According to this week’s story in the Zenith Semi Weekly “The Board has held no closed sessions to discuss the lawsuit and none are planned, according to both Grover and Gary Glass.”
I was stunned at the possibility that the Board was not getting any advice about their vulnerability to our suit. After a couple emails back and forth with the story’s author Jennifer Martin Romme explained that: “He [Tim] didn’t tell me he WAS seeking personal representation. He didn’t tell me he was NOT. He just declined comment on the lawsuit, pending the advice of legal counsel.”
As I emailed back:
“The Board needs to be told that the taxpayer’s court case has serious merit if the Board is not seeking legal advice they are making a potentially terrible mistake. While I don’t expect the court to levy punitive damages against Board members, the threat of paying some portion of millions of dollars of damages could be ruinous. If Dr. Dixon has not warned “his” Board members of their potential liability demonstrates to me the one-way nature of loyalty the old fraud enjoys.”
Tim is a cautious man by nature. After bringing down the wrath of Central families when he voted to close the school fifteen years ago he would not be eager to have that anger erupt again. Fortunately for him Dr. Dixon has been a most effective anesthetist and has convinced Duluth that nothing can stop the Red Plan. Consequently few people bother complaining to the School Board anymore. That’s why I’d like one very real public demonstration of this City’s wrath at the next school board meeting.
Our lawyer, Craig Hunter, is perhaps naive in thinking the gravity of the situation for sitting Board members must be obvious to them. Dr. Dixon has been busy anesthetizing them too. A closed meeting with the District’s lawyers, even if Gary Glass had to be permitted to attend, might make this clear. But Dixon would have to worry that they might resist plunging ahead and ratcheting up their liability. If I were on the Board I’d hate to be ordered to pay to restore Ordean. That could happen if it turns out that gutting Ordean under the existing contract is illegal. (Our Attorney has no doubt that it is illegal and I can see nothing in the replies from JCI and ISD 709 to shake my confidence in his opinion)
If the District never lets the Board members hear about their possible liability from school district attorneys and they get tagged for punitive damages they’ll have no grounds to sue the District’s lawyers for malpractice.
I wonder if Dr. Dixon would share his bonus with them to help pay or if Mimi Larsen or Paul Goosens or David Ross or Al Netland would chip in?
