By Helen Klein
How much money did the failed effort to put a school inside the old Fortway Theater cost the city? That’s the question being asked by one of the school’s original advocates, Carlo Scissura, the president of the District 20 Community Education Council (CEC), who has called on the Department of Education (DOE) and the School Construction Authority (SCA) to find out exactly what went wrong, and why, as well as how much taxpayer money was effectively thrown out on the dead-ended project. At the February meeting of the CEC, which was held at Public School/Intermediate School 104, 9115 Fifth Avenue, Scissura said he was asking, “That a full investigation be done immediately as to what happened.” In his request, Scissura was backed by the other members of the CEC. “It’s important for all of us to know why our tax dollars have gone into the design, a book that came out, drawings, plans, meetings,” Scissura went on. “I’m sure that there are hundreds of thousands of dollars that have gone into this project that probably could have been very nicely used in a classroom where money belongs,” he stressed. “I think it’s an outrage when we’re talking about school financing money when a project that’s been on the table, that’s been designed, all of a sudden comes off.” The problem, said Scissura, in a subsequent interview, is that SCA proceeded with its plans without first securing the building. “It really boggles the mind,” he remarked. “As an attorney, I would never advise a client to design plans till they had purchased a property. “They missed a step,” he went on. “How do you do all they did without being close to entering into a lease or any negotiations to purchase?” The sudden about-face on the part of SCA with respect to the Fortway likely came about earlier this year after the agency learned that the developer who had purchased the property had nearly completed extensive renovations to ready the site, 6722 Fort Hamilton Parkway, for a supermarket. Representatives of the agency had toured the site with City Councilmember Vincent Gentile and community leaders, and had been struck by, “The extensive work that had been done,” Gentile said when he announced the impending arrival of the supermarket. However, three weeks before SCA acknowledged that they were dropping the Fortway plan, the agency said the project was progressing, according to Scissura, who recalled that he had been at a meeting with, “The regional superintendent, the deputy regional superintendent, and the local instructional superintendent,” at that time. “They called SCA, and they said, ‘we’re moving forward.’” So exactly what happened? One high-up DOE administrator is reported to have acknowledged privately to someone familiar with the situation that the agency had, “Dropped the ball,” with respect to the Fortway. Indeed, Chancellor Joel Klein sent a personal apology to Scissura, who noted that he had told Klein, “It’s not about me. It’s about 400 kids that will not have a school opening in fall, 2008. “Blunders went on here,” contended Scissura. “There has been blunder after blunder after blunder – blunders with the school buses, blunders with gifted and talented programs. When is the DOE going to get its act together? Instead of worrying about restructuring, they should be worrying about the community.” A key in this is the fact that District 20 – which includes schools in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst, Boro Park and Sunset Park – is one of the most overcrowded districts in the city. While it was slated in the most recent capital plan to get approximately 5,000 new classroom seats, finding sites in such a densely built-up neighborhood has been a challenge. Nonetheless, said Scissura, education advocates have been trying to ease the task for the SCA by scouting out potential school sites. “It’s great that District 20 is getting the most classroom seats,” noted Scissura, “yet when we give them space to look at, they don’t do anything with it.” By press time, DOE had not responded to a request for comment.
