Not Eudora
By Harry Welty
Published
April 11, 2008
The
Final Say on the Red Plan
By Harry Welty
Mike Jaros shook his head in disbelief as he recalled the
justification for killing a referendum on the Red Plan, expressed by Board
member Nancy Nilson at the infamous June, 2007 School Board meeting. As Mike
recalls it
Nancy
said the School Board couldn’t offer the plan for a vote because that was
against the law. Against the law? With that level of understanding no wonder
this pickle is turning so many elected officials green.
Normally a School Board’s turf is off limits to a City
Council and vice versa. But when the Duluth School Board majority turned a deaf
ear to its critics, its critics began to redress their grievances to
the City. They reasoned that the City could refuse to cooperate with contractors
during the Red Plan’s construction by not closing streets or issuing permits.
This aggravation pushed the city councilors to meet with
the School Board causing some friction between the council and our new Mayor
Ness, who although worried about the Red Plans abandonment of central Duluth and
its rampant use of eminent domain, acted a tad too blandly for some councilors
and City Hall watchers. Then Nilson, now School Board Chair, balked at meeting
with the Council because she didn’t want to discuss one particular topic that
was none of their business.
Now lobbying against the Red Plan has now reached
St. Paul
where the legislature, which has until the end of April, could force the
District to put the Red Plan on the ballot.
The law which Board member Nilson did not fully understand
last year was introduced by Representative Mike Jaros fifteen or more years ago.
It imitated two laws which were passed for
Minneapolis
and
St. Paul
granting their school boards the power to offer building bonds without
referenda.
Minneapolis
was given the right to raise $8 million in building projects, which has since
been increased to $15 million a year. Of course,
Minneapolis
has four times as many students as
Duluth
. If
Duluth
had
Minneapolis
’s student per capita taxing power the Red Plan would only cost $3.75 million
a year. But
Duluth
is using Mike’s law to raise an average of $20 million annually which is
considerably higher than
Minneapolis
. By contrast, if
Minneapolis
exercised
Duluth
’s new found spending authority with its student population,
Minneapolis
could levy one-and-a-half billion
dollars without an election. That should make somebody in
St. Paul
sit up and take notice.
Mike, who has many impoverished constituents, never meant
to give this kind of authority to our school board. His original law permits
referendum free building for three purposes: health, safety and integration. Yet
the Red Plan violates the spirit and possibly the letter of Mike’s law by
scrapping
Duluth
’s integration plan while dividing the District at
14th Ave East
along the most racially divisive boundary possible.
Mary Murphy has joined Mike in co-authoring an amendment to
his old law. That means that two of
Duluth
’s three representatives support the measure. The third, Tom Huntley, likes
the Red Plan. Rep. Murphy’s fear is more global than Mike's. She worries that
the Red Plan sets a bad precedent for the entire state not just
cities-of-the-first-class.
Senator Yvonne Prettner Solon, a former City Councilor, has
the opposite concern. She doesn’t want the State interfering with local
government. This is a legitimate worry but it begs the question of why the state
interfered in cities-of-the-first-class to begin with. They did it by taking
away the right to vote on bank breaking and/or bone headed school building plans
that every other Minnesotan has. This interference seems particularly
unjustified considering that as many as 70% of
Duluth
’s voters are furious with the Duluth School Board.
Duluth
’s voters have had one indirect vote on the Red Plan. Last November they
elected a vehement opponent of the Red Plan, Gary Glass, who won with a lopsided
65% victory. They will get a second indirect referendum this November when they
vote on an operational levy for classroom expenses. Even in the best of years
only about half of these levies pass in
Minnesota
and that's in Districts without major controversies.
Who’s listening to
Duluth
’s voters? The School Board isn’t. The City Council and Mayor are squeamish
about interfering. Governor Pawlenty who lectured the City on the importance of
referendums when it came to the dinky DECC sales tax allowed his Department of
Education to OK the Red Plan. Just
this week Commissioner Seagren visited Mike and told him they “were amazed
with the large amount our district was proposing.” But they reluctantly
approved the plan. Now only Mike Jaros stands in the School Board’s way and
the School Board is fighting back. Nancy Nilson sent him 63 emails the day she
heard he was trying to require a vote. If you want to help Mike you better ask
his colleagues to help him.
Senator Thomas M. Bakk
Capitol Building, Room 226
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
(651) 296-8881
Rep. Thomas Huntley
585 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55155
(651) 296-2228
Senator Yvonne Prettner Solon
Room G-9
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.,
St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
(651) 296-4188
Rep.
Mary Murphy
343 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55155
(651) 296-2676
But
don’t give up on the School Board. Attend next Tuesday’s board meeting at
6:30 PM
on the second floor of Old Central. Let them know that you still want to vote.
Welty is a small time
politician who lets it all hang out at www.snowbizz.com
