Monday, March 21, 2011

Cops oust councilman's wife

Miami-Dade School officials lost control of a meeting to talk about changes proposed for Doral schools Monday night and even asked police to escort one irate woman out of the cafeteria.

But I am not sure if they knew she was Graciela Boria, wife of Doral Councilman Luigi Boria.

The councilman, in Tallahassee for the "legislative days" when local electeds meet with state electeds to try to get on the same page, was unable to attend the meeting where school board bureaucrats "informed" the public about a complicated proposal to change almost every school in Doral in order to alleviate overcrowding at the one public high school in the city, where they face a lawsuit due to overcrowding. But his wife, whose sister's children attend Doral Middle School, was there and interrupted after almost 90 minutes of Region I Superintendent Carmen Marinelli's condescending monotone in explaining nothing.

In lieu of taking questions from the audience, the school officials had people write questions on index cards, but several parents said that their questions were never read and Ladra submitted two questions that also were seemingly passed over (we have video of Marinelli's henchman Richard Vidal stuffing them in his pocket and will download it as soon as I can figure it out). The group of mostly mothers who had come from their jobs, some of whom were paying babysitters so they could be there, were growing impatient and Mrs. Boria did what many of us wanted to when she charged toward the front of the room and interrupted.

"Enough," Boria said.

We couldn't hear much else, but the gist was something along the lines of, "Please stop feeding us these rehearsed lines and let's have a real dialogue about possible alternatives since nobody here is in favor of this musical chairs number that we fear could hurt our kids." But her words were drowned out with applause and cheers -- which turned to boos and chants of "shame on you" when Marinelli asked the police to step in.

In Ladra's video (on our My305News channel on YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQJQ2lN2HQU), two officers approach Boria and almost sheepishly ask her to step outside. Boria is visibly indignant as she picks up her purse and, while protesting her ouster, leaves the cafeteria.

But she doesn't have to worry about anything going on her record. Ladra asked one of the officers where she might get a copy of the "incident report" later.

"What incident," the officer asked with a bored look and smiled.

2 comments:

  1. Were any conclusions made at the meeting? Do parents have any say regarding the closing? When is it set to happen?

    ReplyDelete
  2. The DMS PTSA president is leading a group of parents, including almost all the other schools, in putting together an alternative proposal, which they have until March 31 to present. There is another meeting tonight at the Doral Country Club,on 52nd Street and 112th. Starts at 7 p.m. and all the parents at all schools are invited.

    ReplyDelete

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