Vacations are a good time to get away from chaos, the clear the mind and reflect. I’m a day and a half away from Duluth looking out on the Green Bay peninsula but have yet to completely clear my mind as I contemplate the need to raise $100,000 to post a bond to stop the Red Plan. It sort of kills me to be away for the first full week of fund raising. Fortunately we’ve got the first $10,000 in the bank or in pledges already in hand. Its a start but not a finish.
Last night after we put the Tan Man down for bed in his crib we watched the first hour long episode of HBO’s much lauded ten part series on John Adams, the second President of the United States. This episode covered the events of the infamous “Boston Massacre.” What a wonderful lesson. Its so compelling that it was the very first story included in John Kennedy’s book “Profiles in Courage.”
On the eve of the American Revolution there was no one less popular than the British officers and soldiers who had shot the victims of the massacre. So unpopular were they that no attorney’s would represent them which virtually assured that in a jury trial they would all have been found guilty of murder. John Adams took on this task risking the hatred and opprobrium of the entire City and of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
His fellow colonists wanted them convicted because they were angry with the King of England. John Adams believed to his very core that the courts of England were the preserve of the law and that the law not popular sentiment should settle the case. An honest jury would look at the evidence – the soldiers were violently provoked; and the law – the soldiers were obligated to defend their post and ignore their desire to get revenge on the King by overlookng these inconvenient facts.
In large part because of Adam’s courage, and powers of his logic the law prevailed and the soldiers were found innocent. To Adams it was a triumph of the law over public passion or the undue influence of the King. John Adams law practices did suffer as clients shunned him.
In the case of Welty et al vs. ISD 709 and JCI the question in some people’s mind is whether the Court will rule based on the law or in favor of the passions of the masses or the equivelent of the King – the School Board and the Contractor who are claiming great riches from the Red Plan. If John Adams faith is repeated all the recently concocted stories spread by the Tribune of perfidy by Let Duluth Vote and Red Plan glory for the local economy will fall by the wayside in Court. If the contract is unlawful it will be declared so. If not it will be validated. There is good reason to believe it will be validated even if it costs JCI millions of dollars.
The case has merrit, so much so’ that the District’s lawyers are busily attempting to get the Judge to rule on a side issue which would give them standing to appeal the case to a higher court where despite its merits it would die from judicial delay. One action by the Court would prevent this – a temporary restraining order imposed on all Red Plan Construction. If the bond was raised and accepted this the side issue could be appealed but the Red Plan’s construction would grind to a halt until September when the Sixth District is scheduled to hear the taxpayer’s case.
What is not certain is whether a new motion by the taxpayer’s attorney to grant a restraining order for no more than the $100,000 of the existing bond requirement will be accepted by the Court. One reason that the bond was set so low originally was that taxpayers did not originally ask for a restraining order. A second reason was that the taxpayer’s case had a good likelyhood of prevailing.
If John Adam’s faith in the rule of law still holds the taxpayers may yet prevail over the influence of the rich and powerful who have so tightly throttled the media and elected officials in Duluth, Minnesota
