For decades now Highland Park, a three-square mile enclave surrounded by Detroit, has been an oddity, a mystery, a sad but compelling story of a city in distress.
Detroit Free Press investigative columnist M.L.Elrick sums up the latest in the city's ongoing drama:
It's a good thing the Highland Park School District didn't spend a million bucks last summer on a raggedy old building, because some of that dough surely came in handy when the district shelled out more than $1.8 million to keep its former chief executive from suing for sexual harassment.
It's just the latest farce staged by a district which has no schools, no teachers and no students — but still maintains an active drama club masquerading as a school board.
In the first act, board members squabbled over whether to spend a million simoleons to buy back the largely-abandoned headquarters building it sold less than a decade ago for $90,000. Behind the scenes, lawyers were trying to avoid going to court over allegations that board treasurer Lorne McGee had been creeping on Chief Education Officer Zakia Gibson.
Though Gibson got the payout, the board is still considering buying the decrepit building that will need about $13 million in renovations, Elrick reports.
To read all the details of the drama click here.
