The previous post was meant to be a quick one about my trip to the state capital today so that I could turn in having made some comment on the day. But what I wrote has left me so angry I doubt I’ll fall easily to sleep. I’ll probably stew for hours about all sorts of bloggable issues. The top of the list is Art’s lawsuit which is now in full swing. You’ll read about it in the paper tomorrow along with the obligatory passage about how attorney Mary Rice uncovered Art Johnston’s career as a serial killer…..or was it something else? At least I can now say a lot about Art’s lawsuit because its finally public and I am no longer subject to a second censure for speaking out of turn about it.
So much. There is so much to write. Ah, but I’ll just leave you with my 733 word testimony to the committee this afternoon. Then I’ll try to go to bed and not think about it. Art told me that the semicircle of legislators listened to me in rapt attention. I did get a gentle rebuke from Chair Katie Sieben afterwards when she pointed out that my fellow board members were bit present to defend themselves. That’s funny because that’s how Art Johnston has felt since June of last year when he was accused of all manner of vileness. Now he’s going to get his day in court.
Here are the 733 I shared in St. Paul today:
Senator Bonoff and colleagues,
I hope you don’t object to my calling you colleagues. Forty years ago I came to St. Paul to get advice from then House Minority leader, Arne Carlson, in what became a futile two election quest to unseat Representative Mike Jaros. Had my fortunes been different then, I might be walking these halls among you.
1976 may not have a good year to be a Republican candidate in Duluth, Minnesota, but it left me with unshakable convictions. The first is that the elective process is as close to a sacred act as we can perform in the civic arena. It is of such importance that there can never be any shame attached to running for public office even in defeat. The second is that this American civic arena unites us all no matter the distance between our personal convictions.
I knew as much from the history of Abraham Lincoln who was no stranger to defeat himself. When Lincoln finally triumphed over his lifetime rival, Stephen Douglas, Senator Douglas pledged his support to Lincoln for the most arduous and critical Presidency in our nation’s history.
In my case I too have gained a lifelong friend in Democrat, Mike Jaros, in our long fight for the voters of the Duluth Schools.
You see, in Duluth we completed a little a half-billion dollar project we call the Red Plan to rebuild one hundred years of school facilities over night and doing so by imposing it without a public referendum. As you would expect this has caused great discord in Duluth, nine year’s worth. It is the troubling aftermath of this action that has brought me to your committee today.We are all elected officials doing our best to do the people’s business but one ill conceived law poses a grave threat to Minnesota school board members in their pursuit of this civic responsibility.
After the theft of our referendum we in Duluth learned that Minnesota’s laws do not make it easy for voters to remove school board members. However, Subdivision 9 of MS 123B.09 grants to a majority of School Board the power to remove a fellow board member on little more than whim. Subdivision 9 of MS 123B.09 vaguely calls this whim “proper cause.” For good reason no such similar law applies to Minnesota’s other local elected officials.
All that this law requires is that a majority of a school board sets a time for a hearing in which the targeted board member can defend him or herself. This defense can then be summarily disregarded by the school board majority which afterwards can remove the outcast in defiance of the wishes of the voting public. Such a anti-democratic legal course is currently being undertaken in Duluth as it recently has in other Minnesota School Districts. I am shocked by this unseemly disregard for the sanctity of our elections.
I was recently returned to the Duluth School Board in large measure because of the after affects of this largest school construction project in Minnesota history. I have one strong ally on the Board who for the past five years has repeatedly asked for and been denied access to the public data that justified this prodigious project which has led to declining test scores, increased segregation, an exodus of students, and a recent precipitous drop in graduation rates because the board majority refuses to release this information. Most recently he demanded to be told where $84 million dollars of unexplained construction costs for the Red Plan were spent. Is it any wonder why our Board majority would like to be rid of this man who reminds them of their failures? And yet this is exactly why my board ally was elected and then reelected handsomely by voters of his Fourth district. He is their advocate and champion. If he is to be removed from his seat on the school board it should be by his constituents and his voters not by four tyrannical colleagues who can fill his vacancy with someone more congenial to their politics.
You as legislators understand that there is no greater threat to good governance than the power of a majority to tyrannize the minority. Our current law relating to school board members does just that. Senate File No. 539 will end this tyranny and hand this authority to the voters where should be vested.
