NPR: Scam that put local Miami scion in jail described as "a subterranean ATM, and only the developers know the PIN" ... by gimleteye

The biggest problem facing Miami has been corruption. Listen to the NPR investigative report, "Affordable House Program Costs More, Shelters Fewer". Local scion Matt Greer is one of the principals nabbed in a federal indictment and prosecution detailed in the NPR report beginning around minute 17.

Greer's mother, ex-mayor of a small south Florida municipality, and father, director of Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens, are investors in commercial real estate. You can read our posts on Greer and Fairchild Gardens, here.

That was before Cox discovered his partners Lloyd Boggio and Matt Greer were stealing money from their developments, and he eventually joined them. Together, according to court records, $34 million was stolen from 14 tax credit projects, including almost $2 million from Labre Place.

"It was a construction kickback scheme," Cox recalls. "The scam was to submit grossly inflated construction numbers to the state in order to get more money than the project required and then have an agreement with the contractor to get it back during construction."

"I convinced myself that this was OK and that I was doing such good works and I was building amazing projects in the community," he adds.

Last year, Boggio, Greer and another partner, Gonzalo DeRamon, pleaded guilty to crimes related to the kickback scheme and were sentenced to prison. Cox was sentenced to home confinement and probation. He cooperated with prosecutors, never spent his portion of the money and returned all of it. But the impact of his theft is lasting.

"At Labre, if the costs had been stated in a correct way, we could have built 10 more housing units. So, that's 10 more people every year that that project could have served," Cox says. "That's 10 lives. So it's those people that really take it on the chin when costs are inflated."

"A program of trust"

In a government office building just a few blocks from Labre Place, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin has spent five years investigating the tax credit program in Florida. He also unraveled the Carlisle/Biscayne theft.

"This program has been described as a subterranean ATM, and only the developers know the PIN," Sherwin says.

The Mango Festival at Fairchild Gardens. By Geniusofdespair

I learned Sunday, July12 that there are many kinds of mangoes at the mango festival. Who knew? This picture depicts a mango auction and boy these bowls with 4 to 7 mangoes each fetched a lot of money. As you can see there are many varieties. The Auctioneer spoke so fast I couldn't understand what the mangoes were selling for but I know it was more than I wanted to spend. I would buy them if they all didn't taste the same to my palate and if I wasn't allergic to mango skins. For example 6 Alphonso mangoes from India are $150 on Amazon (shipping included). I did some mango tasting (3 kinds) and butterfly looking (they have a wonderful butterfly garden at Fairchild) and went home.

Were any mango lovers there that could tell me what I am missing?

P.S. The ribs looked good.

5 Years Ago: Fairchild Tropical Garden and its Dismal Governance … by gimleteye

Just flipping through our archive … remember this, five years ago?

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Lawsuit planned against Fairchild Garden ... by gimleteye
Although there was a longish story in the Sunday Miami Herald about the protest demonstration outside the gates of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, there was no mention in the Herald that longtime Garden members are organizing a lawsuit to require Fairchild trustees to open its books according to by-laws for members to hold a special meeting of members. "Concerns about inept management, a diversion from the garden's mission of conservation, education and research and a clash between Caroline Lewis and Miami attorney Bruce Greer, president of the Board of Trustees, were also brought out." It doesn't capture how Greer and Garden insiders refused to allow members access to their rights under the by-laws of the organization. Last week, on two occasions members who requested the membership list and other materials were turned away. A letter in the Miami Herald by Hayes Bowen noted the need for term limits for Garden trustees, one of the goals of the special meeting when it occurs. (Letter re-printed below.)

There was a very creepy videographer who taped the entire protest yesterday, getting right up into peoples' faces: when asked, he said he was employed by Bruce Greer and the Trustees of the Garden. It wasn't subtle but does send a message that the Garden is so worried about its future, it is now keeping a visual record of its objectors. Creepy. Very creepy. Here he is.

Change garden's bylaws

Similar Stories:
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Protesters gather against firing of Fairchild education director
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Our beloved Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden has lost its way. Recent actions by its president and board of trustees have brought to light troubling issues with the overall management of this nonprofit organization.

Fairchild once enjoyed respect as a world-renowned botanical garden focused on research, conservation and education. Established by Robert Montgomery in 1938, the garden grew and flourished with a dedicated staff and devoted volunteers. For more than 70 years, the focus was research, collection, propagation and the curatorship of plant species from around the world.

Today one must look past towering sculptures, furry gorillas and a giant Loch Ness Monster before glimpsing what was initially envisioned by Montgomery and David Fairchild. The garden is now a place on the social circuit for black-tie galas, weddings, concerts, art exhibits and other fundraising events.

Department directors, scientist-researchers, curatorial and horticultural staff have left or been terminated and not replaced. Disheartened volunteers and donors are leaving their posts as their purpose, too, has faded. The remaining staffers are demoralized. There appears to be a ``dumbing down''of the garden.

This must be stopped. We must bring back the original mission of the garden to preserve its purpose and value to the local, national and international communities. It's time for garden members to be heard and vote for change. We are more than 40,000 strong and have too much invested to sit by idly. The first course of action is voting for term limits to be added to the by-laws. We need new faces and restorative ideas at the executive-board level. Fairchild's reputation in the botanic world must be preserved before it becomes as endangered as qualified and educated garden staff and volunteers.

Hayes Bowen
Miami, FL

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to visit Miami Beach with CLEO environmental and civic leaders on Miami Beach for King Tide event … by gimleteye

It takes a big event to draw the nation's top environmental officer to Miami. That happens Thursday when EPA chief Gina McCarthy comes to Miami Beach, helping draw the mainstream press to a vision of America's future.

Rising sea levels are permanently erasing political lines drawn in the sand.

Imagine how history will record these years, if Governor Rick Scott and US Senator Marco Rubio continue turning their backs on the real economic impacts of climate change. One example: instead of endorsing consumer-driven solar in Florida, both side with the state's electric utilities.

Wednesday and Thursday's high tides forecast what is to come. Annual high tides extremes will become monthly. Over time, if the pumps now being installed on Miami Beach fail, a single tide event could erase a $400 million taxpayer investment.

Today, what matters more than money pitted against the tide is leadership. On that front, Caroline Lewis -- founder of the CLEO Institute in Miami -- is one of the most dynamic climate change educators in the nation.

This blog chronicled Ms. Lewis' career and achievements. Her steadfast determination and enthusiasm is an example of overcoming obstacles. READ our archive, how Ms. Lewis, past director of environmental education and creator of the Fairchild Environmental Challenge, surmounted objections of a board frozen by parochial interests.

Too much fertilizer in the Everglades from tomato and sugar farmers? Too little social justice in Florida's environmental movement? These are issues that Ms. Lewis helped raise with students across Miami-Dade County but disputable by a board tipsy with its own hubris.

Global warming and sea level rise, on the other hand, are indisputable. Ms. Lewis is helping to build the next generation of climate change leaders. On Thursday, the nation's top environmental officer will be at her side.


News from The CLEO Institute
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 6, 2014
Contact: Marissa Prieto
(305)284-0908

MEDIA ADVISORY
EPA Administrator joins The CLEO Institute and Florida International University for Miami Beach King Tide Events

Oct. 6, 2014 – (MIAMI) The CLEO Institute is excited to announce that Administrator Gina McCarthy of the Environmental Protection Agency will be joining us, eyesontherise.org and the FIU School of Journalism and Mass Communication for a press conference at our Oct. 9 King Tide Day events.

The press conference will begin at 10 a.m. at West Avenue & Sixth Street on Miami Beach with students, scientists and leaders speaking about the flooding and the threat of sea-level rise. Speakers will include: Dean Raul Reis of FIU’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, President Mark Rosenberg of FIU, Mayor Philip Levine of the City of Miami Beach and Mayor Cindy Lerner of the Village of Pinecrest, in addition to McCarthy. The press event will be followed by discussions, interviews & sensor demonstrations with students at 10:40 a.m.
CLEO will open the day at 8 a.m. at the FIU Miami Beach Urban Studios (420 Lincoln Road), followed by fieldwork. One of CLEO’s roles is to maximize the intergenerational and interdisciplinary opportunity whereby youth experience a King Tide event and witness some of the effects of climate change. More than 70 high school and college students will work with scientists at high tide on the streets of Miami Beach to analyze tidal flooding. They will assess data quantitatively as well as qualitatively (photography, journaling, interviews) and participate in an interactive panel discussion with local and national leaders. Areas of Miami Beach, where pumps have been installed, should help showcase adaptation efforts by the city.

Ultimately, each student will develop a narrative to describe the experience. This may develop into further opportunities to tell their story creatively.

The event will conclude with a panel discussion and Q/A with students. Panelists include:

George Cavros, Florida Energy Policy Attorney, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Dr. Brian Haus, Associate Professor, University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science
Mayor Cindy Lerner, Village of Pinecrest; President, Miami-Dade County League of Cities
Adrianna Quintero, Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council

CLEO provided Climate Leadership Training to prepare students for the Oct. 9 King Tide Day events. The 2-hour interactive training for these 35 MAST at FIU high school students focused on the science behind climate change and sea-level rise and how these relate to greenhouse gases and carbon pollution. In addition to MAST and FIU students, CLEO is involving students from our Youth Task Force at Miami Palmetto Senior High. These students were also trained in preparation for the Eyes On The Rise event. CLEO will assist students with their roles as citizen scientists.

The CLEO Institute is a non-profit that promotes an informed and engaged public, better poised to become involved, make changes and support climate resilience locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.

For more information about the day’s activities, visit www.eyesontherise.org.

The CLEO Institute & Eyesontherise.org King Tide Schedule
Thursday, Oct. 9, Miami Beach
8 a.m. - 8:10 a.m. CLEO launches event at FIU Miami Beach Urban Studios (MBUS) (420 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach, FL 33139)
9 a.m. - 11 a.m. High school & college students stationed at various locations along Alton Road performing qualitative and quantitative data collection with sensors, journals, and cameras

10 a.m. Press conference, featuring EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy (West Avenue & Sixth Street)
- 10:25 a.m. Press Pull Asides
- 10:40 a.m. Meet & Greet/Experiment Demonstration with Students
11:20 a.m. All reconvene at FIU MBUS for panel discussion
(NOTE: Panel open to public)
Panelists:
- George Cavros, Florida Energy Policy Attorney, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
- Dr. Brian Haus, Associate Professor, University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science
- Mayor Cindy Lerner, Village of Pinecrest; President, Miami-Dade County League of Cities
- Adrianna Quintero, Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council
12:15 p.m. Panel concludes and students return to schools

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Contact: Marissa Prieto, 305.284.0908, Marissa@CLEOInstitute.org

No time to lose, making progress on hardening South Florida against sea level rise … by gimleteye

500 year drought in California. Snowless Sierras. 100 year storms in Great Britain.

Still think it is hogwash? Spend a few minutes with the data overlay on google maps, offered by the University of East Anglia.

The University of East Anglia is the academic institution where the right wing planted its anti-global warming flag in November 2009, alleging scientific misconduct that sought to discredit the massive agreement by the international science community, through the IPCC, that global warming is a real and present threat.

Despite evidence to the contrary, the conservative media machinery sowed confusion and uncertainty that has been extraordinarily difficult to penetrate. The objective data through physical measurements ought to take care of that, but then again, the right-wing is never confused by fact or science because it pays attention to neither.

In an interesting bit of geotagging, the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit has placed its global temperature data on Google Maps. The data set, called CRUTEM4, tracks how the temperatures at the Earth's surface have changed over the last century or so (ocean data is handled by a different project and is not included here). By adding geographic data, it's possible to get a sense of how different regions are responding to our changing climate and where we still lack solid data.

Like a creaking battle ship, the media elite in Miami have gradually turned toward the realities of sea level rise. Parts of Miami Beach under water at regular high tides and sections of US 1 in Fort Lauderdale washed into the sea. The Miami Herald now accepts global warming as a fact (many years after the facts were clear). WPBT, the Miami affiliate of PBS, took forever to swing around, too. But here we are: all in the same ship. Where it is headed?

The devil is always in the details, and Miami environmentalists have seized on the multi-billion -- that's right BILLION -- consent agreement to upgrade the county's wastewater infrastructure after elected officials (many, still representing their districts from the dais) promoted growth that failed to pay its own way.

Environmentalists have complained to federal court that the EPA/ Miami-Dade settlement agreement fails to address in any specific way -- with funding matched to need -- the known impacts of sea level rise. Judge Frederico Moreno apparently observed from the bench earlier this week that it is ironic the Obama White House is elevating the visibility of climate change and its costs while failing to instruct its own EPA to reach down and require that taxpayer dollars match the needs.

Caroline Lewis speaks out on the teaching profession ... by gimleteye

Caroline Lewis is the inspirational teacher and leader who created the Fairchild Environmental Challenge. Her capricious termination by an insular garden president, Bruce Greer, and a cosseted, oblivious board provoked community outrage in 2009. Fairchild sits on an endowment of more than $20 million, but it was the nexus of environmental education and the industrial and polluting agricultural practices of some board members that triggered her termination (see our archive, under Fairchild, for details and my post, yesterday, on "Money is Truth" for another facet of the same issue.)

I owe a debt of gratitude to Ms. Lewis. When she was a teacher in middle school, Ms. Lewis single-handedly saved my son who, as a dyslexic, would otherwise have slipped through the cracks of an educational institution that made no accommodation for his skills. You can't measure the perception or combination of traits that create teaching excellence. When Ms. Lewis writes about the teaching profession, she writes from the authority of significant understanding and personal achievements. Good for the Miami Herald, for printing her OPED.


Unleash the Superman, Superwoman in teaching

BY CAROLINE LEWIS

CAROLINELEWISEDU@AOL.COM

I saw a young protester’s sign recently that read: “Don’t make me regret becoming a teacher!” and my heart broke into smithereens.

If you are tuned into the economic, social and political debates swirling around education and the teaching profession, it should be alarmingly clear that we are losing ground, a lot of ground.

2011 Wrap Up ... by gimleteye

It is hard to face the close of 2010 with an admission. I was wrong. (please click, read more)For more than twenty years as an environmentalist and writer, I harbored the expectation that progress would come. But I did not believe it would come because we had somehow persuaded decision-makers it was time, finally, to abandon the Chamber of Commerce values that crashed the economy into a ditch. I believed that once in the ditch—an inevitability, from witnessing so much bad policy and bad results the past two decades—that people would awake. Rise and Sing! That the tables would turn toward social and environmental justice on the wings of our better nature.

I was wrong. I had been right about the threats. I started looking in the early 1970’s in Florida, through a watery realm of water only a few feet deep covering hundreds of square miles in Florida Bay, the tail end of the Everglades ecosystem. By the late 1980’s, the magnificent efflorescence of nature had been badly damaged by repetitive algae blooms. Scientists chased changes occurring faster than baselines could be anchored with facts. My small layman’s window on marine life in two feet of water, hosting crustaceans and shrimp and sea grass billowing out in glorious creatures from rays to sharks and tarpon and the whole coral reef, encapsulated what would happen to our oceans, of climate change and a warming planet.

In other words, I was looking the whole time at the right thing and I was drawing the wrong conclusions. Right about nature. Wrong about human nature. Not that I lacked a gimlet eye for what was happening at the time (and long before starting on this blog). I believed that despite all the damage to our air and water, despite all the laws and their intended protections, despite the overwhelming influence of special interests, the tables would turn. Change would come, but not under conditions we wanted. Here, the United States, unlike pre-war Germany, angels of better judgment would prevail through economic calamity that was sure to come.

In good times, people were fat, dumb and happy. In bad times, I imagined, people would look more closely at what value and equity had been stripped from them and who had done the stripping. Yes, it is a low world. Yes, masses of people bought into the madness of the “Ownership Society”; the death knell of personal responsibility in the Bush era—sold as snake oil of personal responsibility, of course--, but surely I thought they would understand the Wall Street game, linking up to local title companies, mortgage brokers, land speculators and assorted crooks with law degrees, had been wired to ensare them. Eventually, people would connect the dots they had neglected for so long. That’s how it happened in the 1930’s didn’t it?

I consider myself, a realist informed by Samuel Beckett. Some good that does in 2010. We are bogged down like medieval monks arguing whether the economy is a victim of structural instability or just a periodic cycle after asset bubbles popped from which the American spirit will somehow shed obesity, lard and re-invigorate; walking point for the billions of people in East Asia, India and China aspiring to our standard of living. (Tell that to the people in rural Missouri, of "Winter's Bone")

Fighting for the environment is a high order of behavior in a low world. A world that will surely need sign in the future, that a few people understood the value of what had been lost and objected; standing up loudly, albeit in print that fewer and fewer read. To be an optimist under these circumstances is to invite a deranged sympathy.

Fight after fight in Florida: on land use, on Everglades projects, on legislation intended only to put the public further and further from those who govern. I believed that if the sentinels of carnage and destruction were brought low themselves, if citizens were hurt badly enough, if the economy was derailed and all its components laid bare on the tracks for all to see, that common sense would find its way to daylight, that people would pull together, that the villains and polluters would be exposed and drummed out of town in their Baymach sedans, that a fresh wind would blow the tired canards, the manipulators, the Karl Roves and Roger Ailes into the back rows and cheap seats, and the stage would be wiped clean. By who? Didn’t we have a president who had been, early in his career, a grass roots activist? Aren’t we the change we can believe in?

I believed that if all else failed, a crushing economy based on speculation and thievery would turn the fools out. The puppeteers and the people at the hand of the inner working behind the curtain would be revealed. I was wrong, with a capital “W”.

2010 did not begin well in Miami. In January Caroline Lewis, heading a project called the Fairchild Environmental Challenge for a reknown botanical garden, was summarily fired. Whatever trumped up reason used to paper over the resultant chaos, the underlying story is dismal: in less than seven years the program she had grown from nothing served tens of thousands of high school age students. In many ways, the tempest was emblematic of a horrendous year for environmental issues. Like so many boards, the directors of the garden were happy to go about the ways of a singularly insular president, attending social functions, and faithful to the prestige of a community board deemed important.

When Ms. Lewis’ supporters rose to challenge the board, the board promptly changed its corporate bylaws to thwart the incipient rebellion. Ms. Lewis was fired because of her success. The innovator—on the cusp of breaking out the program for a national and international audience demanding new leaders— was terminated for building a program that challenged students to compete around themes on the environment, grounded in academics and scholarship and debate. Whatever trumped up reasons, the fact is that the programs Ms. Lewis innovated called into question the polluting business practices-- implicitly, not explicitly-- of the family business of one board member who had pledged millions for a new science center.

I doubt that the board members even blinked or knew that a large agribusiness that produces industrial-strength tomatoes for mass markets, using massive quantities of polluting fertilizer, would have a fundamental problem with a garden program that was educating tens of thousands of students to be environmentalists. In the historic Everglades—the Everglades Agricultural Area—a similar large scale producer is one of the “hot spots” of phosphorous, the constituent in fertilizer that is wrecking the River of Grass that taxpayers are spending billions to restore.

The Fairchild Environmental Challenge engaged middle school and high school students on such questions concerning the trade-off of massive pollution of Florida’s water and Everglades by agribusiness and stormwater runoff from cities against the value of estuaries, bays, rivers and the Everglades. In the end, whatever excuses were used by the Fairchild board and its high-powered attorneys, sponsoring an educational program that reached into the heart of the conflict between the environment and Miami’s economic elite, was unacceptable. A career educator was brought down by shameful allegations of a junior staffer, whose cause was taken up by the board president. A program that was on the verge of providing a quickly scalable model to enlighten and educate on the environment was hobbled by stripping its innovator. That sums up Miami, in 2010.

In Florida 2010 ends with the U.S. EPA under attack for its efforts to mandate nutrient pollution limits. The fact that the state is literally afloat in a sea of polluted water means little to the economic interests who profit, even in a mighty recession/depression, from polluting. I was right about the economy. But I never anticipated how a conservative elite—well funded despite the downturn and collapse of its major sources of profit tied to land speculation and development—would use an incipient taxpayer revolt embodied by the Tea Party to extend to all governmental attempts to protect the environment.

Republican Marco Rubio, the Senator-elect from Florida, is being touted by conservatives as a likely 2012 candidate for the Republican presidential ticket though he has done nothing but look good, sound reasonable, and act as the next Jeb Bush proxy in the battle to control the GOP. The media scarcely touched the point, during the Senate campaign, that Big Sugar interests – the Fanjul billionaires —strongly supported Rubio against his opponent, outgoing Governor Charlie Crist.

Crist is a naturally sunny politician who did something no Florida elected official in modern history had ever done: he initiated a deal to take more than 150,000 acres from sugar production in order to help restore the Everglades. The deal with US Sugar was set up without consulting the Fanjuls, Florida's billionaire sugar barons. For this, they waged political war on behalf of their candidate, Rubio. Although Crist has been quoted in the mainstream press as pointing to the Everglades deal as the signature accomplishment of his term, he scarcely mentioned it during the campaign nor did the mainstream media pick up the thread of its importance.

2010 also saw the defeat of a citizen’s initiative to amend the Florida constitution with a petition drive that began nearly seven years earlier. Florida Hometown Democracy was cobbled together from public interest land use lawyers, Lesley Blackner and Ross Burnaman, who had spent years fighting skirmish after skirmish on local zoning issues where state oversight proved simply incapable of taming the lusty impulses of land use lobbyists joined to the hip with developers and builders of tract housing and local elected officials. Add to this formula, the constant revolving door between regulators and the regulated, and it was no wonder that land speculation became the lubricant for so much mutual rubbing. Blackner and Burnaman decided to do something about it. Their incipient citizens' revolt ran straight into the grinding, political wood chipper of the Chambers of Commerce, powerful land use attorneys, and the Florida Supreme Court. By 2010, they had exhausted their donor base just getting to the state-wide ballot after years of legal challenges and delays.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries, and big agribusiness contributed more than $15 million to knock off Florida Hometown Democracy. The measure, that would have given citizens the vote to change local comprehensive development plans, will never come again. An entire generation of activists was burnt to a crisp by the intiative. To the extent that civic energy exists now, it is in the form of the Tea Party that is against government interference in free markets without understanding that the manipulation of free markets is exactly what its funders do.

Florida’s new governor, Rick Scott, comes to office with no direct experience of government except for the action of federal prosecutors who targeted the health insurance company he founded, levying the largest civil fine in US history. Without experience, he has relied primarily on Jeb Bush disciples to form his administration and agenda. That agenda, it was revealed recently, includes folding the environmental mandates of state government, as expressed through individual agencies, into a super-agency in which the dominant character is expressed by the Department of Transportation: the leviathan that environmentalists and growth management advocates—like those who mounted Florida Hometown Democracy—have battled for decades.

Environmentalists in Florida cannot draw any conclusion except that the collapsed economy—littered with foreclosures and ghost suburbs—is like a shipwreck on the coral reef. Those responsible for sailing the ship then are scavenging its remains, now. The public discourse is so low, the state legislature so dominated by the tightened noose of business and polluters, that dragging wetlands and bays and estuaries and the Everglades into the morass of unabsorbed costs left by homebuilders, land surveyors, title companies, land preparation and land speculation, lobbyists, water engineers, sewerage contractors, mortgage brokers seems at the end of 2010 to be purposeful: the whole kit and kaboodle was a wealth transfer machine unparalleled in US history leaving behind an impoverished landscape dependent on jobs tied to more impoverishment.

Today, the financial system is filled to the rafters with zombie banks and executives who took down billions for speed and efficiency in execution while staying afloat thanks to the generosity, or panic, of the Federal Reserve. Here, from the bottom of the ladder—municipal and county government—to the top, accountability is a mirage. In 2010 the Miami-Dade police department looted millions from the environmental crimes fund to buy personal computers, SUV’s, and other accoutrements. It now claims no responsibility to replenish the fund. No one was fined. No one was fired.

I was wrong about what would happen next. Where I hoped for fresh air, for democracy, for government to abjure the kidnappers of the public interest, what came in its stead was a ratcheting down by the same special interests who had caused the Fall: Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, the White House, Congress. Without manufacturing much of anything except military defense equipment and aircraft, the United States is a Potemkin economy, with sober men of Congress and state legislatures who might as well be in velvet smoking jackets puffing on cheroots, only their stove pipe hats visible as they move back and forth, guarding the empire from behind the rampart walls.

On a brighter note, the U.S. EPA is rousing from its decadal slumber. The bad years of Clinton and Bush have been cast aside, more or less, by President Obama’s determination that science and facts must guide regulations and not ideology. But the American public is largely unaware that the business interests who funded political campaigns returning control of the House to the GOP have a greater stake in throttling the EPA than they did in either health care or tax reform. The battle lines have been drawn, presaging that Florida’s example of legislative attempts to kill off environmental protections in order to rebuild the economy will extend to federal regulatory authority, too. President Obama will need to draw bright lines for the American people in 2011, because the other bright lines are being drawn by an even more hostile force to the environment than the split Congress. That would be the US Supreme Court.

WLRN: all is not well ... by gimleteye

Dan Ricker, publisher and all-around gadfly of The Watchdog Report, lifts the cover from the private and secretive relationship between local PBS affiliate, WLRN, and the Miami-Dade School Board. WLRN has been a mystery for a long time. Back in the day (circa 1989), I helped secure -- after years of indifference and empty response-- the expansion of WLRN coverage into the Florida Keys. My meetings with WLRN management gave me a sense of an institution that kept its arms open for donors and corporate doors closed. After moving to Miami, I spent nearly a year producing a WLRN TV program on the environment and South Florida called "Fragile Earth". Later, I made a brief, frustrating attempt to widen the local radio programming fare; something like dropping a stone into a bottomless well. Throughout, how WLRN operated and the relation of Friends of WLRN to the School Board was a mystery.

Ricker illuminates an acrimonious relationship, without reaching relevant facts. (He is a frequent guest on the local show, Topical Currents.) Ricker does deliver a hard fact for WLRN radio listeners numbed by fundraising appeals crying poor: the foundation managed by Friends of WLRN has $6 million in the bank. Dang! That's almost as much as the secretive Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, whose board is also insulated by its own circle of friends.

For a city as diverse as Miami and with as many controversies, one would think that the station would spring to allow listeners and viewers something on the order of fresher views, newer voices, and altogether reach out in ways that the mainstream press in Miami fails to do. Without any basis to know, I'd guess that ties to a conservative School Board limit the amount of air entering the facilities. On the other hand, it is also possible that the Friends of WLRN use the School Board proximity to insulate itself from local politics. Whatever the whatever, there is no excuse for Friends of WLRN or the station management to operate in secrecy and regularly deliver mediocre local products.

There is an frisson to the fact that the School Superintendent is not allowed to view Friends of WLRN books, except in a locked and shaded room. The names of mid six-figure salaries at WLRN are not disclosed. Inquiring minds want to know. Do tell, how so little is so well rewarded. (Click read more, for a reprint of The Ricker Report or click the link, above)

>>> Battle between Friends and WLRN reaching a climax, after negotiations “back to square one,” philanthropy arm refers to school board as “pimps”

When it comes to Friends of WLRN, the philanthropy arm of the television and radio station WLRN whose FEC license is owned by the school board coming under the control more of the school district, recent progress over more than a year in getting an operating agreement between the two organizations has bore little fruit in reality and we are “back to square one, said Frederick Thornburg Tuesday at the school board audit committee. The district’s administration since then, under audit committee oversight and direction has tried to hammer out an agreement with Friends, but that ongoing discussion is reaching a boiling point between the two organizations and has the not for profit organization charged with raising money for the station calling “if the information is true in a confidential memo” the school board and WLRN as “pimps,” said audit chair Thornburg in a discussion of the history of the situation with new audit members, including new school board member Raquel Regalado. The chair also noted that Friends and WLRN representatives over this time had only “met on two occasions” and Friends is looking at setting up an endowment, which is fine, but depending on how it is written it “could keep money from WLRN,” he thought in the future.

School Board vice Chair Lawrence Feldman said these discussions started well over a year ago and he finds it “unacceptable” that the foundation has about $6 million [said WLRN staff to the Watchdog Report at the meeting] in “money parked,” in investments. He said the “money is available” and should be released and the district should “bring legal action” if “all our demands are not meet,” he said. Board Chair Perla Tabares Hantman echoed Feldman’s comments and she noted the organization’s board has had a “total lack of respect of the school board for years” and said they did not have to be “cautious” since they “totally disregard the school board,” and “we cannot keep on talking about it,” she thought. Friends board leadership could not attend the audit committee since they were out of town but one member of the board believed these issues could be resolved, but was not in the position to speak for the board overall.

Further, Friends meeting minutes of two meetings in September and November show that the bylaw changes, first modified cutting out the district superintendent in 1995, and being demanded changed back were not even discussed, said Feldman. Also when it came to a breakdown of people’s salaries and other expenses that were requested that information is still being asked for said the former principle before being elected to the school board in 2008. Alberto Carvalho, the public schools district superintendent also chimed in when it came to fundraising for the station. His people though paid much lower than Friends fundraising staff, they “brought in a greater return on investment,” he told the audit committee.

>>>PAST WDR: JAN. 2010: Friends of WLRN in the spotlight, must have an operating agreement with District in 60-days

Alberto Carvalho, the district’s superintendent in a terse tone said when it came to seeing the financial records of Friends of WLRN. He was told it could only be done off site, he could not remove them or copy the documents while under the watchful eye of the not-for-profit’s attorneys and the documents did not fall under the state’s Sunshine Law. Carvalho said “these conditions were unacceptable” and he made these statements at the Audit Committee meeting on Tuesday and it stunned the committee members including school board vice chair Perla Tabares Hantman, the board’s voting member.

The superintendent said he has been reviewing all contracts and operating agreements and a memo from board attorney James Walter Harvey details the organizations institutional timeline, noting Friends is charged with nothing but raising money for WLRN’s radio and television stations. The representatives of Friends said they were not trying to stonewall the inquiry noting over the decades since 1974 the organization has worked well with WLRN and the school district. The station now has significantly more media outlets and the not-for-profit has been instrumental in helping fund that expansion. However, the issue of some employees salaries came-up as well as administrative costs that come in at about 40 percent and that is normal said the Friends representatives. Jose F. Montes de Oca, the district’s chief auditor asked about some of salaries that had people making over the years $269,000; $247,000 and $315,000 but Friends said that is based on money they raise and the commission is 10 percent. They also pointed out these employees are paid a small salary, brought in $3 million in underwriting and they do not get the commission “until the money is in hand.”

Further, Friends bylaws once had the superintendent signing off on any by law changes, and who ran Friends. But that changed, but went unnoticed in 1998 and board Attorney James Walter Harvey in a Jan. 26 memo writes that “these significant, sea change amendments” were never approved by the superintendent and the school district administrative head was not “involved in the appointment process of Rick Lewis,” the current Friends president and CEO. Further, the attorney noted that the bylaws “have since been amended several times without superintendent approval.” Carvalho was instructed to create an operating agreement with Friends that would be due in 60-days and Friends representatives said they could comply with that time constraint and it will include inserting back that the superintendent will have to sign off on any bylaw changes in the future.

>>> PAST WDR: MAY 2010: Friends of WLRN board chair Altman fires back at last week’s story, in her own words

After last week’s Watchdog Report on what happened at the school board Audit Committee recently regarding Friends of WLRN, Janet K. Altman, the chair of the not-for-profit responded back giving the organization’s side of the story. I am running the complete response from Altman. >>> “You wrote in July 2008, “A strong, vibrant and responsible press is the glue that keeps public institutions and elected leaders restrained.” I see in this morning’s Watchdog Report that Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ Superintendent’s office provided you with a statement about negotiations between WLRN and Friends of WLRN. I’d like to provide some additional information which the public needs to know.

Recently there has been significant tension between WLRN, the School Superintendent, and Friends of WLRN. Friends of WLRN is an independent, private non-profit organization dedicated to the support of WLRN Radio and Television. Friends doesn’t own WLRN -- but neither does the School Board own Friends. Miami-Dade County Public Schools is the licensee for the Stations. Friends has supported the station, raising funds through membership, underwriting, special events and grants, for more than three decades. When listeners and viewers give to support public broadcasting, Friends of WLRN receives the gift, manages the funds, and pays bills for WLRN, including the bills to content providers like National Public Radio. WLRN’s General Manager drives the Friends’ budgeting process, identifying upcoming funding needs. Friends has never, to my knowledge, refused a funding request from WLRN.

Our budget for the coming year, which is scheduled for approval at our May Board meeting, forecasts $4.2 million in contributions to WLRN. The Superintendent of Schools appears to desire to end a 35-year relationship with our group -- an independent organization that is dedicated to supporting the valuable assets of the School Board. He is insisting that we revert to 15-year old by-laws, which give his office control of our leadership and governance. That’s just not good for WLRN. Rather, we believe it’s critically important that WLRN and Friends have an operating arrangement which provides for independence, transparency, cooperation, and informed consultation between the organizations. Friends has done all we can to communicate constructively with Superintendent [Alberto] Carvalho. Since the January Audit Committee meeting where we were tasked with negotiating an operating agreement, we have made every effort to resolve the issue. We provided our draft of the agreement, which we called Principles of Cooperation, on February 11. But WLRN refused to review that draft, and participants from WLRN were unavailable to meet to negotiate their version of the agreement until late March.

Why have a separate organization to raise money?

Friends is uniquely suited to raise money for WLRN. We can do many things the School Board cannot. The Miami-Dade County Public Schools must operate under the Florida Sunshine Act. If they were to absorb the fundraising role, all membership data (including donors’ contact information and giving history) would be available to anyone who requests it. As an independent group, we are able to attract members and underwriters who would not be comfortable contributing directly to an organization with taxing authority. We can raise money from members outside of Miami-Dade County. Incidentally, that now represents nearly half of the funds we raise. Importantly, the relationships our volunteer Board members have in the community give us access to potential major donations. We’re able to move quickly and effectively, as we did when we helped preserve the WLRN-Miami Herald News.

What are the issues?

The Superintendent is concerned about the cost of fundraising – and so are we. We recently undertook to benchmark our results against other public radio stations, and we discovered that our cost-per-dollar raised is lower than many of our sister stations, including the #1 station in the country, WNYC. The Superintendent is concerned about transparency – and so are we. John LaBonia, General Manager of WLRN and an employee of the School Board, is on Friends’ Board. The General Manager’s position on our Board is secured in the bylaws. The General Manager is also on the Executive Committee and the Finance Committee. This ensures total transparency, through the General Manager, with the Stations and the School Board. The Superintendent is concerned about fiscal responsibility – and so are we. Fiscal responsibility is key to our ability to raise these funds from the public. We are audited by one of the top accounting firms in the country, Marcum Rachlin. In the past two years, we have stepped up our vigilance in many ways, including hiring a CFO with CPA firm experience, creating a financial procedures manual, introducing a conflict of interest policy for the Board and most recently establishing an audit committee.

The Superintendent is concerned that we don’t respect the School Board. We regret any communication that caused offense. At the most recent Audit Committee meeting, as part of the argument that Friends should be controlled by the School Board, the Superintendent read a five-year old memo which expressed some strong opinions. According to its author, “This five-year old memo, which was written at a time of high emotion and considerable frustration, does not represent the opinions of either the staff or the Board of Friends of WLRN. In fact, more recent documents and actions clearly repudiate the ideas suggested in the memo. I apologize to any it may have offended." Friends of WLRN and the School Board share a common interest – the support of WLRN-FM and WLRN-TV. With cooperation from WLRN and the Superintendent, I am confident we can conclude an agreement that continues our independent service to the South Florida community,” wrote the Friends of WLRN board’s chair on May 17.

Fairchild Garden: leadership hiding in its polite, well mannered disarray ... by gimleteye

The Miami Herald reports again on the turmoil at Fairchild Garden. The well-rehearsed spin by Bruce Greer, Fairchild president for life and Gene Stearns tries and fails to dress up mismanagement and the disheartened morale among employees at the Garden. In the Herald, Stearns claims, "There is no dispute at Fairchild, except for a handful of people who are very vindictive and want to hurt Fairchild. And they have no support." An unprecedented internal memo last week by Bruce Greer's close aide, Nanette Zapata, asked trustees to be at their polished best: "Please wear either business attire or your dark green Fairchild polos."

In Garden officers are afflicted by anxiety how their own mismanagement, including micromanaging bizarre personnel decisions by the president for life, triggered a revolt of long-time and distinguished members, including volunteers whose service to the Garden has been honored in the past. They reacted like corporate directors of a public company protecting against a shareholder revolt. Trustees are mostly scared witless of the attention and afraid of being ostracized for peeping up. Recent board meetings have been organized like military drills.

Like any corporate officers under shareholder revolt, Stearns and Greer took measures to ensure by-laws cannot be accessed by members. Not only did they change the rules to thwart members in advance of the annual meeting, they also scheduled that meeting for today, Monday morning, at 8 AM, in the middle of rush hour traffic to ensure a scripted outcome claiming victory because of light attendance. They cannot control public opinion. What is really unprecedented is how much awkward embarrassment and tarnished reputation Fairchild has brought on itself. Thanks to the wide distribution of this blog, anyone interested can recall what happened. It is not vindictive to present the facts. It is called, history. Click on the tag, "Fairchild", for more.

Trouble in paradise: the inglorious fade of Fairchild Tropical Garden ... by gimleteye

A recent glossy mailer and proxy ballot for board members of Fairchild Garden was changed at the last minute to provide for an annual meeting of more than 35,000 members with Garden management racing the clock to manoever around an incipient rebellion. A first batch of expensive mailings did not include notice of the meeting. A second, did, calling for 8 AM on March 22nd. At such an inauspicious time on traffic clogged Old Cutler Road, the number of members who will be available to attend-- or challenge trustees-- will be few enough to fit in a teacup. That's the plan. Meanwhile, most of the 35,000 plus members of the Garden have no news at all about the turmoil triggered by mismanagement at the Garden, lead by Garden president for life, Bruce Greer. Repercussions continue from Greer's firing of the Garden's education director, Caroline Lewis. This week Alexandra Forrester, who replaced Lewis to lead the Fairchild Challenge, resigned. The Garden entrepreneurial educational program is out of momentum, with staff infighting, schools re-evaluating whether or not to continue participating, and rumor of board members also resigning.

Not a hint of this controversy appears in the Garden's recent mailing featuring the standard photo of Marjory Stoneman Douglas in her rocking chair for an imprimatur to the Garden she would not have lent, had she been alive. (My own view, as conservation chair of the organization founded by Douglas, Friends of the Everglades, and a longtime Fairchild member is that Ms. Douglas would not have abided the recent turmoil at the Garden. For one, she would have been thrilled at the attention the Fairchild Challenge shone on the Everglades and furious how trustees pulled the rug out from under the educational program.)

A group of members, long-time and honored volunteers (I am among those) had tried to promote their own slate of directors but were refused access to membership mailing list by trustees, refused the right to call a special meeting by trustees, and stopped from offering an amendment to institute term limits for trustees, now controlled by a small executive committee. Instead, the Garden board ran an end-around with a new rule providing that any amendments to Garden rules must be approved by a supermajority.

In December, Garden president Greer reached around human resources and fired the educational director, Caroline Lewis triggering public protests outside the Garden walls and a banner plane circling over the Garden trying to send a message to its insulated board. Ms. Forester, who had been recruited to train under Lewis, was only months later put in charge of a department without any constructive instruction to the crisis by management.

Judging from this result, the question remains: why did the Garden trustees want to weed out an environmental education program that had succeeded in elevating and energizing tens of thousands of students and teachers? (I doubt any but a small fraction of trustees ever bothered to understand what its entrepreneurial spirit by Ms. Lewis and innovations were about.) Trustees, oblivious to the goings-on instead reacted with paranoia and outlandish allegations to the incipient rebellion they caused.

It is possible that issues of fairness and equity at the heart of the Fairchild educational program caused unease with big money donors of the Garden. For instance, the large pledge by an agricultural grower in South Dade to build a new science center at the Garden would not necessarily run concurrent with energetic debate by students about the merits of phosphorous pollution in the Everglades and Florida Bay caused by agriculture. Build a building, limit it to the study of plant behavior, and tame students will fit there.

The Fairchild Challenge has done its sad fade in just a few months from a program about to break on the national stage as a model for environmental education in the United States, to a model how environmental education that frees young minds to imagine a better world will always find strangler weeds in Miami. This is shocking. For more than two decades working on environmental issues in Florida, it has been clear to me that education of young students is the best hope to connect urban populations with the imperatives for future change. The more that trustees of the Garden try to parse the trouble they caused as just a few disgruntled members and volunteers, the more damage they do. That is one reason the public and members of the Garden are still waiting for news how far the Garden has fallen.

Fairchild Garden: More on Term Limits for Trustees and Turmoil... by gimleteye

Our blog has written about the turmoil at Fairchild Garden in Coral Gables. At the end of last year, I joined a group of members whose efforts to introduce term limits to the By-Laws of the organization are being stiffly opposed by long-time trustees.

The group of members had coalesced around the firing of the head of education at the Garden, Caroline Lewis. Ms. Lewis was dismissed without cause by Bruce Greer, the president of the Garden. Greer worked around a chain of command to remove her for reasons that do not add up. The contortions that ensued to protect Garden management from criticism have wrapped up the Garden board, demoralized staff and volunteers, and shaken a Miami institution.

After Ms. Lewis was fired (she had innovated and built an environmental education program called the Fairchild Challenge that served, last year, more than 50,000 students in Miami-Dade and provided a model for an important national purpose. She was fired on a pretext-- see our archive for more), the members tried to organize a Special Meeting, provided by the institution's By-Laws, to support Ms. Lewis and to recommend term limits for directors. A protest demonstration was held outside the Garden walls. The board, shocked that opposition had developed for the first time and that members would actually resort to requiring compliance with the Garden's By-Laws, rejected the members' request. Protests continued, including a banner plane flying, "Term Limits for Fairchild". The members also proposed to introduce term limits to the organization at a forthcoming annual meeting. The board refused this request, too, rescheduling the annual meeting. At a board meeting last week, the Fairchild trustees passed a hastily organized, paranoid response: they voted to change the By-Laws to require that any further amendment (ie. term limits) must be approved by a supermajority vote of the board.

In its reaction to criticism, the Garden's politburo-style management-- defending a $20 million endowment-- proves the point of the term limit proposal. The more Garden management papers over divisions it alone created, the more clearly it makes the case itself for change. But Garden managers, with access and use of Garden financial resources, are gambling that the opposition will dissipate over time; to that end, the Garden refused to provide access to the membership mailing list by members as also provided by By-Laws.

Fairchild leadership is convinced that they deserve nothing but praise for dedicated service to the garden and the community. These contortions have been described more fully in the blog, "Term Limits for Fairchild".

What's going on at Fairchild Garden? by gimleteye

The board of Fairchild is meeting tomorrow in response to a request by members to amend the Garden By-Laws to provide for term limits for trustees and officers. Most have served for more than a decade and are unaware of the turmoil marring the Garden. The turmoil did not start with the firing of the dynamic founder of the Fairchild Environmental Challenge; a program that garnered national attention. In my opinion, a few trustees-- representing large corporate interests including FPL and Big Agriculture who are also donors to the Garden-- wanted closer control of the educational program that was gaining considerable exposure. Equity, fairness and balance in educating children on the environment does not always play well where long term profits are at stake. Think about it: of the 50,000 children served by the Fairchild Challenge, a certain percentage would later choose to be professionally involved in the environment. Let's say you are a donor, giving a pledging a gift over 10, 20, or 30 years: don't you think you would want to be sure that Garden programs did not foster opposition to his or her long term goals? It is possible that some trustees have not paid attention to the Garden or its controversies and are surprised by the opposition that has been galvanized by Garden management. Last Saturday, protest signs calling for term limits greeted attendees of the Garden's annual Gala. The Garden annual meeting when term limits for trustees might be considered is scheduled for early March.

Fairchild Garden: Term Limits for Trustees ... by gimleteye

The Miami Herald is having a hard time grappling with the controversial issue of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, triggered by a calcified board of trustees and officers whose actions have alienated long-time members and supporters. The simmering dissent may be addressed through a new proposal to add term limits to the Garden By-Laws. The proposal would allow an additional three year term for current trustees who want to continue to serve and an orderly rotation for a new slate of officers. There has been no response, yet, by Garden officers who could decide to place the proposal on the agenda for the annual March meeting or continue to block reform.

More disruptions at Fairchild Garden ... by gimleteye

The protests at Fairchild Garden continue. Now comes the issue of term limits. Garden critics want to hold trustees accountable, who have bungled management of the long-time Miami institution. Yesterday, a banner plane flew over the Garden filled with chocolate lovers: "Vote for Fairchild Term Limits".

It is pretty amazing that a board whose defenders pushed out the former Director of Education Caroline Lewis on a flimsy pretext, used the argument that no employee is indispensable. If no employee is indispensable, then why isn't the same true of trustees? Why does an organization become moribund? Now the Garden management argues that the board can't have term limits because otherwise board members will take their donations and walk away to other organizations. There's no evidence, here, and no fact except that Fairchild trustees have failed to provide for succession leadership.

Will Fairchild Garden trustees even be told there was a protest against the Garden? by gimleteye

Given how poorly Fairchild Garden management communicates with its trustees, I wonder if Fairchild Garden president Bruce Greer will even let Fairchild Garden trustees know. For more fotos, click 'read more'.

Lawsuit planned against Fairchild Garden ... by gimleteye

Although there was a longish story in the Sunday Miami Herald about the protest demonstration outside the gates of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, there was no mention in the Herald that longtime Garden members are organizing a lawsuit to require Fairchild trustees to open its books according to by-laws for members to hold a special meeting of members. "Concerns about inept management, a diversion from the garden's mission of conservation, education and research and a clash between Caroline Lewis and Miami attorney Bruce Greer, president of the Board of Trustees, were also brought out." It doesn't capture how Greer and Garden insiders refused to allow members access to their rights under the by-laws of the organization. Last week, on two occasions members who requested the membership list and other materials were turned away. A letter in the Miami Herald by Hayes Bowen noted the need for term limits for Garden trustees, one of the goals of the special meeting when it occurs. (Letter re-printed below.)

There was a very creepy videographer who taped the entire protest yesterday, getting right up into peoples' faces: when asked, he said he was employed by Bruce Greer and the Trustees of the Garden. It wasn't subtle but does send a message that the Garden is so worried about its future, it is now keeping a visual record of its objectors. Creepy. Very creepy. Here he is.


Change garden's bylaws

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Protesters gather against firing of Fairchild education director
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Our beloved Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden has lost its way. Recent actions by its president and board of trustees have brought to light troubling issues with the overall management of this nonprofit organization.

Fairchild once enjoyed respect as a world-renowned botanical garden focused on research, conservation and education. Established by Robert Montgomery in 1938, the garden grew and flourished with a dedicated staff and devoted volunteers. For more than 70 years, the focus was research, collection, propagation and the curatorship of plant species from around the world.

Today one must look past towering sculptures, furry gorillas and a giant Loch Ness Monster before glimpsing what was initially envisioned by Montgomery and David Fairchild. The garden is now a place on the social circuit for black-tie galas, weddings, concerts, art exhibits and other fundraising events.

Department directors, scientist-researchers, curatorial and horticultural staff have left or been terminated and not replaced. Disheartened volunteers and donors are leaving their posts as their purpose, too, has faded. The remaining staffers are demoralized. There appears to be a ``dumbing down''of the garden.

This must be stopped. We must bring back the original mission of the garden to preserve its purpose and value to the local, national and international communities. It's time for garden members to be heard and vote for change. We are more than 40,000 strong and have too much invested to sit by idly. The first course of action is voting for term limits to be added to the by-laws. We need new faces and restorative ideas at the executive-board level. Fairchild's reputation in the botanic world must be preserved before it becomes as endangered as qualified and educated garden staff and volunteers.

Hayes Bowen
Miami, FL

The Demonstration at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. By Geniusofdespair & Gimleteye

Here are photos taken by Gimleteye of the demonstration organized by educators to support Caroline Lewis who resigned under fire. It is going on, as I write, in front of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden till noon today (it is still going strong at 12:30). I like the sign that says: "Somethin's Fishy at Fairchild!" If you are a fast driver, you still have time to support Lewis in front of Fairchild Garden. (hit on images to enlarge them)

This Saturday 10-12PM: Rally at Fairchild Garden for Caroline Lewis ... by gimleteye

The following note was sent to thousands of Miami-Dade teachers:

Dear Educators, Environmentalists, and Concerned Citizens,

We've received a lot of positive response from teachers and students who plan to attend the rally for Caroline Lewis who was so unjustly and unfairly treated by Fairchild Garden. Her inspired leadership of the Fairchild Challenge deserves our support as much as the Garden management and trustees deserve our heartfelt objection. Thanks to the many letter writers to Fairchild president Bruce Greer who is responsible for this mess.

Please park at county facilities both adjacent to and across the street from the north entrance. Fairchild members can freely use Garden parking. Bring signs and enthusiasm and thanks for Caroline!

The power of learning and the Fairchild Garden ... by gimleteye

Don't have a lot of time this morning. I'm driving to Palm Beach for the Everglades Coalition meeting, held every January. At last night's Coalition dinner, some school performers selected from the Fairchild Challenge were invited to entertain the crowd. The young man in the photo wrote a poem about the Everglades. It is ironic, of course, that the leader and innovator of the Challenge, Caroline Lewis, was terminated from Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and teachers are in an uproar at the same moment the Challenge is on display as an example of the enthusiasm and diversity supporting the Everglades. A frequent criticism of the environmental movement in Florida is that it does not represent our communities. The Challenge not only does but does so splendidly. That is why the dismissal is so outrageous based on trustees' claims. A comment interpreted by junior staffers as having racial overtones caused her to be removed from supervising her staff: what she said (scroll down to earlier posts for details) was exactly to the point of energizing children from schools largely representing minorities.

Here's a quick story. Years ago, I was involved in lobbying public broadcasting to expand its coverage to the Florida Keys and Monroe County. When I first moved with my family to Florida, in 1988, it was to the Keys. I was amazed to learn that National Public Radio's reach didn't extend there and was informed -- after asking questions-- that the board of education in Monroe was responsible for making a request for the service. I finally found a school board member who was sympathetic. The threshold issue was that the Monroe county school board didn't want to have to listen to Miami-Dade county school board meetings whose broadcast was a condition of licensing etc. and couldn't be segmented out for Keys' listeners. I asked my school board friend in Key West: is it really that important to deny people the chance to listen and to be informed by NPR programming because of a school board meetings in Miami-Dade? He leaned in closely to me and said, "It is not about the school board broadcasts. There are just some in this county who don't want other people to become educated."

I was taken aback. But my experience in Florida for the past two decades is just that: there are some who just don't want people to become educated. Especially among children-- whose sense of right and wrong is so sharp-- the power of learning is a wonderful thing to behold, but it can come at a price that would shock you.

Type the rest of the post here

Fairchild Garden: a teaching moment outside the walls ... by gimleteye

A week from Saturday, on January 16, teachers and students in Miami Dade will participate in a rally and protest against the dismissal by Fairchild Garden trustees of the former Director of Education Caroline Lewis. (The full notice is reprinted below.) It is a teaching moment.

Miami taxpayers have had quite enough of sound judgment in the Magic City, where value magically disappears in a fog of grabbing and taking under the rubric of "investment". Another $250 million for another sports stadium? Sure. More money for monuments: by all means.

But education? And not, FCAT's. I mean, helping children form their own tools to assess and to contribute to society. That is such a low investment priority that Florida very nearly falls off the map, but for the engagement of teachers making do with less. (please click, 'read more')

The Miami-Dade schools who participated in the Fairchild Challenge come from a variety of demographics, from the poorest to the wealthiest. These schools and their students were brought together by the energy and determination of one educator, Caroline Lewis. There are several comments that have stuck with me this week, during the controversy over Ms. Lewis' dismissal. One: that no one is indispensible.

This idea that people and workers are cogs in a wheel is generally accepted. But no great achievement is ever reached-- whether by a teacher or a student-- without summoning the energy, creativity, and talent of individuals. Our society chooses to confer wealth to developers, or industrial farmers, or sports team owners sometimes through subsidies and sometimes, just sweat and sacrifice; but organizing 50,000 school children in a short seven year period-- as Caroline Lewis did-- for the purpose of education on the environment and the complexities of science and judgment that met curriculum requirements of the state: this progress was achieved through the force of will.

And it was a work-in-progress. There is no manual to duplicate the Fairchild Challenge, yet. And maybe the point of firing Caroline Lewis was to make sure there would be no manual or structure to rival the social functions of the Garden including planting sculptures of Big Foot in lily ponds.

As under-appreciated as teachers are, I am certain that teachers appreciate that there is a teaching moment on January 16th, from 10AM to noon outside the Garden.


"Dear Educators, Environmentalists, and Concerned Citizens,

Caroline Lewis, one of our rare, passionate, and superior educators, was abruptly dismissed from her position as of the Education Director at Fairchild Garden. This news came as a shock and total disbelief to all of us.

In founding and expanding the Fairchild Challenge she has given opportunities to thousands of teachers and students to feel successful and proud and to feel valued in their community.

Ms. Lewis’ tireless and inclusive efforts have empowered and touched our lives deeply and heightened environmental awareness among or teachers and students. We are stunned and dismayed at the lack of fairness and due process afforded a Fairchild manager who was also an important leader and role model in our local community. For additional information, please read Eyeonmiami, the blog:

http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/search?q=fairchild

We are organizing a rally to express our appreciation. We invite you to join teachers, students, citizens, environmentalists, friends of Fairchild Garden, and community leaders to urge the reversal of this unfortunate action.

Join us on Saturday, January 16, 2010 from 10 am to 12 noon starting outside the north entrance of the Fairchild Garden at 10901 Old Cutler Road Coral Gables, FL 33156. Public parking is available nearby or at Fairchild, for members. Hand carried signs and banners are most welcome.

Let’s show our appreciation for an outstanding educator and a legacy of good works.

Friends of Equity and Fairness"