Spotlight 189-260310

Good morning. What we’re covering in today’s Spotlight:

The Decline of Public High School Athletics
The Toxic Legacy of the Grove’s Old Smokey
A Big Birthday Event at A.C.’s Icees
Design Plans for Kirk Munroe, Fuller Street

No Contest: The Uneven Playing Field of High School Sports

Public school athletic programs across Miami-Dade are struggling to keep pace with well-funded private school rivals, as shrinking enrollment, limited budgets and transfer rules reshape the high school sports landscape.

By Walter Villa

Coconut Grove native and former football player Buddy Howell remembers fondly his playing days at Coral Gables High, especially his senior year in 2013, when the Cavaliers went 11-2 and a won championship.

That year, Coral Gables defeated one of Miami’s private-school athletic powers, Christopher Columbus High School, in both the regular season and the playoffs.

“We felt the love from the Coral Gables community that year,” said Howell, who grew up just a mile from the school’s Le Jeune Road campus and went on to star as a running back for Florida Atlantic University before embarking on a brief NFL career.

Old Smokey Class-Action Hearing Begins This Week

After eight years of legal wrangling, a Miami-Dade County judge will decide whether the lawsuit over toxic contamination tied to the Old Smokey incinerator in Coconut Grove can proceed as a class action.

By Jenny Jacoby

A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge will decide in the coming weeks whether the long-running “Old Smokey” lawsuit against the City of Miami can move forward as a class action — a step that could open the case to tens of thousands of potential plaintiffs.

The decision marks the most significant development in a case that has hovered over Coconut Grove’s historically Black West Grove neighborhood for more than eight years.

“It’s about time the city did something right for these plaintiffs,” said Jason Clark, an attorney working on the case with The Downs Law Group.

Sunday in the Park with A.C.’s Icees

Alan Cohen, the A.C. behind A.C.’s Icees, celebrated his 80^th birthday on Sunday in Kennedy Park, where he has been serving chilled icees for more than four decades.

By Spotlight Staff

Friends and fans of Alan Cohen – the A.C. of A.C.’s Icees – came out on Sunday to celebrate Cohen’s 80^th birthday in Kennedy Park, where he first parked his food truck more than 40 years ago. As legend has it, Cohen found his calling while relaxing in the park after moving to Miami in 1978. “Some of us were sitting under a tree in Kennedy Park,” he told the Spotlight in 2021, “and I said if I’m going to work again, I want this park to be my office.” He opened A.C. Icee’s a short time later, and the rest is history.

View Photos from Sunday’s 80^th Birthday Celebration Here…

Second Design Meeting Announced for Fuller Street, Kirk Munroe Park

A second community meeting on the proposed design plans for Kirk Munroe Park and Fuller Street will be held at City Hall on Thursday, March 19 starting at 6 p.m.

The goal of the meeting, according to District 2 liaison Javier Gonzalez, is to finalize the locations of key park amenities – the proposed playground and hitting wall, for instance – and discuss construction materials and finishes.

The agenda will include an open question-and-answer session.