Delray’s Old School Square needs new start
For three decades, Old School Square in Delray Beach has been a cultural asset and a symbol of the revival of one of Florida’s classic cities.
The restored school is an architectural jewel in the heart of downtown that has long been a favorite regional venue for art festivals, exhibitions and concerts. Jimmy Buffett performed to sellout crowds in May.
But behind the scenes, tensions were rising between Old School Square’s managers and city officials.
A 24-member board that oversees the nonprofit center was rife with complaints that staff members stonewalled their routine spending questions. Nine board members resigned in disgust. Chief Operating Officer Holland Ryan showed a similar indifference to the Sun Sentinel by ignoring our requests for routine minutes of board meetings. The center has no chief executive and the last two CEOs resigned. After 30 years, their track record should be a lot stronger than this.
Old School Square gets $750,000 a year from taxpayers, money that flows through Delray’s Community Redevelopment Agency, where five of seven CRA members are the mayor and city commissioners.
Parting ways
A frustrated Mayor Shelly Petrolia, Vice Mayor Shirley Johnson and City Commissioner Juli Casale voted Aug. 10 to part ways with the nonprofit group that runs Old School Square. The divorce will be final in six months.
City officials cited the group’s failure to file an audit as a condition of getting tax money, record-keeping irregularities and cronyism. A board member’s company won the contract to do more than $2 million worth of school and theater renovations. A generous donor insisted on the board member’s firm; it’s a glaring conflict of interest.
“It was time we did our due diligence,” Johnson told the editorial board. “Their explanations were not credible.” She added city officials are partly responsible for the festering problems because “we took our eyes off [Old School Square].”
The fired operators won’t go away quietly. A petition opposing the breaking of the lease claims nearly 10,000 signatures, and there are threats of a lawsuit, which would add to the pile of litigation arising from the city’s factional politics.
To make matters worse, the public had no advance notice of the breaking of the lease. In a gross lack of transparency, the issue was not even on the agenda for the Aug. 10 meeting.
A decision of this magnitude should not have been that way. Nor should it have teetered on a 3 to 2 vote. Commissioners Ryan Boylston and Adam Frankel voted no and suggested a probationary period to answer City Hall’s concerns, a sentiment shared by former Mayor David Schmidt. “Management at Old School Square can be fixed. Let’s fix it together,” he said.
Transparency needed
That spirit of collaboration was how Delray Beach used to address big issues, with lots of public discussion. Transparency is especially important with Old School Square, given its iconic status.
Petrolia said the city discussed Old School Square’s problems on three previous occasions, but on the night of the pivotal vote, public comment was not allowed. That was wrong, and it provided political ammunition for critics to accuse the mayor and her allies of ignoring public opinion.
City Manager Terrence Moore will seek proposals from another nonprofit to take over Old School Square. After the vote, Moore went on social media to knock down persistent rumors that the square would close permanently.
“This historic site will not be sold or in any way diminished,” Moore posted on a city Facebook page. “The City Commission is responsible for managing taxpayer funds, and ensuring that nonprofit agencies, funded with taxpayer dollars, are effectively and efficiently managed.”
For Old School Square to be diminished would be a travesty. It’s chiefly the responsibility of the manager and the three city officials who broke the lease to make sure that won’t happen.
The search for a new operator is the right step, but it must happen within 180 days, and things could get messy. The current operator owns all the expensive equipment inside the buildings, marketing software and donor lists.
When all venues are operating, Old School Square’s annual budget is nearly $4 million. Taken together, the cost for another group or the city to take over could approach $10 million, but there’s been no discussion of those financial implications.
Taxpayers deserve to see the whole picture, starting with a completed audit, discussed at a public meeting, to resolve once and for all questions about the center’s finances. Hopefully, the next operator of Old School Square will take accountability more seriously.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.