What may kill the Red Plan is what will break any chain – its weakest link.
For a year-and-a-half one of Duluth’s foremost experts has been pointing out and offering solutions to this weakest link in the Red Plan (aside from its backbreaking and unnecessary cost) its intention to turn the Ordean site into a high school half again bigger than Duluth’s existing high schools.
The recent revelation that a stadium is planned has begun to pry open this link. The Joe Kleiman letter to the editor represents the average Duluthian very well. And Brian Ronstrom’s provocative column today points out how much more clearly he understands the foolishness of the Ordean site than the school board.
Here’s one criticism that hadn’t even occurred to me:
“In November 1999, we in Duluth had an opportunity to vote on a school district referendum. The focus was on athletic fields, including at Public Schools Stadium and Ordean Middle School. At Ordean, the focus was on baseball, soccer and multipurpose fields with a football/soccer stadium. The property tax increase in 1999 dollars on a home valued at $80,000 was $15 per year for 15 years.
We in Duluth will pay until 2014 on the same fields the red plan would eliminate. The Ordean stadium is to become a parking lot while the multipurpose and soccer fields are to be replaced with a new stadium.”
