I got a very good question in my email today. Apparently a former school board member XXXXX has been telling people that Lowell school was built without a referendum back in 1989 and that no one complained about it. The Board member goes on to suggest that the absence of a vote on the Red Plan is no big deal either.
I was asked to explain the history on this since the emailer didn’t live in Duluth twenty years ago.
Trust me. It will be a pleasure!
The traditional law used by school districts to fund building programs allows for a “reverse referendum.” This exBoard member served on the school board when Lowell was built and knows this or should know this.
A reverse referendum allows for a petition by the public to put the bonding question on the ballot if the community has reservations about the plan. If no petition is circulated or not enough signatures are gathered there is no need to put the question to a vote. In the case of Lowell School nobody circulated a petition. That’s because it was part of the third building plan in succession. The two preceding it were voted on and defeated. The first offered in 1989 weighed in at $55 million. It was crushed in a referendum. A second for $35 million was also defeated the following year. Like the Red Plan ALL of the money raised for these two plans, had they been approved, would have come from local property taxpayers.
When the final plan was offered it was for a modest $26 million. Not only was it much smaller but the state offered to kick in half of the cost for safety improvements so that if it passed in a referendum local property taxpayers would only pay $13 million of the cost. So, no one circulated a petition. Duluth voters knew a good thing when they saw it.
The reverse referendum law is still on the books. Dr. Dixon and JCI made sure that they did not use this law to fund their gargantuan design. That’s because they didn’t want to give voters a chance to veto the plan. They were afraid that some clown like Harry Welty might circulate a petition and force the Red Plan to be voted on.
That’s the big deal. This School Board’s attorneys reinterpreted several funding laws including Mike Jaros’ law allowing Boards to bypass voters to fund building plans for the purpose of desegregation. By the way, the ceiling for these building plans is half-a-million dollars for every Minnesota City except Duluth, Minneapolis and St. Paul. Compare that to the Red Plan’s $437 million cost. You can be damn sure the folks at MDE swallowed hard when the Red Plan was dropped on their doorstep.
Dr. Dixon is rumored to have threatened that he would sue the Dept. of Education if it didn’t approve the Red Plan. The Dept. of Ed is full of bureaucrats who don’t want trouble. They left the trouble for Duluth to sort out. The MDE OK’ed the Red Plan with the same language they used to OK Plan B. They did not endorse either plan.
This ex school board member was a forerunner of today’s Ann Wasson. That helps explain why XXXXX wasn’t reelected.
