This is a letter (email) sent to the ISD 709 regarding the early reports of an offer for Central
March 25, 2016
Dear ISD 709 School Board and Superintendent Gronseth:
Thank you for scheduling a community meeting on March 28 to hear citizen thoughts on your potential sale of the former Central High School property.
We join you in looking forward to learning more about where the community stands regarding its schools. That is why representatives will be in attendance from the Tischer Creek Duluth Building Company (the developer making the $14.2 million offer on the Central property) and the Duluth Public Schools Academy board (the local citizens who oversee Duluth Edison Charter Schools), in addition to DECS administrators, teachers and parents.
If the will of Duluth citizens is for the Central property to not be sold for use as a Duluth Edison high school, we will simply stay with the plan we currently have under way. We are fully committed to opening a high school in August 2017. If it’s felt the Central location is not the right place for such a school, we will construct a facility adjacent to our North Star Academy on Rice Lake Road.
There has been one unfortunate aspect to the news about this offer over the past few days, for which I apologize. Out of respect to the ISD 709 Board, our intention was for you to receive information about our offer from your administration first, at last Tuesday’s closed meeting, and that after your meeting we would inform the public of our offer and plans.
Unfortunately, news of this offer reached some reporters from a source or sources other than us. I contacted Superintendent Gronseth on Monday to let him know this news would be coming out, so that the district at had some forewarning.
Since then, in the interest of full transparency for the public, we have responded to inquiries from the media, Duluth citizens, School Board members and others who’ve sought to better understand our plans. Please be assured that any such discussions are not intended to be, nor should be construed as, negotiations. We fully intend to have all negotiations be engaged with ISD 709 administration, should the Board direct such action.
We appreciate that this proposed transaction is unlike any conducted in the history of ISD 709, and we thank you again for inviting the community to share its thoughts with you on Monday. I look forward to seeing you then.
Regards,
Paul Goossens
President
Ticsher Creek Duluth Building Company
I called up Mr. Goosens and met with him over coffee yesterday. As our Administration has not (to my knowledge) taken part in any negotiations with Tischer Creek I asked Paul to give me a sense of how flexible Tischer Creek would be to meet ISD 709’s concerns. He told me what many insiders have suggested. There were too many insiders on the offer’s side who Tischer Creek had no control of. One such group had a spokesman at the ready at our last school board meeting.
