Fort Myers, FL
You'll find some very interesting details in the meat of the lawsuit filed against Gateway residents by our two Charter Schools. The suit that was filed this month is asking Gateway residents to refund the schools for assessments in 2007 and 2008, to forgive any assessments owed for 2009 and 2010 and to never charge the schools for any more assessments until the end of time.
The lawsuit claims that "Lee County Community Charter Schools will be irreparably injured in the absence of injunctive relief." I hope we get an explanation of that one when this whole thing hits the courtroom. I mean it'll be nice to know how we are irreparably damaging them, wouldn't it? The lawsuit says the "injury" to the Charter Schools outweighs any possible claim of injury to Gateway residents.
Best of all is the claim that the public interest "will not be harmed and indeed will be served if relief is granted". Isn't in interesting how an attorney can determine that the public interest of Gateway residents will not be harmed if a court decided we have to come up with tens of thousands of dollars to give back to the school. Maybe it's just me, but as someone who owns some of that refund money, I'd feel pretty injured. The suit goes on to say that entering into a relief injunction will "protect the rights of lee County Community Charter Schools and will further the public interest".
The questions for our board of Supervisors, which, of course, will go unanswered are: does the district have insurance if it's determined that someone missed a change in the law and, indeed, we have to pay back the schools? If we pay an attorney to watch out for our interests, to determine whether or not we are being injured, should he not have known about this change in the law in 2007 and informed the board? What about his insurance? Perhaps an attorney general opinion back then would have been helpful when some smart attorney from the Charter School came knocking.
The district will hold a closed-door session at its next meeting to determine what their next step is. Maybe Ed Sichel or gary Neubauer will ask attorney Tony Pires how he missed this one. May be they will ask him what the real chances of winning this one are. Maybe the Supervisors will just put their John Hancock's on another check, lick the envelope and mail it off to Charter.
