We had a new reporter at yesterday’s Human Resources and Business meetings. When I saw John Myers instead of the vacationing Jana Hollingsworth I asked him if he was planning to do an article on our wildlife. He then had to endure a three hour marathon on terrain that was completely unfamiliar to him. He managed a very serviceable story all things considered. Rosie Loeffler-Kemp who knows everybody who’s anybody in Duluth and who isn’t afraid to let everyone else know it graciously welcomed John to our proceedings. It got her a quote in the story saying the sort of thing Rosie is want to mention:
“‘This is all about transparency and making board communications open,’ said board member Rosie Loeffler-Kemp.”
The transparency Rosie referred to had to do with a resolution written for us by our attorney Kevin Rupp which we will consider next Tuesday. It states that we will not treat private data about Duluth school board members as we would data concerning our employees. This will make it possible to shed some light on the many accusations against Art Johnston so that the public can determine for itself how much of the mud thrown up against his barn has stuck to the wall.
I have been waiting for the accusations to be made public since this brouhaha began. I told John that this resolution put Art’s accusers at the disadvantage of public scrutiny. I believe this will be of great benefit to Art.
Art’s attorney was puzzled by this resolution. He represented a school board member in southern Minnesota whose School Board majority was attempting to have him removed also with the assistance of our Kevin Rupp. In that member’s case a similar but opposite resolution was drawn up to treat the Board member as though he were an employee whose records should be kept from the public. I presume that this was to protect the Board majority from having to publicly air their grievances and accusations.
However much money Attorney Rupp collected from that School District his advice did the majority little good. No county or city attorneys wanted to take the case and so the dissident board member remained after a lot of hostile and useless fuss and bother.
Perhaps the change in the resolution is a reflection of Rupp’s trying to make up for a previous poor performance. If so, its hard for me to see how he will improve upon his record of attempts to removed ornery Board members. Perhaps he will only end up helping Art by giving him some ammunition to turn the tables on his not so collegial persecutors.
We had a half hour discussion during the Business meeting about a proposed change to all our many insurance policies. We did this a couple times when I was on the Board a decade earlier. It was a topic I relished because, as I told the presenter, my Dad used to work as an insurance investigator for the State of Kansas. He also taught Risk Management at Mankato State and taught CLU (Certified Life Underwriter) classes.
During our discussion of proposed increases in coverage for educational boo boo insurance (pardon my technical jargon) to cover a school system for screwing up Art asked if it would cover the School Board should a persecuted Board member decide to sue his colleagues for oh, let’s just say, maliciously blackening his reputation. The answer was yes and Art mused that such coverage might come in handy. Consequently, John Myers wrote about the potential threat to the District of Art taking the School Board to court. I guess if the Board majority is intent on pursuing its case against Art this is just one more potential liability they are handing the voters should they lose. Duluth taxpayers better hope we vote for those higher premiums next Tuesday to keep our butts covered should our School Board screw up yet again.
