Muslim school at 'dead end' in code fight
Orange closes portables, so children must stay home until new building is ready
Babita Persaud Sentinel Staff Writer
A hundred Muslim students are out of school as their administrators squabble with Orange County code enforcement over staying in portables until their $2.3 million building is finished.
"We have 100 kids here with nowhere to go," said Imam Tariq Rasheed of the Islamic Center of Orlando.
Buena Vista Muslim Academy, on 7 acres owned by the Islamic Center, has until Monday to remove five portables on its property at 11543 Ruby Lake Road in the Lake Buena Vista area.
The elementary school has been operating out of portables for nearly seven years -- its whole existence.
It is opening a two-story, 27,000-square-foot facility, which is being renamed Muslim Academy of Greater Orlando. The building is nearly done, administrators say.
"We need four to eight more weeks," said Abrahim Mamsa, Buena Vista's director of administration.
But code-enforcement officials say they have given the school enough time to remove the portables, which never received permits.
"Time has run out," said Mitch Gordon, Orange County zoning manager.
Starting Monday, the school has to start paying $1,000 a day until the portables are gone.
The dispute has been ongoing for years.
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Gordon said the portables were placed on the property without permits when the school started seven years ago.
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If a "fundi" Christian school did that, the government of Orange County and Florida would have removed the "portables" with children still inside...
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Sunday, February 04, 2007
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1 comment:
Trinity Baptist still has mobiles in their yard on the west side of Jacksonsonville which they run a school from and have a multimillion dollar buliding already up and running. For Orlando to react in such a way is a double standard and has a negative affect on the children who have no choice in any matters. It reads more like a power grab if there isn't a safty issue.
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