Here's the unedited version of the letter

Folks,
I had a letter published in the Neighbor section of The Miami Herald on June 15Th. Here's what I actually sent in to the editor:

There are always two sides to a story.


Neighbor Editor:

There are always two sides to an argument. In your recent publication of Neighbors you posted a letter from Mr. Larry Perez concerning State School HHH1. In the letter he decided to attack the employees of the Department of Planning and Facility of Miami Dade School for doing their job. Mr. Perez has given you half truths. He claims that they are in violation of the UDB rules implemented by the CDMP report written by the county. If you were to read what it actually states in section EDU-2A there are exemptions when building a new high school with in one mile of the UDB. The Dept. of Planning & Facility has done nothing illegal.

He is also claiming there was no public notice given when in fact there were 4 public notices advertised concerning State School HHH1. There's no hidden agenda as claimed by the opposition. As for eminent domain, this is a law that was passed several years ago by our elected officials not the school board.

The children of the community are currently being sent to the following high schools Felix Varela, Miami Sunset and Miami Southridge. As you are aware as of the 06-07 school year Miami Sunset High was at a 124% capacity, Felix Varela High was at a 130% capacity and Miami Southridge High was at a 138% capacity. A couple of years ago a mandate was passed by the voters from the state of Florida requesting the class room sizes be reduced. Even though the school board is trying to meet the mandate but as of today it has not been met. State School HHH1 will help in meeting this mandate.

When the fight for HHH1 started a few months back the residents that opposed the school claimed that property value, parking, traffic and CRIME will be a problem and they did not want the school “In My Neighborhood”. Now that they are getting a push back by the MAJORITY of the community that approves SS HHH1 with out change of location and with out delay, they changed their wording from “Stop HHH1” to “Relocate HHH1”. We are building a school for our children not a prison.

I am a resident of the community and my children will benefit from HHH1. SS HHH1 is scheduled to open in August 2010. In the next month or so every member of the school board will be asked to vote for the construction of state school HHH1. Our community has been waiting for this for a very long time. Dr Crew and the other members of the school board, there is only one solution. That solution is to listen to the MAJORITY of the community and vote yes for state school HHH1.