Did I comment on Jana Hollingsworth’s recent story about Equity? It was essentially a summary of everything reported in the past. The Duluth Schools doesn’t offer equitable treatment for its students. That would require money we spent on the Red Plan……although that was not a big part of Jana’s story. Maybe we’ve gotten to the point where that fact goes without saying.
Well then, and this is Harry Welty speaking once again. The cure for this is more money…….money unlikely to come from the legislature and unlikely to be authorized by Duluth’s voters in a referendum any time soon especially with the refusal of the old School Board to sell Central for $14 million to Edison a couple years ago.
Which segues nicely to today’s Hollingsworth story about the futie six-year effort to sell Central to someone other than another school system.
The story offers no hope of a sale. It even suggests, to me, that our Administrators were not quite as forthright with us when I served on the Board and there were three board members willing to sell the property. Perhaps the most noteworthy comment in the story came from Nora Sandstead. The story reports thusly:
Sandstad also noted that she would entertain “a very low offer” if it came with property tax revenue.
“That’s much more beneficial than a one-time $15 or even $20 million payment,” she said, referring to Edison’s offer. Public schools don’t pay property taxes.
I texted back to an interested person who noticed Nora’s willingness to unload the property on the cheap. I said that it looked like she preferred to sell the property at a loss just rather than live with the embarrassment. I think voters will keep that attitude in mind when Nora asks them for an excess operational levy.
