Hope for New Schools in Budget Deal

By Etta Sanders

Two new Downtown school buildings may be built on time after all. Late last month the state legislature reached a budget deal that will give New York City $11.2 billion for school construction.

“I secured the money for these schools and they will all be built in a timely fashion,” Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told the Trib in an interview on March 29.

		Mayor Michael Bloomberg had cut all new school construction from his preliminary budget unless the state came through with funding. If the state budget passes, “The schools will be built on schedule,” said Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for the Mayor in an e-mail. “Without the mayor taking this tough stand the schools would have never been built.” But Silver said Bloomberg’s budget maneuver was not a factor in getting
more capital education money for the city. “My members were committed two years ago. We didn’t have a lot of assistance from the mayor,” he said. Councilman Alan Gerson said he was happy that the new schools were going to be back in the city budget, but that they should not have been used as a political ploy. “I’m happy with the outcome,” he said, adding, “It was not fair to the community the way the schools were handled.”

Last month, in a confrontation with Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott and a letter-writing campaign to Bloomberg, the local community continued to express anger over the possible school delay.

At a Community Board 1 meeting on March 21 in the P.S./I.S. 89 auditorium, Walcott reiterated the city’s position that all new school construction was on hold—plans for 32 schools citywide were affected—unless the city got a multi-year commitment of education money from the state. But Downtown community representatives told Walcott that

under a September 2004 deal, signed by Councilman Alan Gerson and Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, the city had already committed to pay for the P.S. 234 annex and the Beekman Street school without state funds.

“These were very detailed negotiations and we covered all contingencies,” said Gerson, who negotiated the 2004 agreement in which the community agreed to development projects on two city-owned parcels near P.S. 234 in exchange for the city’s commitment to build more classrooms for Downtown children. None of those contingencies included state funding, Gerson said, standing next to Walcott on the auditorium stage.

Walcott sidestepped discussion about the specifics of the agreement, except to say, “It would not be proper and it would not be fair for us to single out any one school.”

Frustration among parents who filled the auditorium for the meeting bubbled over when Walcott said he didn’t know that P.S. 234 may need to give up its science room next year to accommodate the school’s growing enrollment. “If you’re not aware that we’re going to have to lose a science lab or an art room next year, you haven’t done your homework,”

called out Andrew Weinstein, a member of the P.S. 234 school leadership team.

“I was disappointed by Mr. Walcott’s comments,” Kevin Doherty, president of the P.S. 234 PTA, said after the meeting. “I think he was not very well informed about the issues Downtown.”

Speakers at the community board meeting also told Walcott that the city needs to plan better for more services Downtown as it encourages the development of millions of square feet of new residential space.

“We’ve heard nothing about any type of school plan, hospital plan or any type of community services plan to coincide with further residential development,” Doherty said.

John Jiler, a P.S. 234 parent and longtime Downtown resident who helped lead demonstrations against delays in school construction, said that the city is focused only on developing luxury high-rises while Downtown schools grow more crowded and the local library remains closed on weekends.

“He’s [Bloomberg] got to look out the windows at City Hall and see the needs of his neighbors,” Jiler said. “A little city planning is in order. It seems to be completely absent.”

CB1 member Paul Hovitz told Walcott that even if the new school buildings are built and opened on the originally announced timetable, the threatened delay had eroded trust between the community and the Bloomberg administration.
“I ask you to pass the word to the mayor from us that there needs to be a repair made in our faith in the administration,” Hovitz said.

The degree of bad feeling was reflected in the form letters that more than 150 P.S. 234 families sent to the mayor last month.

The letter stated: “When you claim, as you did last month at City Hall, that, despite this agreement, the money was always contingent on state funding, you are, quite simply, a liar.”