben Gamla Charter School set to open in August.

By Paradise Afshar

For the upcoming school year Johany Preston is considering an alternative option to a traditional public school for her three boys.

She is flirting with the idea of sending them to the brand new Ben Gamla Charter School in Miami Beach, which when it opens in August will offer a combination English and Hebrew curriculum, only the third school of its kind in South Florida.

``The location and the Hebrew were the main draws,'' said Preston, 44, of North Miami, who was among two dozens parents on Sunday attending an open house at the school at 1211 Marseille Dr. It will welcome students from kindergarten through fifth grade.

Admission to the school is free and open to students residing in the Miami-Dade school district. There is a $100 refundable book deposit.

Preston, who is Jewish, said she feels that the language component is important ``because it's a part of the Jewish culture.''

The Miami Beach campus is the second for the school named after an Israelite high priest -- Yehoshua ben Gamla -- known in the Talmud for his campaign to establish yeshivas throughout Judea.

The school's language curriculum has not been without controversy. When the first Ben Gamla school opened in Hollywood in 2007, the Broward County School Board briefly ordered the charter school suspend its Hebrew classes because the language has too close of a tie to Judaism, raising concerns that the connection could result in a nonsecular school.

Nathan Katz, a religious studies professor at Florida International University, was asked by the school board to review the lesson plans to ensure it was secular and the school was allowed to offer Hebrew classes. Katz said it is within the school's constitutional rights to teach the culture that comes with the language, and that the curriculum doesn't include any religious practice.

``It's like a magnet school where you may have a choice of language like French or German,'' said Katz, who attended Sunday's open house.

Heather Rubin, a first grade teacher, said Ben Gamla students are held to the same Florida public school standards. The majority of the curriculum is taught in English.

``I don't speak Hebrew,'' Rubin said, adding that another teacher comes into the class to teach students the language. ``But I do think it's great to have to learn a second language. It's amazing to see the kids who come here who speak a second language at home, come here and learn a third language.''

But the main goal of the school is to provide a comforting learning environment, she said. Principal Ari Haddad describes the school as a hybrid between public and private schools. Haddad said the new school is being well-received.

``So far everyone has been great. I had one of the neighbors come to me today and say, `You will do great things here,' and I think we will.'' he said.

Currently, there are 930 students enrolled in the Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood. The new Miami Beach campus is expected to add 190 new students.

For more information about the Ben Gamla Charter School, call 305-469-9331.

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http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/07/1618532/charter-school-proposed-at-gables.html

Posted on Fri, May. 07, 2010

Charter school proposed at Coral Gables church meets resistance from city

BY CARLI TEPROFF
The Miami Herald

University Baptist Church in Coral Gables, pictured here on Thursday, May 6, 2010, is trying to gain approval to open a charter school on their current grounds that would serve over 600 students beginning in August of this year and has met opposition from neighbors that surround the church in the mainly residential neighborhood. Allison Diaz /

Academica, the company hoping to open a charter school at University Baptist Church, pictured here, went before the Coral Gables Development Review Committee on Friday. (Miami Herald file photo)

For Academica to open a charter school with more than 600 students at University Baptist Church, it will have to address parking, traffic and zoning concerns, Coral Gables' Development Review Committee said Friday.

Members of the city's police, fire, building and zoning, architecture, public works and parking departments queried Academica on a wide of range of issues pertaining to the proposed school at the church, 624 Anastasia Ave.

Company officials have said the pre-K through eighth grade school would open in August, although the city maintains the school needs to secure city approval before opening.

Friday's meeting was the first gathering before a city board. The company has maintained it can open the school at the church without city approval because of a state charter school law. In July, the Miami-Dade School Board approved Academica's application to open a school, dubbed Somerset Academy, although no location was specified.

City Attorney Elizabeth Hernandez has said in order to open up a school with more than 110 students -- which is what the property is zoned for -- the city would have to approve zoning and land use changes.

A group of residents who live nearby have formed a neighborhood association to prevent the charter school from opening with more than 110 students.

Attorney Tucker Gibbs, who is representing the group, said the main concern is the added traffic on the residential streets.

``The DRC brought to light a lot of issues that surround the proposal,'' Gibbs said after the meeting. ``The land use does not allow a school there.''

Academia officials have said they're aware of the neighbors' concerns and will try to work with them.

``The school certainly wants to be a good neighbor,'' said Rolando Llanes, the project's architect.

On Friday the city's Development Review Committee -- which is made up of representatives from each department -- went through the committee's concerns before a standing-room only crowd.

Among the concerns raised Friday:

• The number of students. The charter calls for 675 students; the company has said the proposed school can accommodate 735 students.

The committee said the company needs to clarify the exact number of students who will attend the school.

• Coral Gables Police Sgt. Jesse Medina cited added traffic at dismissal time.

Llanes said the plan was to have three dismissal times, 30 minutes apart, to help ease traffic. He noted a maximum of 31 cars could be in the pick-up and drop-off lanes.

``The responsibility will be on the parents,'' Llanes said.

• Parking. Currently, there are 93 spaces used by the church and its preschool, whose enrollment is capped at 110 students and 18 staff members, as per a 1977 commission mandate.

``One of my main concerns is parking,'' said Sebrina Brown, the city's currency administrator.

The architectural firm working with Academia -- Civica Architects -- said there was ample parking. In a packet submitted to the city, the firm said 58 spaces would be required for a 735-student school. It based that calculation on a state school code requiring one space per staff and one visitor space for every 100 students. That is the minimum parking requirement.

Using that methodology, the firm said it needed 58 spaces, 35 more than UBC now has with its 93 parking spaces.

``We have surplus of parking,'' Llanes said.

Jeanne Ann Rigl, who lives close to the church, came to Friday's meeting to speak to the committee.

While the committee meeting was open to the public, community members could not speak because it was not an open forum.

``We were disappointed no one could speak,'' Rigl said.

The company said it will work with the DRC.

Meanwhile, more than 900 parents have written letters of interest to the school, school officials said, and a parent board has been formed. The company operates several other charter schools in South Florida under the name of Somerset Academy.

Gina Delarosa, who lives in the Gables and has two sons, said she came to the meeting to hear more about the school. She said the city would benefit from a charter school.

``I feel like it's going to be a long process,'' she said.

Coral Gables City Hall, 405 Biltmore Way, 33134

Someone needs to watch the politicians -it won't be the Miami Herald

My comments follow the column

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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/beth-reinhard/story/949348.html

Miami Herald

Someone needs to watch the politicians

By Beth Reinhard

March 14, 2009

In an eerily prescient plot line in Carl Hiaasen's 2002 novel Basket Case, an intrepid reporter whose stories have sent three politicians to jail leaves the newspaper for another job and isn't replaced.

Another reporter is told to keep an eye on the local government, but he covers a city council that also meets Tuesday nights, forcing him to alternate his attendance between the two municipalities.

The politicians time their misdeeds accordingly: Property taxes and garbage fees go up, a tire dump and a warehouse park are built in residential neighborhoods, and everybody gets a pay raise.

The weary reporter quits, so the newspaper dumps his job on somebody else -who also covers city council meetings on Tuesday nights.

"For the corrupt politicians in our circulation area, it was a dream come true," writes Hiaasen, a Miami Herald columnist who says newspapers regularly inform his fiction. "The unsuspecting citizens of three communities . . . were being semi-regularly reamed and ripped off by their elected representatives, all because the newspaper could no longer afford to show up."

Imagine this scenario playing out in city after city, and you have a pretty good idea of the political fallout of a newspaper industry on the wane. This is the best thing that ever happened to crooked pols since manila envelopes.

This week, The Miami Herald announced its third round of layoffs in a year. Just another day in an industry where a number of media companies are struggling to survive.

This column is not a self-serving sob story about people losing their jobs, because that is happening to everyone except foreclosure auctioneers and bankruptcy lawyers. The public's interest is at stake here, as newspapers have long been the meanest and best government watchdogs around.

When the scrappy, Pulitzer Prize-winning Rocky Mountain News shut down on Feb. 27, it posted a poignant video on its website in which reporters and readers talk about the vital role of the Fourth Estate. Editor John Temple says readers frequently refer to the paper not as "the Rocky," but as "my Rocky," reflecting their feeling of communal ownership in the newsgathering enterprise.

This is personal.

In Florida, a robust and competitive network of daily newspapers has thrived in a sort of journalism hothouse, where strong public records laws and weak-kneed politicians laid fertile ground for muckraking. But every paper has been forced to reduce its coverage or give up entire communities in recent years. The Tallahassee press corps has shrunk dramatically, and in Washington the owners of the Tampa Tribune and the Palm Beach Post plan to shutter their bureaus.

Sure, the explosive growth of blogs and other online outlets is helping fill the void. Some of the best scoops of the 2008 campaign first appeared outside the mainstream press. Local gadflies, out-of-work reporters and other rabbler rousers are posting great stuff.

But the best journalism is frequently labor-intensive and expensive. Someone drawing a paycheck has to take the time to sit through the city council meeting, scour the annual budget or truth-squad a campaign ad.

The Herald and other papers are partnering with former competitors in an effort to fill the gaps. Big-mouthed readers have always helped us stay in the loop, and we need you more than ever to be our eyes and ears on the ground.

Somebody has got to get to that Tuesday night city council meeting.

Beth Reinhard is the political writer for The Miami Herald.

Reader comments at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/beth-reinhard/story/949348.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1

Abandoned Miami Herald vending machine next to FEC

Raiload tracks, Biscayne Boulevard & N.E. 187th Street,

Aventura, FL

April 21, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

The Miami Herald has not had a reporter at a

Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting since early

June of 2008, when Breanne Gilpatrick attended the

joint meeting with the City of Hollywood at the Hallandale

Beach Cultural Center.

She was only there because like the situation cited above,

both cities have their meetings on Wednesdays.

But she was clearly there for Hollywood, as Hallandale

Beach was simply the side dish.

That meeting was noteworthy for two things: that there

were many Hollywood City Hall officials who confided

to me that they could not find the building because

there were -and are not now- any directional signs

on U.S.-1 indicating where it was located, and also

for the fact that HB Mayor Joy Cooper tried to

persuade the City of Hollywood -unsuccessfully-

to adopt her strategy of threatening to sue the

State of Florida so they didn't have to comply with

the state's deadlines and requirements

regarding ocean outfall pollution.

This coming Wednesday, the date of the first City

Commission meeting in May, that will mark precisely

eleven months since the Herald deigned to show up.

Woody Allen famously said that "Ninety percent

of life is just showing up"

So what lessons should we draw from never

showing-up?

Over those same eleven months, as one shocking

thing after another has transpired here, I've directly

and indirectly contacted Beth Reinhard numerous

times to make her and her colleagues aware of matters

of public interest here fully deserving a level of scrutiny,

as well as Herald Broward section editor Patricia

Andrews, Herald Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal

and Herald Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos.

(The latter really ought to have a weekly column,

not a once-in-a-while schedule the Herald gives

him, which only serves to make anything he writes

about seem dated by the time you read it,

an arrangement he himself can not be happy with.

Seriously, why no Herald blog for him?)

Whatever my serious disagreements with them about

the quality or volume of product churned out, Messrs

Gyllenhall and Scumacher-Matos have taken the

time to write back a few times with their thoughts and

concerns after such correspondence, but Reinhard

and Andrews, nary a peep.

Welcome to the State of South Florida Journalism

2009.

---------------

Draw near and consider:

Much has been said, written and analyzed, and yet this

overwhelming mass of facts has heretofore furnished no

evidence to the unconscious Miami Herald and its

journalistic kindred, from which to pluck a belief that the

acts of the crowd at Hallandale Beach City Hall and

their dutiful cronies were unethical forays, and that there

really has existed and continues to exist at 400 South

Federal Highway a most unethical and malodorous stench.

A putrid stench that clearly marks behavior most foul

that serves as daily impediment to the full and faithful

discharge of public duty.

The Millenium Building, 2500 East Hallandale Beach Blvd.,

Hallandale Beach, FL

April 25, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

But comes one blogger, me, and one website writer,

Change Hallandale, unafraid of the behind-the-scenes

machinations and armed with facts to fill many a

cupboard, after the Herald long avoided taking notice

of what transpires there, and makes a statement to

the public and continually shows it online, and, presto,

the veil is rent; light succeeds to darkness,

and credit to defamation.

With such a recantation avaunt!

We do not want it; we can do best without it.

We have taken the measure of the Herald lo these

many months and found without exception that it

was lacking in seriousness of purpose and moral

clarity when such qualities were ideal prescriptions

for what has long ailed this town hard by the sea.

And so we persevere, ourselves, in the task once

commenced, for if not us and our allies, who will

carry the torch and ask reasonable questions that

make autocrats angry and seethe, demand a degree

of accountability, from people who clearly delight

in the Herald's apathy, a fact which is but common

knowledge hereabouts?

And what of the political friends and benefactors

of the very Rubber Stamp Crew that has made

this town simultaneously, a mockery, a punchline,

a laughingstock of the worst sort?

Those who are by practice but blind to what lies

directly before their immediate gaze and scurry

like the ostrich, eager to find that comfortable

hole that their empty heads hath grown so

accustomed to?

Patience dear friend, patience!

Do not despair.

The bosom friends of the powers-that-be of

this town are well known to me and others,

and their deeds and names have been entered

into a list that will one day delight and amuse

you, as you read about their offers of aid and

support, knowing that they, too, have become

ensnared in the web of their friends' daily

falsehoods and calumnies.

Trust me, friends, you will come to know these

names too, I promise.

Sooner than they know!

The idylls of summer swelter are near at hand.

When they be over, you at One Herald Plaza

will unsay your present tale, but it will be too late.

The sands of Time will have further turned your

remaining power into idle boasts that prove pitiable,

proving once again that the common curse of

South Florida journalism be not just folly and

ignorance, but vanity and apathy.

If our health is spared and a summer hurricane

passes not by our fair shores, we shall give to

the people of this town, as well as to the state

lawgivers legally assembled, who seek truth,

a brief history of our revelations, and in the

name of reform, accountability and democracy,

all so long in exile from this community,

but with the word of truth, appeal to their justice.

And rest assured, friends, there WILL BE

a public accounting, for who knew what, when,

and who did nothing but join in the mockery

at the public's expense.

That future public accounting animates my daily

travails, as it does so many others in this community,

so sure are we that each day is but one day closer

to that fateful day of public reckoning.

People who long for something better than what

they have heretofore known, and who while longing

for sheer civic normalcy, have instead found gross

deceit and self-dealing, shenanigans of every size

and shape, and false words repeatedly spoken

with no intent of follow-through and resolution.

The tape that may soon bedeck the halls of Hallandale

Beach City Hall and environs?

For those in power in South Florida who are but

dear friends of the Rubber Stamp Crew that

is currently in power, let them say no longer that

they did not know what transpired here under the

guise of governance, and who were the guilty

parties at the very heart of every embarrassing

scandal and debacle, forever plotting, scheming

and attempting to obfuscate the truth,

so that their anti-democratic plans would be

rendered invisible to the citizens they purport

to represent.

For those of us who cared to look, it was there

all the time, but some consciously chose not

to see.

The Miami Herald is but the most obvious enabler

on that long list, but they were not the only ones.

For we who have followed the facts as we found

them, and connected dots not seen by others,

know well the names of the others, too, as

surely as we know our own names.

How can we not?

And you will come to learn them here in

this place, too.

Hallandale Beach Blog

South Beach Hoosier