I woke up after the Nightmare before Christmas despite yearning for a full night’s sleep. There is so much that needs to be said I knew I’d have to write something to get back to sleep. I intended to write a reply/retort to the Duluth News Tribune for its eagerness to have Art off the school board without costing taxpayers a hundred grand in legal expenses. As I began leafing through my folder of horrors I began reading through last night’s resolution proposing Art Johnston’s removal. I hadn’t time to look at it before we read it into the record but looking at it now I’m astonished at how little there is in it.
Oh its five pages long and looks like 25 separate crimes, each of them beginning with an italicized roman letter – i, ii, iii, iv etc.
These slivers of crimes are found under the four actual charges leveled at Art. Instead of just saying He was mean, nasty and brutish the document reads. i. He was mean. ii, He was nasty, iii, He was brutish.
Here are the four charges:
1. He gently (according to the Superintendent and Attorney Mary Rice) shoved and scared the Superintendent in a two minute episode at the DECC
2. He tugged at Chairman Mike Miernicki’s arm and yelled for about fifty seconds after the same event.
3. Although there is no law against it he inserted himself into a disciplining of his partner of 14 years which apparently violates some aspects of the School Board’s Ethic policies which have no force of law.
4. At four meetings over the course of the last year Art Johnston said something demeaning about various school staff and officials in six remarks all of which violated the same School Board Ethics with no force of law behind them.
Among the italicized sub crimes is one whopper of an untruth. The School Board is quoting Mary Rice in saying that Art “falsely” accused school board members of not liking him. This accusation is clearly a lie. Some of the School Board members hate Art. Tonight was proof of it.
To summerize: Art went to a meeting some folks don’t think he should have gone to. One night he angrily confronted two colleagues for about three minutes total. He criticized staff – sometimes unfairly – six times.
As some drunk in a B cowboy movie might have said with a ferocious twang, “Grab a rope. We got us a hangin!”
