Ralph Doty was not content with his first attempt to impugn my character a day before the last School Board election where I was a candidate and had no chance to respond. He’s at it again. I suspect his rant today and the one he promises next week will do more to enhance my reputation. Should I decided to run yet again for the Board – to pick up the pieces from this Dixon/JCI fiasco – I would expect to win in a landslide. Picking up those pieces will be a grim task and I’m not sure whether I’d have the pluck to tidy up the mess after a year-and-a-half fighting unscrupulous giants.
I’ll have much more to say about Ralph’s column but since the Budgeteer has allowed him to bloody me yet again I’ll probably save much of that for my reply. I hope it runs along side the column in which Ralph explains how I am helping destroy Duluth.
Oh, and on one score Ralph is absolutely clueless. If there are any puppets in Duluth they serve on the School Board. At our little meetings of Let Duluth Vote I am regularly second guessed, doubted and debated. When I charge ahead without checking with others I get my ears boxed by my allies. We have no rubber stamps. You should see email criticism I got a couple days ago from one of my fellow plaintiffs. I noticed it after I saw my monitor smoking.
Its only the Duluth School Board that walks into Board meetings somnolescent, obedient and unquestioning.
And while it is certainly fair to say pair me with Gary Glass as Ralph’s column did eight times “Welty/Glass” to say that that I am Gary’s master is a joke. No one tells Gary what to do. Whenever he just smiles at some suggestion I’ve offered my heart sinks because I know it means he’s not listening. I’ve gotten angry at him a couple times, really angry, and to this day he believes things, important things, with which I strongly disagree.
In fact, although I’ve served on the Duluth School Board seven years longer than Gary I accord Gary some deference because he is and I am not an elected official today.
I’m mostly content to stand on my two ripostes, to Ralph from the beating he administered last year here and especially here. I do like anecdotes however so I’ll just ad this postscript:
A couple months ago Ralph was a guest at my Church’s men’s group and made a presentation on the love of his life, old time Radio. When I correctly answered a trivia question he posed he gave me a prize. It was a CD he’d cut of an Amos and Andy show. I brought it home to give to my wife who enjoys listening to old time radio rebroadcasts on Wisconsin Public Radio. The CD didn’t work.
Cleverness is no remedy for ignorance.
