Mimi Larson the Red Plan’s chief civilian cheerleader wrote about me in today’s letter to the editor section.
Here it is in full:
Don’t assume everything school critic says is true
“It was interesting how a Dec. 15 letter (“Shallow reporting misses the real stories”) from Duluth Public Schools critic Harry Welty was followed the next day with a correction in the News Tribune regarding an inaccurate statement in the letter that Pasek’s pharmacy had closed. Interesting because there were several other falsehoods in the letter related to the schools’ long-range facilities plan that the News Tribune was not able to correct.
To be fair, it would be time consuming for the newspaper to fact-check every statement Welty makes. But regular readers know why constant fact-checking of his material is needed. Back on Sept. 27, 2007, a News Tribune headline read, “Group hopes alternative plan will ‘confuse’ issue.” The subsequent story quoted Welty stating he was taking actions on the facilities plan so he could cause “a lot of confusion.” In the 15 months since he made that statement, he has been true to his word, confusing issues instead of making things clearer for local residents.
Welty isn’t trying to improve the education children receive from Duluth Public Schools. If he was, he would have worked with the district to prepare his “Plan B” by now, the plan that will require even more operating dollars to keep even more schools open – even when we don’t need the space. He would have submitted it to the Department of Education for review by now.
My advice to the News Tribune and its readers is to just assume Welty is always trying to confuse the issue. There just isn’t enough space in the News Tribune to print every correction needed when Welty sends a letter to the editor.
Mimi Larson”
