Emails show city weighed letting Somerset use Youth Center field

Emails obtained by the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center Association show that city officials and Somerset Gables Academy were in discussions about allowing the charter school to use the Youth Center’s athletic field for physical education classes and potentially after-school activities, despite restrictions the association says prohibit such use.

The correspondence, which the association obtained outside of the public-records requests at the center of its new lawsuit against the city, filed Sept. 18, includes exchanges involving Mayor Vince Lago, City Manager Peter Iglesias and Community Recreation Director Fred Couceyro. The emails show that the proposed arrangement advanced far enough for city officials to discuss approval, rental terms and a facility rental permit, although the city says no agreement was ultimately executed and Somerset never used the property.

The revelations add a new dimension to the long-running dispute between the city and the association over a reverter clause attached to the Youth Center property. The association argues that allowing Somerset to use the field could violate both the deed restrictions and other rules governing the property.

The emails date primarily from March to August 2023.

The effort predates Lago’s documented involvement. On March 28, Couceyro told Iglesias that, “per the requests of Commissioners Anderson and Menendez” and at the assistant city manager’s direction, he had been discussing use of the Youth Center field with Somerset and working with the school to reach “an amenable rental rate.” Couceyro noted that the city’s Youth Center resolution did not allow rental of the field but said the resolution gave the city manager authority to adjust usage and conditions.

Iglesias replied the same day: “The Youth Center is not for rent.”

Several emails in the months that followed, however, indicate that city officials continued considering the use.

On July 14, Somerset parent Alina Meledina emailed Lago thanking him for his support and assistance with the school’s request to use the Youth Center for physical education.

“We greatly appreciate your help in obtaining approval from the city,” Meledina wrote.

She also told Lago that a petition supporting the proposal had collected 186 signatures.

“We are eagerly looking forward to making this initiative a reality, and we sincerely thank you for your ongoing support,” she wrote.

Seventeen minutes later, Lago replied to Meledina and several city officials: “Gaby, Good afternoon, let’s schedule a meeting with the City Manager for the first week in August.” Iglesias subsequently forwarded the correspondence to staff with the message: “We need to meet on this.”

Three days later, Couceyro wrote to Iglesias and other staff members: “We gave them approval to use the field for PE class. However, they wanted much more use than that. They wanted after school for sports teams, etc.”

“In fact, the PE class was the least thing that the principal wanted,” Couceyro added. “But, we can move on this with a quick MOU. No problem.”

The discussions continued into August.

On Aug. 8, Couceyro wrote that, “as requested by both the Mayor and City manager, we are looking at a fair hourly rental rate” that could cover incremental increases if necessary.

On Aug. 10, Couceyro asked whether staff could obtain approval from the city manager to prepare a rental application permit for the Youth Center field. Deputy City Attorney Stephanie Throckmorton replied: “I agree, I think you can proceed to do it with the Manager’s approval.”

On Aug. 17, Couceyro told Somerset parent Jennifer Davis that, after conferring with city officials, “a standard Facility Rental permit will work and going to Commission is not needed.” He said a Youth Center employee would contact the school’s principal to begin the process. The following day, Davis replied that the principal had been updated and that the school was “eager to get the Somerset PE program up and rolling as soon as possible.”

The available correspondence does not show what happened after that.

The city maintains that Somerset never received authorization to use the Youth Center.

City Communications Director Martha Pantin told the Gazette that Somerset approached the city and that the proposal underwent a review but was never finalized. She said the city “has not executed any contract, lease, or operational agreement with the school,” and that Somerset “has at no point been granted access to the property, has never utilized the fields, and is not permitted to use them.”

Pantin’s statement did not address whether Somerset applied for or received the facility rental permit discussed in the August emails.

Jane Muir, the attorney representing the Youth Center Association, says the emails tell a different story.

“The emails that have come out show Mayor Lago personally working to help Somerset Academy rent the War Memorial Youth Center property, even though a 2007 City resolution prohibits it and Somerset itself promised in a 2012 settlement never to request the Youth Center for its school activities,” Muir wrote in a statement to the Gazette.

Muir said the emails “appear to show Iglesias objected to the Somerset request, saying, ‘The Youth Center is not for rent,’” and argued that Lago later overrode him.

The emails do not establish that Lago overrode Iglesias. By Aug. 8, Couceyro wrote that staff was pursuing a rental rate “as requested by both the Mayor and City manager.”

Even so, Muir said the association “cannot be sure what happened after that without responses to our records requests.”

Muir told the Gazette that the association obtained the emails from a lawsuit filed against the school by the Biltmore Neighborhood Association.

Lawsuit seeks records about Somerset negotiations

The association filed suit against the city after making three public-records requests in January seeking records about its relationship with the city, Somerset Academy and the use of the Youth Center property.

The request concerning Somerset, filed Jan. 26, sought correspondence and other records concerning any effort by Somerset or Academica to use, share, lease or otherwise access the Youth Center, as well as records concerning the deed, reverter clause and any discussions about how those restrictions could affect Somerset’s plans.

The association says it paid $192 in city invoices for electronic searches but found significant problems with the search results. It alleges that every proximity search returned zero revised results, a file-name search for “WarMemorial” returned no hits and other search results suggested the city’s search methodology was defective. The association also says it independently located emails that should have been responsive to its requests.

The city had not produced the requested nonexempt records or corrected the alleged deficiencies as of the filing of the complaint, according to the association. Those allegations have not been adjudicated.

Somerset’s earlier restrictions and the Youth Center rules

The dispute also reaches back to Somerset’s 2012 expansion.

Somerset Gables Academy operates at 624 Anastasia Ave., the same address covered by the 2012 declaration, where the charter school was then identified as Somerset Academy Grace Charter School at Coral Gables.

In 2012, Somerset reached a settlement with the Biltmore Neighborhood Association as part of its expansion from 110 to 260 students. Somerset also recorded a Declaration of Restrictive Covenants.

According to the declaration, the City Commission approved Somerset’s land-use and conditional-use applications in January 2012 subject to conditions. Somerset recorded the declaration “in order to assure the City” that it would comply with those conditions.

One provision states that the charter school “shall not file any request” to use the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center for physical education or scholastic activities. Another says the Youth Center’s parking lots and open areas cannot be used for organized charter-school activities, including PE.

The Biltmore Neighborhood Association is now involved in a separate lawsuit against Somerset, Biltmore Neighborhood Association v. Somerset Academy Inc., case No. 2024-020812-CA-01.

In that complaint, filed in October 2024, the neighborhood association alleged that Somerset was continuing to seek authorization to use the Youth Center but that the city “has not yet granted such authorization.”

A hearing on the association’s motion to compel and for attorney’s fees is scheduled for Oct. 1 at 3 p.m. before Judge Milton Hirsch.

The Youth Center’s own rules also complicate the question of whether the proposed rental would have been permissible. Resolution 2007-275 lists the athletic field as unavailable for rent.

But the same resolution provides that the athletic field may be used by youth from “Not for Profit” organizations at the discretion of the Parks and Recreation director. It also says Youth Center facilities may from time to time be used by nonprofit organizations for a reasonable fee and gives the city manager authority to adjust usage policies.

Somerset’s nonprofit status therefore does not, by itself, resolve the issue. The central question raised by the association is whether a particular rental or use by Somerset would have been consistent with the property’s deed restrictions, the 2012 covenants and the city’s own Youth Center rules.

For now, the emails establish that city officials and Somerset discussed the proposed use and that staff was working toward a rental rate and permit.

They do not establish that Somerset ultimately used the field or that a rental permit or other agreement was executed.

The association says the unresolved public-records requests have left it unable to determine what happened after those discussions.