Hi Harry,
I am heading out the door for a full day of meetings but first wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your email and how I look forward to responding to it later today/this weekend. I appreciate your effort in responding to the questions I had for Betty and hope we can continue a dialogue of sorts about them. Or at least I return your effort with one of my own. Perhaps we might even consider one of those sit down and chat meetings! I would really like that.
Anyway, again my sincere thanks for your email and more later.
Mimi
From: Harry Welty [mailto:harrywelty@charter.net]
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:10 PM
To: mlarson@*******.com
Cc: ****@chartermi.net
Subject: Re: Mimi’s Question to Betty
Dear Mimi,
Thank you for allowing me to respond to your email. First, I agree that people can accomplish much more when they sit down and discuss things. It has been awkward, for instance, to bump into you at places like Mt. Royal Fine Foods and pretend that I don’t see you. Silly really.
I particularly looked forward to meeting with Dr. Dixon last year. We had debated on KBJR and afterward had a very cordial if brief conversation outside the studio. He had announced to the reporters that he was looking forward to sitting down and meeting with me. I took him up on his offer and we set a date to meet about a week later. Just before the meeting I got a phone message from his secretary canceling it. I returned the call and asked that our meeting be rescheduled. I’m still waiting for that call.
I’ll be honest with you. Most of the people who know that I want to write back to you are not convinced of your sincerity. Perhaps you should not be convinced of mine either. We have both labored long and hard and it would be very difficult after two years on my part and three on yours to concede that what we’ve worked for should be significantly altered.
Here is the question Betty forwarded to me:
I have a simple question for you – actually for people who seem wedded to the idea of Central staying open. I have wanted to ask over the past 2 years but never felt the timing was right. If you don’t mind could I ask it to you and see what your thoughts about it are? I ask in all sincerity and really am open to what you have to say.
“Why is it that people who want Central to stay open or consider the Ordean site too small for a high school think they know more than the numerous experts chosen to participate in the development of the long-range facilities plan? These experts, national, state and local, all came to the conclusions that are synthesized into the Red Plan. They spent thousands of hours inspecting buildings, calculating remodel costs, judging size of sites and figuring out financial plan only to have people with what I assume may be more of an emotional reaction to the plans weigh in differently and assume they know more than these other people. It has always surprised me how people in Duluth will argue the validity of the plan when it has passed muster from all these other very knowledgeable and professional people. Including the MDE who approved the plan (including the site for the new eastern high school). “
Your question to Betty begins with a presumption – that our side is wedded to the idea of Central staying open. While I’ll admit, this has become a favored position for many of us over the past year this was never part of my original thinking. The title of our organization continues to describe my principle concern. I want Duluth to vote on any LRFP.
I can be quite sentimental but I don’t care what Mankato does with my old alma mater Mankato High, now Mankato West. Further, I have no emotional ties to schools in Duluth. My children both attended East High.
You wonder why we doubt the “experts.”
I’d turn the question around and ask you why supporters of the Red Plan have so little faith in the wisdom of Duluth’s citizens. As things stand now the collective judgment seems to be that JCI’s “experts” saw a golden opportunity to extract lots of money from a community with schools that, if improved for a fraction of the Red Plan’s cost, were perfectly suited to giving our children a 21st Century education.
Of course, there are plenty of examples of people ignoring experts to their peril but there are also many examples of problems caused by blindly following the advice of experts. Take for instance today’s world economic crises which grew out of the faith we put in the financial experts of Wall Street.
I wrote a fundraising letter for Jack Arnold who ran for the City Council a while back. I explained in the letter that I supported him because as the head of the regional Economic Development Agency Jack was asked to pump federal money into building Duluth’s Aquarium. Experts had told Duluth that if we built the world’s first major fresh water aquarium we would be awash in visitors. Jack simply called around and found that of all the aquariums in the US only two made any money and both of these required subsidies. He refused to spend federal money on it and many of our City’s movers and shakers were quite unhappy about his decision. The Aquarium got built anyway.
The consultants hired to advise Duluth on the Aquarium had no pecuniary interest in our City’s decision one way or the other. That was not true of Johnson Controls because they stood to make more money the bigger the LRFP was. And guess what? It’s mighty big.
I’ve made a few calls myself and so have others. We’ve spoken to many experts with no pecuniary or sentimental interest in what Duluth does with its schools. They tell a very different story.
As for the Dept. of Education; MDE staff told me personally they thought the plan was big but that it wasn’t their role to second guess the Duluth School District. That’s not much of a testimonial. They just said it seemed legal. They weren’t prepared to deny the Red Plan based on the novel interpretations of the laws which the District used to justify it.
I happen to be an expert on the usual interpretations of laws pertaining to bond referendums because I served on the School Board; was an active member of the Minnesota School Boards Association; worked harder to promote five excess levies than anyone else in Duluth and watched how St. Paul and Minneapolis got special provisions written into state law specifically permitting them to do what Duluth has just done without specific and unambiguous statutory authority.
And I got this straight from the horse’s mouth, Representative Mike Jaros, who authored one of the laws propping up the Red Plan. In relying on this law the District is violating the spirit of the law to permit some building without a vote in order to help keep our schools integrated. The Red Plan will do just the opposite. It’s ironic but I ran against Mike twice in the 1970’s. Both times we ran friendly, not just civil, campaigns. I even called to introduce myself to Mike the first time I ran against him and we had a very friendly chat over a pot of coffee at Perkins.
I know very well that people who support the Red Plan have poured over the information we’ve provided online and elsewhere. I’m not surprised that our evidence could be debated or even debunked. I am surprised that it is rarely referred to. In fact, the main arguments for proceeding say little about the merits of the Red Plan, to wit:
The critics should have gotten involved early on (That’s a dubious argument when only about 16 of 35 members of the Citizens Committee regularly attended meetings and outsiders were routinely told to wait until the plan was developed before asking questions)
The critics are driven by sentiment. (Perhaps some of us are but our most ardent supporters are senior citizens whose primary motivation stems from their financial vulnerability which more than trumps their sentiment)
The critics say terrible things (Yet we have only done what historians do all the time – report uncomfortable but relevant information about the past so as not to repeat its mistakes)
The critics don’t understand that our politicians were elected to make these decisions. (This simply flies in the face of precedent where school referenda are concerned)
As to the size of Ordean. I can only tell you quite honestly that if you do not see the gross inadequacies of this site I have to question whether you have allowed sentiment to cloud your judgment of the LRFP.
I will leave off here, Mimi, because I would like to keep the possibility of dialogue open between us. My more contentious concerns can be addressed another day.
Yours Respectfully,
Harry Welty
