Tonight’s Duluth School Board meeting shows how futile it has been for Tim Grover to play team player after going off Dr. Dixon’s Reservation.
Tim has been one of the most parochial board members for years. Shortly after he was first elected to the Board in the early 90’s he broke a campaign promise to fight to keep Central High School open when several senior board members pressured him to do so. He and his family caught such unmitigated hell that Tim made it his mission to put his district’s interest above all others. For all his efforts tonight he lost his District’s middle school at Lincoln. He lost having it kept at the Central site. His Nettleton school will be grafted onto the Grant school on the periphery of his District. The only bone tossed Tim’s way was the District’s intention to keep an elementary school in Piedmont. Of course, with Proctor sending busses into Piedmont and Hermantown discussing the possible expansion of its own schools to accommodate unhappy Duluth parents it may already be too late for Piedmont.
Tim’s downfall began when he got involved with Let Duluth Vote and its fight to have a referendum on the Red Plan. Dr. Dixon only rewards yes men so it was futile for Tim to abandon Let Duluth Vote and run back to the Superintendent in a bid to save his District’s remaining schools.
Tim should have seen the writing on the wall after I encouraged him to run for the Chairmanship of the Board where he could promote compromise. When Dr. Dixon got wind of Tim’s plans he pulled out the stops to defeat him.
At Dixon’s direction Board Chair Ann Wasson told newly elected Board member and Tim Grover supporter, Gary Glass, that there would be a highly irregular change in the date of the vote for School Board officers. The scheduled vote would be postponed until Dixonite Nancy Nilsen returned from a trip to China. Nilsen was Dixon’s candidate for Chair and her absence would have made winning four votes out of seven very tough.
When it became apparent that changing the day of the vote was legally questionable Dr. Dixon began making arrangements to have Nancy participate in the vote for Chairman from China by attending the meeting through interactive television. That became unnecessary when Mary Cameron, who had promised to vote for Tim, changed her mind after Dr. Dixon had a long talk with her. (Despite our close relationship Mary did the same thing to me when I ran for chairman in 1997) But, horror of horrors, newly elected Dixonite, Judy Seliga-Punyko was also going to be out of town on the day of the vote and would find it very difficult to return to the meeting in time to cast a vote. To make matters worse a blizzard blew up on the day Judy had to return making a trip back to Duluth iffy. Not to worry. JCI sent a car to have her chauffeured to Duluth in time for the meeting. Checkmate Dixon.
After bending over backward to deny Tim any chance of being the Board Chair and seeking compromise the Superintendent wasn’t about to reward Tim. Tim’s defection from Let Duluth Vote to rush back into Dr. Dixon’s arms just got Tim a whole lot of nuthin for the Third District.
