The School District’s Twin Cities lawyers, whose contract I voted for when I was on the Board, told the District that our Plan B petition was defective. This is not a major surprise and its not the definitive end of the petition. They recommended that the School Board send it to the State Attorney General for her opinion.
The principal complaint is that because Minnesota law vacuously says that voters can only vote on issues they can vote on our petition was flawed because we were having people vote on using $60 million that has already been approved for the Red Plan, and that’s not something we can vote on. We can’t because its in the Red Plan, which is an alternative facilities plan, and voters have no right to vote on these. Its something we could challenge if only we had enough to pay a good lawyer at $450 an hour. Too bad the School District has all our money.
I quickly got on the local news and explained that we were not surprised and that our real hope lay with Mike Jaros’ bill. I encouraged people to contact Representative Huntley and Senator Yvonne Prettner Solon.
When I took the letter from the attorneys to the Tribune’s Sarah Horner she said she had just gotten the School District’s press release. She was busy writing another LDV related story for tomorrow’s paper about the likelihood that the legislature would adopt Mike’s bill. It didn’t look good to Sarah. Prettner Solon said she was fearful about setting the bad precedent of having the State interfere in local politics and Tom Huntley said he liked the Red Plan.
I sent a long email to both of them outlining my concerns about the plan itself and the process that led to it but they have not sent me a reply. These folks will deserve much of the blame if the Red Plan goes into effect and if it leads to catastrophic cuts in the school budget, which it most certainly will.
