{"id":3317,"date":"2010-10-21T22:49:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T03:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=3317"},"modified":"2010-10-21T22:51:55","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T03:51:55","slug":"tv-covers-the-red-plan-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=3317","title":{"rendered":"TV covers the Red Plan Referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m just going to put the entire news story from WDIO here. I don&#8217;t think they will raise hell about their copyright. Apparently all the old Plan B standbys were out of town because DIO and the NBC\/CBS duo asked me for my take on the referendum. I caught just a glimpse of the video but this captures my sentiments very economically:<\/p>\n<p>From WDIO:Plan B On Ballot<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Posted at: 10\/21\/2010 7:27 PM | Updated at: 10\/21\/2010 7:31 PM<br \/>\nBy: Paige Calhoun <\/p>\n<p>Duluth residents will vote on a school referendum in November, but there may be some confusion, and in the end it may not change anything.<\/p>\n<p>Most residents have received the sample question in the mail, regarding Plan B, the alternative proposed by opponents of the Red Plan.<\/p>\n<p>The Duluth School District had long fought the ballot, while moving full steam ahead with the Red Plan. Now Plan B supporters said it may just be a protest vote.<\/p>\n<p>At the bottom of the question, in bold font it states, &#8220;By voting yes on this ballot question, you are voting for a property tax increase.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Former school board member Harry Welty believes that the school board is using this as a tactic to get people to vote no.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be honest, I think the average person is going to go into the booth, read this, and vote no because they don&#8217;t want more taxes,&#8221; Welty said.<\/p>\n<p>One thing the question doesn&#8217;t say is that it&#8217;s non-binding, meaning that the school board will have the final say on whether they will abide by it or not.<\/p>\n<p>Welty also said that putting this item on the ballot now is too late.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Two years ago, I would have felt much differently about this because it would have meant something. Now the best it is is a protest vote.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, Welty still hopes that people will vote yes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d encourage them to tell the school board, we&#8217;re gonna support this even thought it makes no sense because we should have has a chance to vote on this two years ago.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, the district sent out a news release pointing out what it see as the financial benefits of the Red Plan.<\/p>\n<p>Spokesperson Katie Kaufman said once the votes are counted, the board will have a discussion on the outcome. Kaufman also said that there is no way to know what will come from that discussion.<\/p>\n<p>The board majority has indicated its strong support for the Red Plan and changing course would be a surprise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And my quick review of the &#8220;Northland Newscenter story shows I&#8217;m quoted more extensively. I&#8217;m quite pleased with the Frankenstein quote. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northlandsnewscenter.com\/home\/New-Report-Says-Plan-B-More-Expensive-at-This-Point-105484373.html\">Video here<\/a>. Here&#8217;s the copy:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>October 21, 2010<br \/>\nDULUTH, MN (Northland&#8217;s NewsCenter) &#8212; It&#8217;s been a more than two-year debate between supporters of the long range facilities plan and Plan B.<br \/>\nNow, with more than 90 percent of the long range facilities plan complete or in progress, Duluth Public Schools officials released a report that says Plan B would be far more expensive.<br \/>\nDigital Daily \u00e2\u20ac\u201c subscribe to our daily newsletter<br \/>\n&#8220;Some of the key aspects of the report say the overall construction costs for Plan B would be roughly $49 million more than what the current long-range facilities plan is,&#8221; chief financial officer for Independent School District 709 Bill Hanson said.<br \/>\nFormer school board member Harry Welty says the difference in price comes largely because the city has already started construction on the long range facilities plan.<br \/>\n&#8220;Two years ago, it would have been an extremely sensible plan. It would have saved us nearly $150 million,&#8221; Welty said. &#8220;This is the school district&#8217;s Halloween joke. They&#8217;re dressing it up like a Frankenstein monster even though it&#8217;s non-binding.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe non-binding referendum will come to a vote on November 2 , but Welty says there&#8217;s really no longer an option of halting the long range facilities plan in favor of Plan B.<br \/>\n&#8220;The school board wants you to think this is a serious threat,&#8221; Welty said. &#8220;Two years ago, if we had done this, it would have been a rebuke to the school board and the school board didn&#8217;t want to know the public wasn&#8217;t behind them.&#8221;<br \/>\nAll in all, it was a tough task to crunch the numbers in this case. With so much of the long range facilities plan already underway, completing the original plan of Plan B would be nearly impossible.<br \/>\n&#8220;It does take into account where we are currently, with construction,&#8221; Hanson said. &#8220;You have to do that from a practical standpoint, as far as going forwards or backwards.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe long range facilities plan is scheduled to be completed in fall of 2013, while Duluth Public School officials estimate switching to Plan B would extend construction to the fall of 2015.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m just going to put the entire news story from WDIO here. I don&#8217;t think they will raise hell about their copyright. Apparently all&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}