Downtown Parents Protest, Hit Mayor on School Funding

By Etta Sanders

With chants of "Liar, liar, pants on fire," Downtown parents took to the streets twice last month to call on Mayor Michael Bloomberg to fulfill a promise to build a pre-k through 8th grade school on Beekman Street and an annex to P.S. 234 in Tribeca. Bloomberg said construction of those school buildings and 19 others citywide will be delayed if the state does not provide additional education funding.

		On Feb. 16, parents and some children, most from P.S. 234, gathered with placards outside St. John's University on Murray Street, where the mayor was to speak at a ceremony celebrating the groundbreaking for a massive commercial and residential development across the street from P.S. 234. The community had agreed to the

project, on what is known as Site 5B, in exchange for a promise by the city to build the two schools.

The next day 50 parents, again hoisting protest signs, were led by Councilman Alan Gerson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and other elected officials on a march from P.S. 234 to the steps of City Hall. 

Local officials said they agreed with Bloomberg that the state owes the city more education funds. But they asserted that city capital funds had been committed for the Lower Manhattan schools as part of a negotiated agreement signed in the fall of 2004 by Gerson and Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff. The agreement  allowed for the sale and development of two city-owned properties in Tribeca. In that deal, which ended formal neighborhood opposition to the development plans, community leaders made concessions on the heights and setback requirements for the residential buildings that will be built on the sites.

		The agreement states that "the city has provided for $44 million in the [Department of Education] capital budget to develop a new pre-k through 8th grade school in lower Manhattan." The balance of the funding, $20 million, would come from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Backed by Downtown parents on the steps of City Hall on Feb. 17,

Gerson said the city had reneged on the deal. "When this community and this City Council signed off in support of developments that will bring new housing units, we also signed an agreement that in writing assures the expedited creation of these two new schools," he said.

Although there is no mention in the agreement of the new schools being contingent on state aid, Bloomberg said at a Feb 13 press conference, "Well, it is. We don't have the money."

The planned Beekman Street school will be in the district of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who told the Trib on Feb. 17 that legal action may be taken in an effort to enforce the agreement. "This is a contractual agreement," he said. "There may very well be legal recourse."

		The mayor mostly steered clear of discussing the agreement during his remarks inside St. John's University on Feb. 16, prior to the groundbreaking on the development site just outside the university and one block from P.S. 234. He highlighted the affordable housing units that the new development will include, and the amenities that it will bring to the neighborhood,including a

parking lot, a supermarket and a community center. "It is a project that will make Lower Manhattan vastly more livable," he said. The residential and retail complex is being built by developer Edward J. Minskoff.

"Of equal importance under the agreement, the city has agreed that a portion of those same proceeds will also fund the construction of an annex of the overcrowded P.S. 234 and the school on Beekman Street," Silver said at the podium, directing his comments to the mayor. "I know that you and I together will keep those promises," he said.

Bloomberg, in response, said he was "ready to work with all parties in Albany and Washington and at the other end of City Hall" to make it happen. "This is something that not any of us can do by ourselves."

		"The message we want to give is, you signed an agreement and we only conceded the height and bulk of these towers because you promised in return to build a school for these kids to go to," said John Jiler, a P.S. 234 parent who helped organize the demonstrations. "Where are they going to go to school? It's just insane."

Daniel Doctoroff, the deputy mayor who signed the agreement on behalf of the city, declined to take questions following the ceremony and referred reporters to the mayor's earlier remarks. Doctoroff told the Trib on Feb. 9 that it was "probably premature for me to comment" on whether the agreement had been broken.

Some Downtown residents have called for delaying the construction and occupancy of new Downtown residences as long as the new schools are in limbo. "Why can't we stop the construction of the Minskoff towers until the schools are built?" Jiler called out at the Feb 17 rally at City Hall. Gerson replied that he is exploring "all legal avenues including filing for an injunction to do that."

But Bloomberg rejected any construction delays. "We don't have the right to say to somebody that they can't build if they have a building permit," he said at his Feb. 13 press conference.

At issue is $9 billion of education funding that the State Supreme Court ordered the state to pay the city as the result of a lawsuit brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE).  Governor George Pataki is appealing the decision.

Julie Menin, Community Board 1 chair, said the community supports pursuing the state funds, but criticized Bloomberg's tactic of dropping the new schools from the budget. "This community received no notice of this," she said. "They're playing politics with the kids of Lower Manhattan. It's unacceptable."

Menin said she spoke directly to the mayor about the funding. "He told me, ‘Talk to the governor,'" she said.

P.S. 234's principal, Sandy Bridges, said she couldn't imagine that the city will not fund the schools, and called the budget move a political stunt. "I hope to God it's not anything more than that because if this school doesn't happen it would be absolutely devastating for all of Downtown," she said.

Even as construction of the Beekman Street school was on hold, Silver and members of CB1 met last month with Department of Education officials to discuss the zoning for the school. CB1 held a hearing on the zoning on Feb. 28 in the Community Room of Southbridge Towers, though few turned out to offer their input.

One scenario discussed by board members was to zone the school for the CB1 area, with preference given to students living east of Broadway. At P.S. 234, preference would be given to students living west of Broadway. At P.S. 89, preference would be given to students living in Battery Park City. Each of the schools would be zoned exclusively for students living in the CB1 geographic area.

The city is planning to add thousands of new residences Downtown, including 2.7 million square feet of development in the area known as Greenwich Street South, from Liberty Street to the Battery west of Broadway. Menin said she had met with Doctoroff to discuss another new school in that area.

"We have to have a long-range plan to build more schools in our neighborhood," she said, adding that the community board is "very active" in looking at additional sites.

She said that a site in southern Battery Park City now reserved for a long-planned women's museum may provide space for a school.

In addition to the other new residential buildings and conversions underway Downtown, the mayor has suggested including 700,000 square feet of space, equivalent to roughly 700 units, in the buildings planned for the south end of the World Trade Center site.

Asked by the Trib where the children in those apartments will go to school, Deputy Mayor Doctoroff declined to answer and just smiled.