Yes, I was wrong to write what I did. It hasn’t been so long since I’ve been on the School Board that I’ve forgotten at least one moment of apprehension about angry visitors to a school Board meeting.
I’m not easily rattled. The most heated Board meeting I’ve ever attended put last week’s meeting to shame in terms of furor. I’ve described it elsewhere but there were 200 to 400 more people in attendance. It followed a two-week assault on the Board and its superintendent by the Duluth News Tribune. Supt. Almanza had drawn up a list of five elementary schools that could be closed. Because he was determined to show the list to his School Board before they read about it in the Newspaper (a courtesy which I approve of) The Trib’s two education reporters (yes, once upon a time there were two of them) got their noses out of joint. Their editors backed them up and ten or twelve days of banner headlines followed. As soon as the doors to Ordean Junior High’s Auditorium opened for a public meeting about the budget cuts which might make closing schools necessary an angry throng flooded in and fifty people lined up behind the microphone. The heat and the vituperation of the first half hour burned a hole in the ceiling above the microphone. And after every attack, no matter how poorly delivered the audience let loose a fearsome cheer.
I loved it. But that’s another story. I wasn’t afraid of angry crowds. I was afraid of the alienated angry people that might be hiding in them.
A much smaller crowd came to one of my last school board meetings with such a person. They were just as passionate but the topic was the removal of a high school hockey coach not the closure of five schools. In this case the Tribune happened to be leaning in the Board’s direction. Among the hockey supporter came a person with a grievance against the District that had nothing to do with hockey. The angry crowd, however, perfectly suited his mood. He wore a black leather jacket and sinister looking reflective mirror sunglasses. As he stood with his arms folded looking at us through his opaque glasses I imagined him with a gun and vengeance on his mind.
I’ve seen Taxi Driver, and I read the news daily for forty-five years so I certainly appreciate the nagging fear elected officials can feel at times of high tension. I’ve crossed this gentleman’s path many times since leaving the Board. While I’m long since over my paranoia its been apparent that he has not forgotten his grievance.
A couple weeks ago as I was waving “Let Duluth Vote” signs this gentleman stopped, picked up a sign and stood shoulder to shoulder with me.
