I recently passed on to my readers the unfortunate news that Loren Martell, intrepid chronicler of the Duluth School Board, was hanging up his six shooting bic pens. I added that I hoped he would reconsider. He reconsidered. Hallellujah!
I know this because as I was leaving Miller Dwan’s pool after a few laps last night I happened upon Bob Boone, publisher of the Duluth Reader – “The Best Paper Money Can’t Buy.” Bob was putting stacks of his latest edition in Miller Dwan’s lobby and we ended up having a nice conversation.
Bob was pleased with Loren’s lastest rumination describing the School Board pretty accurately as a caste system while describing our last school board meeting.
There is plenty of evidence to make this case not the least of which is the current likelihood that the Board’s majority is trying to stiffle the minority’s attempt to have a discussion about the potential for a sale of one of our empty buildings to Many Rivers Montesorri.
I’m afraid that the current Board leadership learned the wrong lessons from the old Board leadership. Loren’ column has a potent history showing how that old Board operated. Its instuctive:
On May 22, 2008, school district 709 signed the Program Management Agreement for the Red Plan with Johnson Controls. The public’s representatives–the Board, as a whole–never approved the contract. On June 25, 2009, a change order for real estate services, including a 10% markup for Johnson Controls, was secretly signed by the Board Chair. The full Board was not informed. On November 30, 2009, the fees for the corporate behemoth were jumped by another $836,639. The increase was signed off in secret by the Board Chair. The full Board, again, was not informed. On January 13, 2012, another Program Management Agreement change order increased Johnson Controls’ fees by a whopping $8,746,939. Again, the change order was secretly signed by the Chair of the Board. The full Board did not vote to approve this change order, nor was it informed. If readers are still not convinced the Red Plan warped our government, consider one more specific, very egregious example:
On June 27th, 2011, three days before he slipped out the door, Keith Dixon called a last-minute meeting. The Board’s lower-caste members at the time (Gary Glass and Art Johnston,) assumed the Red Plan’s progenitor was just going to sing his swan song and preen about all his wonderful accomplishments. After about an hour of listening to the Great Obfuscator toss about his patented brand of bs, Art Johnston’s patience with remaining in the dark about the real purpose of the meeting began to grow thin.
“This appears to be a long, involved meeting; we’re going to be making a lot of decisions.” The intrepid Lone Ranger observed. “Why weren’t we given this stuff ahead of time?”
Dixon responded: “Because it’s taken us to today to finish up all this information.”
“We’re supposed to get information before the meeting. We’re supposed to get it three days before the meeting.”
“That’s correct,” Mr. D. conceded, “but I wanted the information as accurate as I could before I gave it to you, tonight.”
Mr. Johnston asked a declarative question: “My understanding is that we’re going to be passing resolutions, tonight?”
“I’ve got a resolution on this base stuff–yes, I do.”
“Can we get this stuff? We’re supposed to have it before the meeting. The meeting’s started, and we still don’t have it. Can we get all this information, now?”
“I’m trying to give you all the information (verbally.)”
“I’d like to have hard copies of this information;” Mr. Johnston shot back, “this is supposed to be given to us before the meeting, not one minute before we’re supposed to vote on it.”
Two resolutions eventually materialized out of thin air, potentially adding $34 million more to the Red Plan; yet an hour into the meeting some Board members remained completely in the dark.
