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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 mapCall - 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

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3003/3664489545_e0f8889534_m.jpgDay 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.

Today's thank you note see others

June 4

Let Duluth Vote meets Thursdays at 6:30 at  the Duluth Heights Community Club.(see mapCall - 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

 

If you care about Duluth and its schools 
don't put your faith in the Duluth News Tribune
The last word on the Red Plan can be found on Harry Welty's blog:
 
www.lincolndemocrat.com
And if you're looking for some particular piece of information use the blog's search function.
You never can tell what you'll find.