Month: November 2007

The recent flap over a proposed name change of the MOSI Partnership school has reinforced, once again, the dicey task of school naming. In the good name of wanting to honor the honorable — for example, Mayor Pam Iorio’s late father, the beloved John Iorio — we perpetuate a ritual too subjective to be consistently appropriate and uncontroversial.

Except for that limited, elite American pantheon of heroes and high achievers, we’re much better off going geographical or, as in the case of MOSI, making allowances for a school’s special designation. This would avoid needless controversy and would help instill some sense of community in schools too often lacking in identity.

Unlike a rose, a school by any other name wouldn’t be the same. To be sure, we all know that what goes on in a school matters much more than what name it goes by. But that doesn’t mean the name is incidental – especially to those who go there or send their children there. Marcus Garvey or Steve Garvey Elementary? Harry or Truman Capote Middle School? Stonewall or Jackson Pollock High School? Jim Davis or Miles Davis Magnet? You bet it matters.

Reality dictates that image and connotation count, along with old-fashioned politics, new-fashioned political correctness and even raw snob appeal. Would Tommy Franks Voc Tech be as attractive — or acceptable — today as it was six years ago? Would it matter if your diploma read: “Sharpton,” “Schwarzkopf” or “Shabazz” High School? You bet it would.

The fundamental problem is two-fold when we name schools after people. For openers, we have many more schools than we have consensus American icons. And the disparity only widens. No problem with the Washingtons, Franklins, Jeffersons, Carvers, Lincolns, Edisons and Roosevelts. But all too quickly we run out of such first-tier names. That gives us a Newsome, a Sickles or a Wharton. Good people who did yeoman work becomes the criteria.

Inherently problematic are scenarios for naming schools after the living: typically local politicians, school board members and business leaders. Not only are they not likely of iconic quality, but the unwritten chapters of their lives can prove awkward for posterity. Sort of the pedagogic equivalent of the Houston Astros’ erstwhile Enron Field. Joe Kotvas Alternative School would have been embarrassing. A Brian Blair Junior High could still happen.

Remember why J. Crockett Farnell High School became Freedom High? Because too many parents took umbrage at having their kids’ school named for the late superintendent who was forced to resign in the 1960s after being convicted of stealing school district property.

Eventually Farnell’s backers re-petitioned and requested a lower-profile middle school in Nine Eagles be named in his honor. The school district acquiesced when it was noted that Farnell’s conviction was eventually overturned on appeal. Now there’s a standard.

To avoid ugly controversies or just awkward, competing petition drives on behalf of good people, we should look to geography wherever we can. Hillsborough High, Turkey Creek Middle School and Ballast Point Elementary work just fine, thank you.

And at a time when the quaint concept of “neighborhood schools” is re-rooting – despite protests from the usual suspects that this is “resegregation” – why not max out on a local community’s identity?

The Architectural Review Commission, as we know, can easily morph into the Door Knocker Nazis in their self-important interpretation of what’s appropriate for designated historic areas. But among those in the know, few are disagreeing with the ARC’s approach to proposals for redevelopment of Hyde Park Village.

The ARC has now twice rejected plans by Village owner Wasserman Realty Capital to shoehorn a pair of residential towers into the retail mix. Too big and too crowded, say most residents and Hyde Park Preservation Inc.

Wasserman has incrementally been whittling down the height and mass of its proposed condo structures. A few feet here, a story there. A sop to critics.

It’s not been nearly enough, and most neighbors, HPPI and the ARC aren’t buying it.

Maybe the best advice for Wasserman is this: You’ve done your homework, and you knew what you were dealing with before you bought in. And even your biggest critics realize that status quo won’t succeed in the marketplace the Village competes in. But surely you have an ultimate, Plan C position that you’ve been hoping to better. Well, you won’t.

Put it on the table now.

*Hillsborough County Commissioners have no right to bristle over references to their well-earned “dysfunctional” and “yahoo” reputations. Most recent example: Ousting Commissioner Rose Ferlita from her seat on the Tampa Port Authority and replacing her – by an outrageous 5-2 vote – with Brian Blair. If anyone should “apologize,” it should be those five – or everybody but Ferlita and Mark Sharpe.

Ferlita, a former Tampa City Council member, is smart and familiar with port issues. Blair is neither. The port is also in Ferlita’s district.

The port, for those commissioners who need reminding — or minding — is very, very important to this region — from economic as well as security standpoints. Much too important for the obtuse likes of Blair, whose credentials include being a ham-handed, inarticulate chairman of the county’s Environmental Protection Commission.

Couldn’t Blair have been, say, permanent chaplain? That way he could formally thank God every week for having been elected to something.

* May cooler heads yet prevail on Tampa City Council. The flap over who speaks for Tampa, a city with a classic strong-mayor form of government, is petty, ego-driven and unworthy of either council or the mayor.

Best bet: Let Charlie Miranda mediate. He’s got just the right qualifications on this one: old-school smarts — and no longer wants to be mayor.