How do you stop a scorpion from stinging

Art Johnston faces imminent removal from the Board if he does nothing. In my opinion this is because he protected his partner from an over zealous administrator bent on revenge; a grossly unfair charge of assault; an unscrupulous attorney’s claim that his board conduct was unprofessional and the folks who brought us the Red Plan’s disastrous consequences desire to shut up a long time critic who keeps asking embarrassing questions. (How disastrous is the Red Plan? Well, a legislator recently did the math and concluded that if Edison’s new high school draws another 700 secondary students out of ISD 709 we might end up closing one of our two remaining high schools that we spent $50 million each fixing up. Guess which one?)

Think of the school board as a scorpion the way Art must regard it. The state law that gives school boards the right to remove a Board member on a whim with trumped up charges can only be stopped with a legal intervention. That’s what Art’s lawyers are doing. They have concluded what I’ve been suggesting for months – that removing Art with unsupportable charges is an abridgment of his right to free speech.

This whim called “proper cause” is only applied to school board members in Minnesota. No Town Board, City Council or County Board could remove a member under similarly vague wording. All other local officials can only be removed for malfeasance (deliberate damage like embezzlement) or nonfeasance (doing nothing).

Had the School Board charged Art with Assault and succeeded in convincing a court that it had taken place it might have a case. But even Mary Rice, Kevin Rupp’s Torquemada, conceded that at the worst she thought Art had only given the Superintendent a soft shove. That’s not the stuff of a police report which explains why none was asked for. The Superintendent got a bruised ego and that’s all. Had the Superintendent paid more attention to a festering year-long controversy and pulled the over zealous administrator off it would never have happened. He’d known for eight months that Art was suspicious that this supervisor had attempted to have him defeated in the 2013 election. Art tells me that he came to the Superintendent nearly in tears to ask him to intervene but that the Superintendent chose not to. There is much more to this story that is crying out to be told. I may already have written more than enough about this to get myself slapped up side the head with a data practices complaint – the penalty for a violation is up to $15,000 – or is it $30,000?

So, as mentioned in the last post a summons was delivered to five of the seven school board members at yesterday’s Business Committee meeting. I didn’t get one. I voted against the investigation and the hearing that is required before removing Art no matter what the Judge rules. The hearing is simply pro forma. If Art’s found innocent it makes no difference. The Board has done all that is necessary before it inflicts its sting.

Sending this sorry fight to the Federal Courts will likely result in putting the hearing on hold. That’s what Art is having to do to stop the scorpion. Its costing him a pretty penny to defend himself from this travesty. But don’t worry about our five summoned school board members. We have insurance that will pay for any punitive damages that the court imposes on them for the cost and anxiety they have caused Art Johnston.

About the author