Since I got this particular email this morning 50 more have filled my in basket. Great! Of course, I haven’t had time to read these yet and I was already about 30 emails behind. But Mike Mernicki’s email deserves special attention. Here’s what he wrote:
Greetings and thank you for all you do. I congratulate you on your transparency for this difficult issue.
The two points I want to make:
#1 You are sworn to support the Duluth Public Schools. If parents send their children to other schools, that is fine. It is their choice. Your responsibility is for the children attending the Duluth Public Schools.
It is a false claim for anyone to say you are not thinking of the children. The Edison students will build a new school on Rice Lake Road. They will have a modern new school. We all wish them well.
You are thinking of the children – the children under your leadership. There are many points that can be made that selling the Central High site to the Tischer Creek company would harm our public schools.
Furthermore, we have heard for years about concerns for declining enrollment in ISD709.
Any vote to cede the Central property to Edison is a vote for further declining enrollment. I played cards on Thursday with seven former Denfeld teachers (a monthly gathering). The first half-hour of the evening was a conversation against the Edison sale. They feel the sale would cripple Denfeld. If the sale to Edison goes through, you will be responsible for the declining enrollment that will surely follow. It will certainly be an issue in the upcoming Board elections.#2 It is economically wise to sell the Central property to a private enterprise. The Central sale has not happened but selling property takes time. We want this property on our tax rolls. I remind you of the Woodland school property. It is now a booming enterprise under the Bluestone Company. There are many businesses and housing units paying property taxes to our School District. The Morgan Park and Nettleton properties will also benefit ISD709 with additional tax payments.
Yes, the property at Central has not yet sold. But it will. You need to sell it to a private enterprise rather than lose the chance of collecting revenues by selling to a tax-exempt entity.Thank you for taking the time on this. You have my best wishes and support.
Mike Miernicki
Denfeld Graduate, ISD709 teacher (36 years), and former member of the Duluth School Board
Here is my response to Mike’s warnings. I’ll be brief:
First – An Edison High will probably take equal numbers from both East and Denfeld High Schools. Denfeld’s losses, in the wake of the Red Plan, have been to Proctor and Hermantown. It will take over four years for the possible 400 departing students (200 each) to leave year by year about fifty kids per year.
Second – What Mike’s retired card playing buddies aren’t acknowledging is that this will happen whether the kids depart to an Edison in Central High or an Edison on Snowflake property.
Third – Neither do these retired teachers acknowledge that the diversion of classroom money (up to six million a year) to pay off building bonds prompted students to leave.
Forth – Selling our buildings was one way we were supposed to keep money in the general fund. With $14.2 million dollars we will be able to put money back in Denfeld’s classrooms and slow down the losses which have continued month by month for the past four years even without an Edison High School.
and Finally, Mike makes too much out of putting Central’s property back on the tax rolls. Nonsense.
A parent recently did a little math and suggested that if Central became a $40 million development the taxes on it annually would not amount to much more than a couple hundred grand. That modest tax would be split three ways between the City, County and School District. Compare a hundred grand to an immediate shot in the arm of over $15 million (since we won’t have to demolish Central High) And we might not even get any of Mike’s tiny theoretical taxes any time soon. Developments like Mike imagines are often are given TIF (Tax Increment Finance) status. TIF’s make them exempt from paying property taxes for as long as twenty years.
