The Tribune’s Jana Hollingsworth worked overtime last night to carefully explain how the District’s finances work vis a vis the proposed operational levies that will go before voters this November.
We had emailed a few weeks earlier and I told her I should get together with her to better understand how the finances work. I think she may have felt a little worried that my obvious confusion was somehow tied to her coverage. Not so. My cluelessness is my own fault. I’ve spent too much time being a grandparent and working on long deferred home maintenance to delve as deeply as I needed to.
I wondered if she was worried that I blamed her when she walked up and tried to walk me through the finance issues during last night’s meeting. I gave up after she explained that there were two $300 figures not just one. That confused me enough I knew I would need a break over coffee to make sense of it rather than a hasty clarification while the Board members were pontificating.
I spent an hour typing up my own understanding of the finances last night until my mind went blank. I needed some more sleep but sadly my brain was too wired to give me much of that either. I’ll resume writing my explanation of the finances shortly and, as I wrote before, pass it on to others like Jana to see if I’ve got it right.
Another person who stopped by to talk to me at the meeting was Tom Albright. He’s a stand-up supporter of the referendum and the son of former City Councilwoman Cynthia Albright. He gave me his pro-levy organization’s website URL and I plan to check it out soon. Its www.standupforkidsduluth.com.
NOTE: that url didn’t work for me when I just tried to access it. I left a message with Tom just now to get the right URL. I also googled “stand up for kids duluth” and found a Facebook page for this but it has a different URL
I told him that I have voted for every levy and never opposed one and that I’ll be supporting this one. I did tell him that because of the School Board’s actions I could not in good conscience recommend voting for some recent operational referendums and kept my thoughts private. I look forward to meeting with him soon. I’m sure I’ll have some suggestions for him.
Crikey! Its already 11AM. I just got a call from my brother in St. Louis and had a very pleasant conversation. He had my son over for dinner recently and could report on my son’s good fortune. But that takes a nibble out of my time.
I still have to draw a Ninja turtle target for my grandson’s party- and finish that levy explanation – and maybe paint some windows – and then attend a NAACP meeting tonight although that conflicts with my Wednesday night grandparenting duties. No wonder I have had a heck of a time sitting down to figure out the levy stuff.
