I highly recommend it. Sorry I did not draw attention to it earlier.
Oh what the heck. The link above won’t work in a few days. Here it is in its entirety.
Actions speak louder than words. A June 25 News Tribune editorial (Our View: “Red Plan shifts can’t come as any surprise”) suggested there was no change in the Red Plan’s sticker price of $293.9 million, not counting interest.
However, later, Superintendent Keith Dixon recommended eight changes to the plan and shuffled $20 million around, raising the total public debt obligations from $426 million to $431 million. Then the superintendent told members of the newspaper’s editorial board the district might be awash in up to $32 million in Red Plan savings (Our View: “Duluth School Board has mighty nice problem,” July 23). The next day he convinced the School Board to sell an additional $5 million in bonds, thus assuring higher future taxes or fewer teachers.
The School Board re-adopted its civility code before the public could speak on June 15. Then, at its next meeting, School Board Chairman Tim Grover abruptly called a recess while a member of the public was still at the microphone speaking. The chairman, with his board allies and school administrators, walked out because he didn’t like what the public said.
The School Board promised it would never take general funds to pay for Red Plan costs but then authorized using them anyway (again, on June 15) to the tune of $2.2 million. What money did it use? It took half the annual amount voters previously approved for classrooms.
The superintendent joined Mayor Don Ness and others in announcing a new Duluth Academy (“Joint effort offers educational model in Duluth,” July 28) to be placed in Old Central – just after cutting the budget on June 24, which was needed to meet building codes at Old Central, and after gutting programs formerly offered at the Secondary Technical Center, the new, not-yet-paid-for, state-of-the-art building on top of the hill that’s scheduled for closure in the revised Red Plan.
This School Board and administration simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth or to spend the public’s money wisely or honestly.
Gary E. Glass, Ph.D.
Duluth
The writer is an at-large member of the Duluth School Board.
