Art Johnston called me up last week and asked a favor of me. He told me that the West Duluth Business Club would be meeting at Mr. D’s today and asked if I could attend since he was busy doing engineering work out of town to pay off his legal bills. He asked me not to tell anyone where he was as he was worried the powers that be in the District would call some critical meeting knowing that he couldn’t make it. I’m not sure if that’s paranoia but my old motto was “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you. Besides a similar thing happened once already last winter or spring. It will be Thursday before the District can do anything about this so I guess I can spill the beans now.
I got no sense at this meeting that Art was persona-non-grata out west. In fact my sense was quite the opposite.
I had expected a presentation by the principal of Laura MacArthur but heard Russ Salgy instead. Russ is in charge of the Valley Youth Center which I visited regularly in my previous incarnation as a school board member ten plus years ago. Russ gave a lucid and sobering analysis of the limited opportunities for kids in West Duluth and afterward I asked him to send me the Power Point or a link to an online version. Russ said he’d try to oblige me although I’m not certain if or how I might be able to make that information available to my readers by way of this blog.
This meeting has me doing some serious thinking. None of it leads me to happy talk as a solution. Now I’m beginning to wonder if its only the School District that is shortchanging our children. Maybe the City is playing a role too.
