The same fellow who sent me this email yesterday (which he titled “Rosie colored glasses”) sent this one as a follow up to my reply:
Mr. Welty,
Greetings again sir. I hope this finds you well. You have written, “…Kevin Rupp eager to sow the seeds of discord to boost his legal service fees”. I believe through your work with the SB, you have come by this opinion honestly. Are Mr Rupp or his firm the attorney’s who will defend the SD and the Rouge à cinq in the entirely predictable lawsuit, and if so, isn’t it a large conflict of interest and unethical? Would any taxpayer have standing to bring this to the attention of the Minnesota Office of Professional Responsibility? I worry about these things.
All good wishes,
****** ***
I sent him this reply:
****,
Those are very interesting questions. I am not a lawyer myself but I suspect such a suit would be a challenge. As for a citizen’s standing I would think that is possible. However, I think a more promising tactic is simply to wait until the District’s persecution of Art runs aground like the Costa Concordia under the command of its immature captain.
There is every reason to believe that the District will eventually be humiliated when the courts rule that our treatment of Art Johnston is indefensible.
I have decided that my role in this unfolding fiasco is to describe what I am witnessing as candidly as I can. That should give our School Board and attorney Rupp pause. I’m sure the legal fraternity is finding my posts about Mr. Rupp cringe worthy. Serves him right.
I will add that over eight years of blogging I’ve never once been challenged publicly for any serious inaccuracies. However, I was just censured by my colleagues on the school board for telling the truth. I rather enjoy the irony.
Then after sending it I had one more point to add in an email addendum:
I should add that Mr. Rupp’s firm has innovated a new legal specialty – depriving voters of their legally elected representatives.
When I was fighting for a referendum on the Red Plan back when were being told the phoney baloney cost was only a quarter billion dollars (It is almost twice that cost) we discovered to our dismay that the state legislature had made it virtually impossible to recall a school board member.
I am equally dismayed that the State legislature has given school boards no restriction for removing a school board member that a board majority deems annoying. All it takes is the unspecific term, “proper cause.”
This is the vague language of 123:09 BOARDS OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS.
subd. 9. Removing Board members. The board may remove, for proper cause, any member or officer of the board and fill the vacancy: but such removal must be by a concurrent vote of at least four members, at a meeting of whose time, place, and object the charged member has been duly notified, with the reasons for such proposed removal and after an opportunity to be heard in defense against the removal.
I have been told that this statute violates the Minnesota constitution and I wouldn’t be surprised. It was drawn up in an age when legislatures protected representatives and senators by shielding them from arrest during the duration of a legislative session. I wouldn’t be surprised if they extended similar protections to all elected officials back in those rough and tumble political times before the Civil War.
