People keep asking us what’s up with Plan B. Let Duluth Vote has devised a building plan consistent with our petition language that would:
a. Begin by repairing schools not replacing them.
b. Keep schools in several neighborhoods open.
c. Spread the work out over enough time so that future school boards could modify or drop the plans.
d. Spend less
e. Return what is not spent to taxpayers or put it into school operations
f. Use public data hidden by Johnson Controls to help us design our final plan at a much reduced expense.
Our plan Gives Dr. Dixon apoplexy. Tim Grover who wrote the petition language hates it too. But the Attorney General has told the Board its their legal duty to write up our plan in a formal package to present to the Minnesota Dept. of Education. They don’t want to do it and are dragging their feet. Oh, and they want to accuse us of costing them money. To that end Chair Grover is introducing the following resolution for discussion at the next Business Committee meeting.
Resolution B-2-09-2607 – Authorizing the Use of Up to $250,000 from Fund Balance to Pay for Expenses Incurred as a Result of Actions taken by Let Duluth Vote PLACEHOLDER
A draft copy of this resolution will be presented at the Business Committee meeting.
First. At no time has Let Duluth Vote ever talked about a quarter million to do this work. With the hidden public data held by JCI it should be relatively inexpensive to draw up our review and comment document for the State. After all they claim they spent tens of thousands of hours gathering data – just the data that will be required to draw up our plans for state review. We don’t want to replicate those tens of thousands of hours. Under State law JCI is considered the same as any other governmental entity subject to the public data laws because they are spending goverment money for a government project. JCI has only the most limited rights to conceal trademarked information.
Second. We suspect Tim intends to turn in a review and comment that fits his idea not Let Duluth Vote’s idea of what plan B should look and eliminating all our cost saving ideas.
Third. If the second point is true Let Duluth Vote is not interested. We will simply tell the Attorney General that the District is ignoring the law and the State Attorney General.
Fourth. Its obvious that the ridiculously high quarter-million dollar figure will be used to accuse Let Duluth Vote of depleting the School District’s scarce resources.
Its also worth pointing out that if the School Board returned the $5 million it “borrowed” from school operations to spend on the Red Plan their resources wouldn’t be so scarce.
