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For the Summer of 2009 Let Duluth Vote will
begin meeting on Mondays at 6:30 PM at the Duluth Heights
Community Club (see
map) Call
- 390-7768 to see if we are meeting this week.
Webmaster busy. No recent updates. This little metaphor was
offered to put something new on the page.
The checks
cleared.
The Sixth District Court has ordered that the taxpayers
take a $100,008.10 check from the St. Louis County Court Administrator and
convert it to a Surety bond of the same value. Obviously the four checks we gave
the Court cleared and in the week they sat in an account for the Court earned
$8.10 in interest.
Why we ain't licked yet?
This power point slide for Let Duluth Vote tells the tale.
If only Plan B's first phase of building repair went into effect Duluth would
save $271 million over the Red Plan. If the more problematic Phase 2 went into
effect, after a public vote, There would still be $127 million in savings.
This is apparently
too complicated for the Duluth News Tribune to understand. The School Board
proadly announced that their Red Plan would save an additional $5 million
annually times 20 years for $100 million. How do they do this. They fire fifty
teacher a year. It never ocurred to the Trib that if Let Duluth Vote wanted to
flim flam Duluth they could make the same claim. In fact, the flim flam is
getting flimsier.
Now the District
claims that there will only be $8oo,000 of energy savings. A couple years ago it
was over two million in energy savings. What happened to the energy savings?
Well, what ever happened to it they still want to sell their Red Plan based on
five million annual savings. That means they bumped up staff cuts from $3.2
million to $4.2 million. Its a perfect decision for brick lovers.
Below in non flim flam
terms is the savings Plan B, with all its District imposed faults, would offer
Duluth. If you want more savings than this just cut an additional $100 million
in teachers like the Red Plan does. Of course, when the District first touted
these savings two years ago Harry Welty pointed out that this would require the
cooperation of the nine successively elected school boards over the next 18
years. This is quite a promise. People who value teachers over bricks might get
elected and decide to hire the teachers back.
We ain't licked
yet
and you can help if you like
Spaghetti.
Heck, you can help us if you hate it.
Friday, July 17 Spaghetti
Dinner at All American Club, 1931 W. Superior
Street, Duluth . Serving from 5 to 7:30 PM Tickets on sale now for
$10 ages 8 to adult and $5 for 7 and under. Door Prizes and a Dunk
Tank. (Rumor has it that Harry Welty will sit in it so Red Plan Fans please join
us. No word yet on the Superintendent.)
Tickets can be obtained from Marcia at 525-5008
or Brenda at 390-7768
or other LDV people.
We did it. We posted
$100,000
for the five taxpayers to satisfy the Court's demand for a bond to go
to court in October.
LDV still has a
tough job ahead and will need to raise additional funds to keep the fight alive.
Its much more than the taxpayer's court case. We take donations online
or you can post them to our PO Box. See details at the bottom of any page
on this website.
And Hurry before its
too late. The rancid fruit of the Red Plan is already polluting our children's
education. Duluth's top ranking in test scores have
just plummeted.
Ten days to $100,000 bond
After Monday you will have to see the
updated thermometer on www.lincolndemocrat.com
And do we have an
idea for you. Donate to the bond as an investment and make money doing it
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
 Day
9, June 29th -
Deadline June 30. 1/2 day
to go.
Visit www.lincolndemocrat.com
for daily fundraising updates. Actually we're just past $70,000 but the
webmaster is too tired to update the thermometer. Read
our pitch to the Ordean neighbors.
Help us raise
the bond to require an injunction on further Red Plan construction until the
school board elections this November.
The latest
The taxpayers explain
to the court the justification for placing a temporary restraining order on
further Red Plan construction until their case is hear in September.
This shows when Red Plan construction spending
will take place. It comes from the Chamber of Commerce's Report on the economic
benefits of the Red Plan. Let Duluth Vote has
its doubts.
Ordean
demolition begins July 7th.
Four
Red Plan contractors made unethical corporate political contributions
The exodus grows
After many months
waiting for open enrollment information the District finally provided it for
this school year. Its grim data.
Ten years ago about 150 students from
outside Duluth open enrolled into our schools. Each student brought state
revenues with them and their own school district's local levy to help pay for
their education in Duluth. The 07-08 figures for Duluth suggested that there was
a net outflow of about 343 students from Duluth to other public school
districts. "Open enrollment" does not include enrollment into private
or parochial or charter schools within ISD 709 or home schooling all of which
have been growing alarmingly. According to this summary for the 08-09 school
year 417 students have open enrolled out of our District.
In Duluth about 70% of
the funding per child comes from state revenues. If we use a figure of about
$7,000 per child of state revenue (a very rough guess) that would mean the
District lost $3 million dollars to other districts in "state aid."
But about 25% of the money spent to educate these Duluth resident students comes
from Duluth school district taxpayers. 417 open enrolled students means that a
million dollars raised in Duluth is being spent in other communities. Ten years
ago other communities were paying Duluth to educate their children. When the
District blames the state for cutting funding they are on very thin ice.
Move
Move Forward Duluth
has sent a complaint about Let Duluth Vote to the St. Louis County Attorney.
One of the motions
the taxpayers have brought to court is a request for the Court to levy punitive
damages against those Duluth School Board members who continue to violate the
law and unlawfully spend public money. The Court has permitted this complaint to
be part of the hearing rather than dismissing it out of hand. That strongly
suggests our complaint on its face has legal merit. Read the dueling arguments
expressed by an attorney for the District and the attorney representing the
rights of the taxpayers here.
Six members of the
Duluth School Board hired an architectural firm to develop a Review and Comment
document for our Plan B at a cost of $70,000 giving them three weeks to complete
it by the day the taxpayers go to court on May 22nd. Gary Glass abstained from
the vote.
Let Duluth Vote was
to be given 15 minutes to describe its Plan B to the Duluth School Board. The
Power Point presentation was followed
by questions and some debate which lasted for two and a half hours.
The latest outrages
(that
you probably didn't read in the Duluth News Tribune)
F
I Salter. The School Board's Realtor.
in Piedmont
A
comparison of JCI's fix up costs vs. the Districts.
Wheeler
Middle School nonsense
Wasson vs. Worley
- School Board member Ann Wasson recently all but dismissed Landscape Kent
Worley as a crank in the Duluth News Tribune. He has sent her this reply.
One of them surely is a crank.
Dixon's
roofs How long will they last?
You
did read that an attorney has abandoned a legal challenge to the Red Plan (He
wasn't Let Duluth Vote's attorney) The Trib's story is so incomplete as to
be inaccurate. You should read a corrective post found on Harry
Welty's blog.
The Duluth News Tribune hasn't covered the
stories that we've highlighted in yellow.
We think they were/are important news. Judge for yourself.
This Great new plan
- notes from a presentation given to District staff on the glories of the Red
Plan.
The
School Administration lies to a Board member about its activities to keep
him in the dark.
Piedmont parents rebel.
PTA survey reports that only half plan to send
their children to the new Piedmont School.
The "Big Fill"
is the School Administration's name for the chaotic domino-like move of our
children from one school to another in order to build the Red Plan
overnight.
The
gross inadequacy of the Ordean site as a new high school
How
did JCI turn $37 million in needed repairs into a $300
million steal? Read the extended version of a short report in the
Reader Weekly
Former Senator Ralph Doty
denies what JCI told the District in December of 2006.
The School District advertises
major construction bids without School Board authorization.
Taxpayers bring
suit against the School District to court.
Whatever happened to
Plan B?
The Duluth School
District's finances are troubling.
Now other companies are getting sweetheart
deals just like Johnson Controls.
When Dr. Dixon built
a real high school or how to give eastern Duluth the cruddiest high school
campus in Minnesota
Proposed Federal Stimulus
Package for Duluth's schools
Be thankful the Schools didn't use
eminent domain on 564
homes to build the Red Plan.
On
eagle's wings - Some of us are trying to make sure that the School District
doesn't chase off the nesting eagles next to Ordean.
Dr.
Dixon refuses to draw up a review and comment plan according to Let Duluth
Vote's recommendations claiming that they do not represent the 75 words in the
LDV petition. He refuses to turn over additional data. He says that Plan B now
belongs to the District and that they will turn in a review and comment plan
without Let Duluth Vote's help if they have to.
And you thought the Ordean
site was bad. Look at what JCI has planned for the Western
Middle School.
The Red Plan will cost Duluth
households almost four times as
much as the $3,000/family impact of the trillion dollar National stimulus
package.
Eastern
Class sizes are out of whack.
The price
tag on the Red Plan has just jumped another $13 million.
Ordean has far less useable
land than advertised - only 20% of the State's recommended
acreage.
The
Red Plan's cost climb - from Harry Welty's blog. And here's the
School District document showing the next $296 million
in spending plans.
Over 15% of Hermantown's students are open enrolled. Any doubt where these
325 extra kids are coming from? Any idea how much state revenue this is costing
the Duluth Schools? student
exodus
Under the latest plans
Denfeld will get 63 new student
parking spots but 500 new student drivers.
After promising not to use operations money
to build the Red Plan to pass the levy the Board has passed a
resolution to do it anyway.
Did Duluth's former legislators ever intend to let the Duluth School Board bond for $293
million dollars without a vote?
Hell No!
School
Board member Cameron wants to
remove colleague Glass
And why are we spending $303 million with a projected enrollment like this?
Notice the up tick in enrollment at Edison
in 07 since the push for the Red Plan. In addition 600 Duluth students may have
enrolled in neighboring Districts over same time period.
Let Duluth Vote meets Thursdays at 6:30 at the Duluth Heights
Community Club.(see
map) Call
- 390-7768 to see if we are meeting this week.
What's Let Duluth Vote up to now?
We gave the school board an outline of how our Plan
B would work. The Board renamed it Plan D to discredit it while it dribbles
it out of reach in an effort to run out the game before the Construction season
begins.
so
We set out a
fund raising letter to all 40,000 households in Duluth requesting donations
to hire lawyers to fight the Red Plan in court.
Then we advertised for
an attorney across the state.
1500 donations later we hired an attorney who
discovered that the contract for the $300 million Red Plan was illegal. Here
is the case we have filed in Court. Click here
for a summary.
Since then the School Board decided that the
law required them to do what we asked them to do a year ago. They've hired an
architectural firm to draw up a review and comment report based on their
interpretation of the 75 words of our Plan B petition and their interpretation
of it. They want it submitted to the Minnesota Dept of Education by May 22 -
three weeks from the day they hired the consultants and the same day the Sixth
District Court hears our complaint.
If you'd like to send letters to the newspapers
here's how.
Letters
To The Editor -
Duluth
News Tribune
letters@duluthnews.com
424
W.
First St.
Duluth
,
MN
55802
Fax: 218-720-4120
Letters
To The Budgeteer Editor
budgeteer@duluthbudgeteer.com
(Remember that you cannot submit the same
editorial to both the New Tribune & the Budgeteer_222
West Superior St.,
Suite
100
,
Duluth
,
MN
55802
To lend a hand call Brenda at
390-7768
The state starts taking
notice of the Red Plan.
How
you can save Central High?
Know
the facts
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