After a week of silence the Trib finally put some Red in the paper. The front page was about the trickle of Central High students out of a school which Dr. Dixon will use as his pretext for breaking his promise to keep the school open until 2012. There was no mention in the story of the thumbscrews which the District administration has applied to the school to discourage students from staying.
And there was the point-counterpoint debate on whether it is Let Duluth Vote or the School Board that is responsible for dividing Duluth. It was no contest.
Mimi Larson who begins every sentence with the mantra “move forward” and who has been moving forward with the Red Plan since she was one of about 16 regular members of the “Citizens Committee” who handed this ill thought out monstrosity to Dr. Dixon’s compliant, unquestioning School Board begins by saying Let Duluth Vote is full of misinformation. She then squanders her 700 words by sticking to just one “misrepresentation:” That our Plan “D” isn’t the same as our Plan “B.” If you want an honest (anti-Red Plan) analysis of this accusation check out this page on the Let Duluth Vote website.
Mimi moving forward:
If as a community we are to move forward with change, then accurate information needs to be part of our debates and discussions. However, when it comes to the Duluth School District’s long-range facilities plan, I see steady streams of misinformation presented by those in opposition, and that serves only to confuse and derail any movement forward.
Don Kinsey, an ally of Let Duluth Vote as well as an LDV critic, who had the prescience to see that the District would never compromise with LDV lays the situation out clearly. Unlike Larsen Kinsey offers a myriad of problems brought about by the School Board’s intransigence:
The board and Dixon have sent a clear message to Duluthians: For refusing to approve the increase in operational funds we asked for during the last election, we’ll cut programs and close schools.
Board members and Dixon are the same people who claimed most residents’ property taxes would be increased only a small amount for the red plan. They promised residents before the last election they wouldn’t take newly approved operational money to support the red plan. But then the School Board transferred $5 million from the general fund as a loan for the red plan. The district has a $4.8 million shortfall.
