{"id":311159,"date":"2026-06-18T00:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T00:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/311159\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T00:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T00:31:16","slug":"eatonville-opts-out-of-hungerford-school-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/311159\/","title":{"rendered":"Eatonville opts out of Hungerford School lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

EATONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The town of Eatonville will not join a lawsuit surrounding the sale of a historical school site.<\/p>\n

The Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Orange County School District earlier this year after it sold Hungerford School Site to Dr. Phillips Charities. <\/p>\n

The lawsuit claims the sale was conducted in secret and without public input. <\/p>\n

SPLC filed the lawsuit on behalf of an Eatonville advocacy group. <\/p>\n

The Eatonville town council voted unanimously Tuesday night not to join the lawsuit. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am not in support of joining a lawsuit that we are not a party to because we have some real traction going at this point,\u201d said Eatonville Mayor Ruthie Critton. \u201cI think that if we just focus on what our responsibilities are and what our rights are as a community and as a governing body, I think we have enough fight to stand in the paint to make sure Eatonville gets its due diligence.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dr. Phillips Charities plans to develop the site into a mixed-use development. The groundbreaking could happen in October once the contract surrounding the sale is finalized. <\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

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\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EATONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The town of Eatonville will not join a lawsuit surrounding the sale of a historical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[15057,1060,92275,4773,1061,77873,129719,634,28385,115,44513,139,141,140,28374,65038,129720,129718,1045],"class_list":["post-311159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-alexis","tag-channel_9","tag-doctor_phillips","tag-eatonville","tag-eyewitness","tag-hungerford","tag-linville","tag-local","tag-martello","tag-news","tag-orange_county_school_board","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-sam","tag-sam_martello","tag-san","tag-southern_poverty_law_center","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}