Two weeks ago I composed a letter addressed to the five majority members of the Duluth School Board. It contained two motions I was contemplating introducing at the School Board meeting. The first was a motion to reimburse Art Johnston for his legal bills – bills that they had forced upon him in their hatred. Art has used that term “hate” before but I think the only member that actually hates Art is Chair Seliga-Punyko. Nonetheless, that they proceeded with their keystone cop attack on him says little for the rest of them. Once the legal shenanigans proved too big for their britches they were too embarrassed to back down lest they look foolish. That’s unfortunate because there is nothing more heroic than admitting you were wrong.
The other motion was a several part “censure” of the Superintendent for things I’ve only made veiled references to here in the blog. Up until know I have not been interested in making them public because I think I could work with the Superintendent. If my whereases were to be summed up in a single accusation it would be that the Superintendent shares much of the fault for our last hellish year. Whereas (to use my favorite word of the moment) the Superintendent blames the school board and sees his role as protecting the rest of the District from us.
There was a reason I wanted to hand deliver these rather than send them out in an email. Email is too much like an STD and I didn’t want to make the charges public until the day we met to censure Art. I hoped I could scare the Board into backing off. I know it wouldn’t have worked. The Board majority is so invested with proving that they meant for the last year to happen that I presume they’d sacrifice the Superintendent’s good name if necessary to cover their own behinds.
I had thought about sending them the letter by certified mail but I realized I could hand deliver it to them faster in a sealed envelope at our Business Committee Meeting.
There was just one problem with this or two really. One Board member, Mike Miernicki, didn’t show up and Rosie Loeffler-Kemp headed out the door after about twenty minutes. I was only able to pass out three of the envelopes that night and hand delivered the other two the next morning. I resorted to the same mail delivery tactic a year ago when I tried to dissuade the Board from engaging Mary Rice to investigate Art. This time I only had to deliver two letters instead of six.
Rosie sent me an email afterwards that I didn’t read for about three days. It read:
Member Welty,
I received a letter from you on Thursday May 14, 2015 on my home door step. It was delivered in the wee hours of the night/early am. You have delivered letters to my house in the past this way. This is an inappropriate manner to communicate.
Please send any correspondence by USMail, my ISD email, or through the normal School Board correspondence with Sue Talerico.
You are not to come to my house again.
Rosie Loeffler-Kemp
Please respond by email that you have received this.
Confidentiality Notice: This E-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply E-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.
After reading it I sent her this curt reply:
Member Loeffler-Kemp,
I have received and read this email.
A few days ago I got a certified mail notice in my mail box and groaned. I hadn’t been home and would now have to go to the post office to pick it up. Then I looked at the notice more closely and saw that it was from Rosie. My first thought was, I don’t want to go to the post office to pick this up. I know what it will say. The second thought was “I’m glad I didn’t send this by certified mail. It’s so easy not to accept.”
Had my letter carrier not kindly delivered it to my house later that day I wouldn’t have picked it up but here it lays on my desk unopened.
I decided it would be fun to see how close I was to what Rosie wrote to me so I’m going to take a guess and see if I’ve got it right.
Here’s my Guess:
Member Welty,
Your recent email to me stated only that you received and read my email demanding that you refrain from placing any parcels on my doorstep again. Once again I ask you to assure me that you will stay away from my home as I have directed you.
Sincerely,
Rosie
Well here goes: The unveiling. Hmmmmmm. It was a little more and little less than I anticipated. Rosie simply printed out her email to me including its confidentiality notice at the bottom. It cost her six dollars to send it by certified mail to make her point to me.
Have I ever told you how Rosie got the DFL endorsement for the School Board last time? Oh yeah, That was the yet to be completed post “MAJ 7 Rosie’s Hardball.”
