Week in review

After charter school sinks, refund due?

LAND O'LAKES - The Pasco County school system is looking for a refund from a failed charter school.

Superintendent John Long said he wants to hold the state Department of Education accountable for the financial loss of Deerwood Academy, a charter school that closed this month with an estimated $200,000 debt.

It is state education law that binds districts to pass public money on to privately run charter schools, he noted.

"We shouldn't be giving out money," board member Pam Coulter said.

Deerwood closed Oct. 10 because it lacked enough students to generate the state dollars needed to stay afloat.

Long told board members that because Deerwood closed in the middle of the assessment period, it would receive no state money. In the same way the district funnels money to traditional public schools, it had already apportioned dollars to the charter school based on early enrollment expectations.

"All the money we gave them, they never earned," Long said.

HUDSON - Ralph Brown looked at the shallow waters of the Hudson Channel from the deck of his model boat on a recent morning and grinned. Then he gunned the boat out into the rocky water where other boaters fear to venture.

It's all in the unique design, said Brown, who is looking to combine capitalism and environmentalism with his new "manatee-friendly" boat.

Dubbed Dreamsurfer, the 23-foot deck boat with a V6 engine is capable of cruising in 6 to 8 inches of water; other boats need roughly 18 inches.

It is the prototype in a line of "Dream Boats" Brown said he plans to begin building in Pasco early next year.

The models include a patent-pending tritunnel propulsion design that offers speed without the clogging that is prevalent in some jet boats. It also allows for some of the shallow-water access of an air boat without its noise, said Brown, a 44-year-old Spring Hill financial planner turned inventor.

The design enables boaters to cruise over rocky waters and avoid injuring manatees, thanks to a shielded propeller and a bow that rides the top of the water.

Company officials said they plan to invest nearly $2-million in a boat building-facility with the help of multiple investors and state grant money. Plans involve securing a site in Pasco to establish a boat-building campus, said Dream Boats Inc. officers, and hope to be turning out boats by February.

NEW PORT RICHEY - The state has decided it will keep trying to prosecute exotic dancers charged in an undercover sting operation in Pasco clubs.

The State's Attorney's Office has appealed lewd conduct charges against 10 exotic dancers in cases that had been dismissed by Pasco County Judge Marc Salton. The appeal will go to the 6th Circuit Court.

Last October, undercover sheriff's deputies watched strippers and received lap dances at five adult nightclubs in west Pasco County - Lollipops, Calendar Girls, Club 54, Sin-na-bar and Players Club. Then the deputies arrested 30 dancers on misdemeanor charges of lewdness.

But for a lewd conduct charge to stick, someone needs to be offended. Salton ruled that undercover officers, in their official capacity, could not be.

If the state loses, it makes it tougher to arrest strippers since the complaint would have to come from a customer who paid to enter a strip club and then became offended by the lewd conduct.

"We don't read the statute as having that kind of requirement," Assistant State Attorney Marie King.

TARPON SPRINGS - About four months ago, consultants for the defunct Stauffer Chemical plant concluded that most of the land at the Superfund toxic waste site is geologically stable and groundwater supplies are relatively safe from contamination.

That finding led the company to endorse a plan to pile up contaminated dirt at the plant and cover the piles with watertight caps.

But now government and independent experts want Stauffer consultants to go back and redo some tests. An extensive technical review of the results of geophysical and groundwater studies at the site has revealed several flaws in the way studies were conducted, said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency project manager Nestor Young.

A public relations strategist who works for Stauffer said the company is not trying to rush to any conclusions.

"The idea is to reach consensus and that's what we're working on now," Jim Frankowiak said. "There was some additional work in the field they had to do and some of that has been completed.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists told the EPA they were especially concerned about high levels of arsenic found in water samples tested during the study. They said the question of whether that arsenic could get into the deeper Floridan Aquifer warrants further investigation.

CLEARWATER - Kids have gossiped about teachers since the days of the one-room schoolhouse, telling peers who is cool and who should be avoided at all costs.

For the past couple of years, students throughout North America have had a high-tech way to dish. They can simply log onto the Web site RateMyTeachers.com, and share their comments.

But not from a terminal in a Pinellas County public school.

The district blocks the site from all district computers following a complaint last year that the site distracted students at East Lake High School.

Since last fall, about 500 schools and school districts throughout North America have blocked access to RateMyTeachers.com, where more than 12,000 Florida teachers are rated, said site co-founder Michael Hussey, 25, of Washington, D.C.

So far, the Hillsborough County School District is not one of them. School spokeswoman Linda Cobbe said the site doesn't "fall within the district guidelines for what sites should be blocked." But she added, "There is not an educational purpose for students going on there, so they would be discouraged from doing that."

* ST. PETERSBURG - Artist P. Buckley Moss will close her Beach Drive NE gallery at the end of January because Parkshore Plaza, a 29-story condominium tower, will be built in the same block.

Part of the concern is that dust from construction debris might damage the art. It could get into framed pieces, and they would have to be reframed, said Jake Henderson, vice president of P. Buckley Moss Galleries in Mathews, Va. Moss, 70, has been a commercial success with her oil and watercolor paintings of Mennonite and Amish families, farms and scenes of nature and simple living. Original watercolors are priced between $1,000 and $40,000; oils sell for between $10,000 and $70,000.

* PALM HARBOR - Palm Harbor University High School's highbrow reputation might be built around its International Baccalaureate program, but local kids outnumber the IBs 2-to-1. That might explain the quick sales that seniors Wade Waybrant and Chris Wheaton, both 17, have gotten with their T-shirts that read: We're not smart. We just live here. Even the IB kids are buying them, they said.

* Next week is the final week for Pinellas parents to participate in the county's school choice program. If parents don't turn application in by Nov. 3, the school district will choose a school for them from the remaining seats available. This is the second year for choice, the county's alternative to busing for desegregation.

* The High Speed Rail Commission meets in Orlando on Monday and is expected to decide on the route of the high speed rail. But even rail advocates say the voter-mandated project is looking doubtful because the train companies have been unwilling to take on the project in exchange for development rights along the route.

- Compiled by Times staff writer Sharon Kennedy Wynne.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright