The email to the School Board is running heavily toward selling Central at the moment. Since I favor the sale I rather hope to see these messages show up in the News Tribune as well to show the larger public what Don Ness’s remarkable Facebook following has revealed – an overwhelming positive reaction to the sale.
I have to say that the large volume of pro-sale emails have potent logic about them – especially when they argue that Duluth’s children will be better off with the sale. This is in stark contrast to one of the principal arguments of the far tinier anti-sale minority that leans heavily on the injured feelings of disappointed Red Plan supporters. It galls them that their rush to close Central High School has resulted in a financially persuasive argument to hand it over to “the competition.” The competition is, of course, a charter public school. Many Red Plan supporters, including my old school board colleagues, thought the Red Plan would be soooo alluring when completed that it would empty Edison out as its families rushed to enroll their children in Duluth’s new Saphire City. Maddeningly, after spending nearly half a billion dollars, just the opposite has happened. ISD 709 lost over ten percent of its students and our losses continue to mount month by month as Art Johnston points out at every school board meeting.
Two of Good Friday’s emails make the contrast clear:
From a Red Plan activist:
“You don’t sell your buildings to your competitors. The short term gain will siphon more kids out of the district (especially Denfeld). This will result in a deficit which will be made up with cuts or increased property taxes. Central was closed to take excess capacity out of the high school system. Sell it to someone who will put the property back on the tax roles|
Does the public understand that another high school will be built with tax dollars? Where are the let Duluth vote people? The idea of competition is good but the playing field between Edison and ISD 709 is not level.
If you want further discussion please call
XXXX XXXX”
Before I post the contrasting email I need to address XXXX’s fiscal argument which sarcastically asks where the Let Duluth Vote people are today? Well, this blog writer started Let Duluth Vote and today I’m back serving on the School Board. Furthermore, I am every bit as unhappy about our property taxes as I was when XXXX’s Red Plan crowd denied us a chance to vote on the massive project. (BTW – this year mine increased by over $1,500, a 60% jump) In fact, selling Central will help Duluth property taxpayers recoup some of the property taxes they paid for the Red Plan. How can that be?
Easy. State income and sales taxes will pay for a new Edison High whether its built on Snowflake or used to buy Central High. A very small share of these taxes are paid by ISD 709’s 100,000 residents. We make up 2% of Minnesota’s 5 million tax payers. Of the approximately $20 million the state will give towards a new Edison High Duluth’s 2 percent share adds up to $400.000. That cost is more than made up for the $14.2 million ISD 709 will be paid to make use of Central. Add another likely $2 million that we will save by NOT demolishing Central to sell the land to a developer and Duluth and ISD 709 will collect fifteen million to transfer Central. That’s fifteen million ISD 709 can use to make sure Edison stops siphoning kids out of ISD 709. In fact, we need an agreement so that we can negotiate a cap that will limit the unstoppable siphoning to the roughly 650 kids that will continue on to Edison’s grades 9-12.
Ironically, the countering email comes from a Denfeld parent one of the people XXXX is so worried about now that his Red Plan has wreaked so much havoc:
I am a parent in ISD 709. I have 2 kids at Denfeld, one at Ordean, 2 at Homecroft and one in preschool. It is time to do the right thing with our tax money and sell Central. It’s clear that no developer is going to pay the same price and it’s too costly to redevelop the site. It’s also extremely wasteful and environmentally irresponsible to allow the site to be razed when the building could be reused as designed and cause Edison to build on another site. Get over your pride and admit this part of the red plan failed and do something about it.
