Tag Archives: duluth politics

From Office Towers to the Horrors of Heroin: Duluth City Council Notes, 10/28/13

The Council Chamber teemed with life for its final session before the 2013 elections, with a large, chattering crowd on hand. Councilor Hartman was absent and “sick in bed,” according to President Boyle, leaving the Council with only seven members. Even so, they managed to pack a broad range of issues into a relatively short meeting.

The highlight of the night actually took place before the formal meeting, as Councilor Fosle made good on his promise to hold a Committee of the Whole meeting on heroin use in the Duluth area. Police Chief Gordon Ramsay was on hand to testify, and fielded questions on the spread of heroin, explaining the PD’s efforts to cut off supply lines from Chicago and Detroit and the troubles the city has with for-profit methadone clinics. Once the formal meeting started, six citizen speakers addressed the Council on heroin. They led off with a woman who gave a thorough overview of the drug in Duluth, telling of how addiction begins with people taking pain-killing drugs such as Oxycontin that are over-prescribed and often serve as a gateway. She attributed over 20 Duluth-area deaths over the past two years to heroin overdoses, and labeled it an “epidemic” that requires more education.

She was followed by two mothers of heroin addicts who shared jarring stories of their sons’ struggles. One said of her son that “she didn’t know who he is anymore,” detailing his addiction to painkillers starting at age 16 that led him to heroin and jail stints, theft, and no sober friends. She likened the experience to “watching my child drown, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.” The second explained the agony of being the mother of an addict, a life filled with nights of “tears and silent screams” given the lack of support networks, and the pain of having one’s child labeled as “scum.” The fourth speaker was a recovering addict who has been clean for three and a half years after roughly 15 years on heroin; she talked of how difficult it was to overcome the drug, and did her best to offer hope to the mothers who had come before her. A 22-year-old took the stand as the witness for her generation, which has been the worst-hit by heroin; she told of several family members and friends who have died in recent years. The final speaker emphasized the importance of prevention and treatment; while it is good to cut off drug suppliers such as Jim Carlson, he pointed out that removing the supplier does little to stem the demand.

After the meeting, Councilor Fosle thanked the speakers for their time, and invited the other Councilors to reflect on the stories and come back to him with their thoughts on what, if anything, the Council could do to fight the heroin epidemic. For a second straight meeting, he came across not as the rambling ideologue he occasionally seemed to be in the past, but as a powerful advocate for issues that might otherwise be missed. Councilor Krug suggested the Council hear more testimony from people working with addicts in schools, emergency rooms, and rehab centers to better grasp the issue. Councilor Gardner agreed, and said the root of the problem—prescription opiates—appeared clear. She hoped for further engagement with the medical community in the future.

The most involved piece of official Council business was an update on the construction of an office tower on the 400 block of West Superior Street by Mr. Chris Eng of the city’s Business Development office. He explained that the building, which stood 15 stories high in the initial plans, was now down to 10-12 stories. He detailed the funding sources for the project; $50 million of the $70 million project will be contributed by clothing designer Maurices, which will occupy much of the building, while the city will match an $8.5 million grant to cover most of the remainder. Councilor Fosle asked whether Maurices had a tenant lined up for its current location; a Maurices representative told him they had one for their main building, and were confident they could sell their other two locations over the next two years. Councilor Stauber grilled the project’s representatives on the finer details of the changes to their funding plans and received an assurance that the tower had letters of intent from several likely tenants for its retails spaces, though the tenants could not be disclosed at this point. Councilor Julsrud asked about the parking ramp, which has also shrunk in size now that the tower will not be as tall as first planned, and will not require bond money due to Maurices’ decision to front the payment.

The Council’s consent agenda passed unanimously. A measure that would have asked the state legislature to make it possible to remove withdrawn candidates from ballots was tabled, and the administration withdrew a plan to remodel a fire hall for further work. Councilor Stauber was the lone vote against the planned distribution of tourism tax revenue, though he didn’t explain why. Councilor Gardner introduced a City Code amendment to rename the American Indian Commission the “Indigenous Commission,” saying the new name was more inclusive. Councilor Fosle clarified that the term “indigenous” included numerous Asian and Pacific island groups, and the name change passed unanimously.

Next up was an ordinance funding a parking ramp at the Duluth International Airport. Councilors Julsrud and Fosle took care to emphasize the importance of the project, noting its minimal risk and its role in completing an important expansion for the airport, while President Boyle shared his personal horror stories of flying back into Duluth after a vacation to find his car plowed in and buried under half a foot of snow. The measure passed unanimously, as did two minor changes to permitted building types and sites. That wrapped up official Council business for the meeting.

In addition to her comments on heroin, Councilor Gardner used the final comment session to discuss recent controversy over efforts to remove homeless people sleeping in the “Graffiti Graveyard” beneath I-35 in downtown Duluth. She said she and President Boyle had recently attended a forum on poverty and learned that many people experiencing homelessness feel “less than legal” and fear doing things like coming before the Council to speak about their plight. She said she was looking at models used in Seattle and Providence, Rhode Island that might help empower these people to seek more help. Her comments wrapped up a brief but heavy meeting in which the Council did a thorough job of shining light on people who might otherwise slip through the cracks, yet still found time to push a pair of key economic development projects. Yet again, the Council proved an effective governing body, confronting issues that face a wide swath of Duluthians. We’ll see how well it can turn its talk into action, and how it evolves after next week’s election.

Duluth General Election Preview 2013

The Duluth general election is just over a week away. I’ve done a bit of driving around the city doing some completely unscientific counting of yard signs to see who appears to have an edge, but with local elections, it’s hard to get a really good feel on the situation without doing a lot of legwork. Turnout in the primary elections was low enough that things could still swing drastically on Tuesday the 5th.

Here is a Sample Ballot.

Polling Places and District Designations | Map

Here is a rundown on every race in the city; in this post, I try only to give neutral assessments on what each candidate’s election would mean for their respective bodies. Candidates are listed in the order of finish in the primary. Click their names to view their web pages, and if I missed a web page or if there’s a more detailed version than the Facebook pages I’ve linked to, let me know—I searched for everyone’s, but some didn’t generate results.

City Council At-Large

2 open seats

Barb Russ | Zack Filipovich | Ryan Stauber | Ray Sandman

Russ led the primary vote by a comfortable margin and has shown no signs of losing her momentum; she offers a crisply articulated version of Duluthian liberalism, and has a long history of community involvement. This likely sets up a showdown between Filipovich and Stauber for the second open seat; Filipovich had a stronger showing in the primary, but Stauber seems to have built some support since, and got himself a News-Tribune endorsement. Both are in their 20s, and their campaigns are a bit rough around the edges; Filipovich has a crisp image but is rather vague, while Stauber has more defined ideas but is rather scattershot in his presentation. While Filipovich appears more business-minded than your average liberal, this competition can easily be seen as a left-right competition; if Stauber loses, there will only be one Councilor who clearly qualifies as “fiscally conservative.” Sandman seems to have a decent base of support on the west side, but he also has a large gap to close, and his platform doesn’t really go beyond a vague call for living wage jobs.

City Council 2nd District

Patrick Boyle (Unopposed incumbent)

No excitement here, but Boyle is running for the Second District County Commissioner seat as well (see below).

City Council 4th District

Howie Hanson | The Ghost of Garry Krause

This race also appears to be a foregone conclusion, barring a massive protest vote from the residents of District Four in favor of the former Councilor Krause, whose name remains on the ballot despite his resignation in September. A Councilor Hanson would ostensibly tip the Council further left, though it’s hard to say much about him since he hasn’t had to run much of a campaign. If elected, Hanson would be seated immediately so as to fill the Council vacancy. All other people elected on Nov. 5 will be seated in January.

Edit from earlier version: I’ve updated the link above, which now leads to his Facebook page, instead of his blog.

School Board At-Large

2 open seats

Annie Harala | Harry Welty | Nancy Nilsen | Henry Banks

Harala was the top vote-getter in the primary by a decent margin, and has run a safe, positive, community-centered campaign since, earning plenty of endorsements. The wild card here is Welty; he leads the field in signage, has done a lot of legwork, and he’s also the only candidate who is attentive to the people still frustrated by the Red Plan, even though he supports the levies. I was going to say he’d run a textbook campaign until I saw his bizarre, paranoid ad in this past week’s Reader. (Judge it for yourself here–yes, this was a print advertisement.) This is what you get with Welty: doses of nuance and political acumen coupled with rambling attempts at honesty that, while well-intentioned, can be rather head-scratching, to say the least. His foil here is Nilsen, an unabashed Red Plan supporter who wants to finish the work from her first term on the Board. (I couldn’t find any web presence for her.) As with Sandman in the City Council race, Banks had a chance to give the Board some real diversity; his candidacy was slow to generate much momentum and remains on the vague side, but he does seem to have increased his presence in the past few weeks.

School Board 1st District

Rosie Loeffler-Kemp | Joe Matthes

Loeffler-Kemp cleared fifty percent in the primary, but Matthes has run a strong campaign since, with thorough answers at forums, a lot of door-knocking, and a News Tribune endorsement. Loeffler-Kemp has over twenty years of experience in school affairs, though, and that is quite the mountain to climb. Either way, this district has two of the stronger candidates out there, and the winner will have earned the position.

School Board 4th District

David Bolgrien | Art Johnston (incumbent)

Polarizing Board Member Johnston faces a serious challenge in this race; the third candidate in the very tight three-way primary has endorsed Bolgrien, a longtime education activist on the west side. Johnston has spent the last four years as a protest vote against anything Red Plan related, but now is attempting to walk the fine line of claiming he can be a voice of reason despite his burned bridges on the Board. Diverse voices are all well and good, but Johnston’s challenge is to prove he can offer something of substance and actually build a coalition on the Board to support his views. He is the only candidate in any School Board race who opposes the levies.

School Board Levies

“Yes” Vote Page

There are two ballot questions. The first renews an existing operating levy; its failure would lead to a budget shortfall, likely necessitating deep cuts and class sizes ranging up toward 50 students in a room. The second raises property taxes by approximately $4 per month on a $150,000 home. ISD 709’s stated purpose is to use this money to lower class sizes; if passed, Superintendent Bill Gronseth claims they will be lowered by 4-6 students across the board. Yard sign counts aren’t of much use here since there isn’t much of an organized “no” campaign; if forced to speculate I’d say the first question has decent odds of passing, while the second faces a bit more resistance.

The “yes” vote has built some momentum in recent weeks, with endorsements from the News Tribune, the Chamber of Commerce, and Mayor Don Ness; and also thanks to yeoman’s work by some of the School Board candidates in their door-knocking for their own campaigns. Several people related to the Tea Party and longtime School Board critics have mounted some public resistance, however. They claim taxes in Duluth are high enough as it is, and that the Board’s behavior during the Red Plan means it is untrustworthy, and may not direct money where it is most needed (into classrooms to fight the large class sizes). The “Vote Yes” crowd counters this claim by pointing out the small size of the tax increase and across-the-board support for smaller class sizes from all of the pro-levy Board candidates.

St. Louis County Commissioner 2nd District Primary

Patrick Boyle | Scott Keenan | Jim Stauber | Cary Thompson-Gilbert

Following the passing of Commissioner Steve O’Neil in July, residents of the east side of the Duluth will go to the polls to select the two candidates who will advance to the January 14 special election. The field for this seat is loaded, as all four bring plenty of experience to the table. Based on a lawn sign count and general knowledge of the east side’s proclivities, the two frontrunners appear to be Boyle and Keenan. Councilor Boyle is the O’Neil family’s desired successor and a liberal champion, while Keenan doesn’t really fit an ideological label, having shown streaks of fiscal conservatism and environmentalism during his two terms on the Council and during his tenure on many local boards. Outgoing City Councilor Jim Stauber is the most conservative voice in the field, though he isn’t exactly a confrontational one; if elected, four of the five members of the County Board would lean toward the right. He doesn’t have any noticeable lawn sign presence, though he does have plenty of name recognition, and with his son on the City Council ticket, the Staubers have the potential to have a big night. Thompson-Gilbert is the only candidate who hasn’t served on the City Council, though her husband (Greg Gilbert) has, and she has a solid résumé of community activism. Adam Jaros and Nik Patronas are both on the ballot, but have withdrawn their names; Jaros endorsed Boyle, while Patronas exited for health reasons.

That about sums it up. Get out and vote no matter who you support, and stay tuned for results and analysis after the election.

A Follow-Up on a Charter High School in Duluth

My piece on the possibility of a Duluth Edison charter high school was unusually punchy for this blog, and in turn, it provoked some good reactions. I spend a lot of time in detached analysis; part of this is just who I am, and part of this is because I do try to transcend normal political categories so that I’m not pigeonholed as some tradition-loving conservative or government-loving commie. But when the guard does come down (and when it does, it always seems to involve Duluth East High School), taking a hard stand on something often does generate a good response. So here are some of the responses, and please, if you have any thoughts, send them along in a comment or through other means. I love the dialogue.

First, I want to clear something up that I didn’t mean to suggest, especially with my overly vague title: I certainly wasn’t trying to throw all charter schools in one big pot. In large urban areas, I can certainly see how charter schools can be and have already been helpful, though I also don’t pretend to understand the education debate in those cities well enough to come to a good conclusion. For my friends out there in Teach for America who are employed in charter schools, keep doing what you’re doing. I just hope you can see the nuance in this debate, which I think reveals the dangers of abstraction in education. Whenever someone says a certain type of school—public, private, charter, whatever—is the problem or the solution, you should be suspicious. This is a complicated debate, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer, and little reason to believe that what works in New York is the same thing that works in Memphis or Muncie or a small town in Kansas.

My intent was to address Duluth, Minnesota in 2013, and nothing else. Perspective is in order, and an understanding of the diversity of experiences is in order. That’s what set me off about the original “Dish with Trish” piece (since removed from the Reader website, I now see) more than anything: her own perspective was the only one that mattered, and she declared that ISD 709 “sucked” for her, and therefore must suck for everyone else, even though this is (a) patently untrue and (b) is of absolutely no constructive use for figuring out the future of education in Duluth.

With that in mind, I got three good responses from people with unique insights into the situation here.

My first correspondent was a fellow Duluth East alumnus who went to Edison schools through 8th grade. He had a very fair beef with my insinuation that Edison would hurt diversity (broadly defined) in Duluth schools. I did know that Edison has a fairly high percentage of students on free/reduced lunch, but at such a small school, I wasn’t sure that this was necessarily a good proxy for diverse family backgrounds: after all, there are plenty of engaged and well-educated parents who just don’t make a lot of money. (Maybe they’re single-income families, maybe they’ve chosen fulfilling jobs that don’t pay much, maybe they were English majors, etc. I’m a living example here: I got a Pell Grant, but my parents both have advanced degrees, and it would be laughable to call my childhood “working class” or something along those lines.) My correspondent, however, assured me that the kids at Edison during his days there ran the gamut of possible backgrounds; most went on to Duluth Central, he said, and he could name plenty of former classmates who went on to become teenage parents or even went to prison.

My friend had plenty good things to say about Edison, and thought the school did pretty well for what it had to work with. He didn’t particularly want to be at Edison and was happy to head to East for high school, though as a hockey player, he already had friends at East who helped make his transition easy. He said he wouldn’t send his own kids there unless there was a substantial gulf between it and the public schools, and didn’t appear to think the schools are at that point right now. He also agreed that an Edison High was not in the best interests of Duluth as a whole.

He also raised a good point that seems to have been forgotten in all of this: Duluth already has a charter high school! Harbor City has been up and running for a while now. I guess my question to the Edison people is, what would an Edison High offer that Harbor City doesn’t? Is there simply not enough room at Harbor City, or is there something deeper at work here?

It’s also worth noting the time he was at Edison: the early 00s, long before the Red Plan debates began. When I mentioned that, he said he did think there has, perhaps, been a change in Edison’s mission in recent years, whether the people who are running the school realize it or not. On a similar note, Harry Welty noted that the situation currently confronting Duluth schools was “unimaginable” when Edison was first set up. My friend’s comments invite a lot of questions over the Edison mission, and I’m genuinely curious to know the answers. The school may have been diverse in 2003, but how have things changed since the Red Plan flights began, and how will it look in 2023? Perhaps Edison may not want to think of itself as being in direct competition with ISD 709, but in a city of this size, it’s inevitable. How does Edison choose which applicants get in, and does it just shrug its shoulders at the kids who don’t end up there? If more families try to “flee” the “issues” in ISD 709, who gets let in? Considering that one of these two districts gets public funding without needing to endure levies or contentious school board meetings or Keith Dixon or Art Johnston, how does the endgame possibly look good for ISD 709? I can imagine a few answers to that question, but I want to hear them from other people, too.

While it obviously isn’t Edison’s fault that ISD 709 has some issues, it does share a community with that District, and it has some responsibility to work with the District, not against it. I think school choice is great when it meets needs that public schools do not, and I’m glad people are happy at the K-8 Edison schools. (See an older post of mine on publics versus privates here.) Edison can be great for this city if it is a complement; the troubles will begin if it comes to be seen as a substitute. As I said at the end of the last post, we’re all in this together.

Harry Welty followed up on the Dish with Trish on his blog, and adds some kind words about me on the end. His perspective on white flight into charter schools is an interesting addition to the conversation, and it will be interesting to see if Edison—which is fairly racially diverse (by Duluth standards) right now—remains that way. And while the racial element is important, I also think Duluth’s racial homogeneity can hide other divisions within the community.

Finally, I heard from someone who has more knowledge of the financial details of a possible sale of the old Duluth Central to Edison than I do. Here are my informant’s thoughts, with this person’s permission:

[T]he idea that Edison will get a high school may be an inevitability, but who is to say that they will get off the ground in the near future?  As far as I can tell, there is no building around here suitable for a high school outside of the property that our district owns. It would take Edison at least 4 years, maybe up to 6, to build a building from the ground up. They need to find land, purchase it, develop plans, get bids, get permits, etc, etc, etc. We currently send 1.4 million of public school funding to Edison every year. In the event they purchase Central, it’s conceivable that they could be off and running by September 2015. If they have to do it on their own, it’s likely they won’t have a school till at least 2018, maybe 2019. Assuming they have around the same number of students, that’s an additional 1.4 million for 4 years that would be sent to Edison that otherwise would have stayed in our schools. That 12 million we get from them for Central won’t look nearly as good if you have to subtract 5.6 million of lost revenue over that span of time when they otherwise wouldn’t have had a high school. 

Of course, that isn’t going to satisfy the people who are upset that they’re being taxed to maintain Central and just want that off the books as soon as possible, but if these people take the long view, selling for minimal profit now will only exacerbate financial problems later on, and we’ll be having a war just like this one a few years down the line. From the District’s financial standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to wait for another buyer; the question is, how quickly do they think that buyer can come along, and how much longer will this process drag on?

It’s hard for the District to win here, but this city has to come up with a coherent vision for the future of its public schools. Sorry, Marcia Stromgren: public education isn’t going away anytime soon, and even with an Edison High, the public schools will be inextricably bound up in the city’s fate. We can fund them with the levies, vote for dedicated candidates who will dialogue with us citizens, and watch the Board to make sure the money ends up in the right places. Or we can vote them down and somehow pretend that 50 kids in a classroom is “justice,” or that this will teach a school board full of people who were not around when the Red Plan was implemented a lesson about having implemented the Red Plan. It’s your choice, Duluth.

Calm amidst Storms: 10/15/13 School Board Notes and Thoughts on a Suicide at Duluth East

The Duluth School Board convened for its monthly meeting in October on Tuesday night, and went on to have the least contentious meeting since I’ve started covering them. There were very few things of major interest on the agenda, so I’ll just breeze through the summary before offering a few comments on the citizen speakers. Member Seliga-Punyko was absent for a second consecutive meeting; the crowd included a group from Piedmont on hand to receive an award, a bunch of East students watching the meeting for class credit (for whom Member Wasson ran about grabbing and autographing agendas), a smattering of candidates in next month’s election, and the usual suspects. The District took time to thank many groups in and around Piedmont Elementary for a “Set your Student up for Success Night” at the school, and Superintendent Gronseth and at-large candidate Annie Harala celebrated the success of that event and a “Walk to School Day” at Lincoln Park Middle.

The only talk on the Education Committee report related to the results of Duluth schools on their progress as measured by the Department of Education. Member Johnston had a balanced assessment, noting improvements in a number of schools but picking out Stowe as elementary as one that had dropped, and again noting the east-west divide in the city. Superintendent Gronseth, who seemed to be making a concerted pitch for the levies in his comments throughout, emphasized the improvements and said Laura Macarthur’s turnaround was obvious proof that the Administration can get good results if given the resources to do so. Member Kasper echoed his sentiments, and Member Miernicki clarified some of the scores for the public, noting that they were raw numerical scores, not percentages; a “17” did not mean the schools were in the 17th percentile.

As usual, Member Johnston pulled a few things out from the Business Committee report for separate votes, but he kept his critiques concise and didn’t dwell on anything. There was a brief and rather directionless discussion on declining enrollment, and Member Johnston expressed some relief that there were very few change orders on the Long Range Facilities Plan this time around, though he cast his usual protest vote against them. That effectively ended the meeting. If I were in a cynical mood, I could complain about rubber-stamping or wonder if Member Johnston was desperately trying to put on a new, more civil face in the last meeting before the election, but the honest truth is that there just wasn’t much of anything worth debating at this meeting. For that reason, I’m not going to celebrate any newfound civility either; we’ll see if it that holds if more contentious issues come up during the two lame-duck sessions after the election.

This brings me back around to the two critical speakers, who were two very familiar faces at ISD 709 Board meetings: Mr. Loren Martell and Ms. Marcia Stromgren. Their shtick is so exhausted that it doesn’t merit much detail; basically, contra Gronseth, they think the Board’s record does not suggest the District can be trusted with more money. For them, the Board seems to be a monolithic bloc of bogeymen instead of seven individuals who come and go, many of whom are probably persuadable as to where the money should go. Ms. Stromgren offered a very selective reading of Student Member Thibault’s anger over Board incivility at the previous meeting, leading one to wonder if there is anything she cannot spin to fit her worldview.

***

There was a second part to Ms. Stromgren’s remarks that is worth mentioning without a snarky dismissal, however, as she took the District to task over its handling of the recent suicide of a 15-year-old Duluth East student. She blasted the District for covering up the suicide and refusing to talk about the bullying that appears to have caused it, adding several details about this boy’s case. After the meeting, when Harry Welty pressed Ms. Stromgren over some of the extra details she’d shared, she cited a Reader letter to the editor from the boy’s aunt that both Harry and I had read about the suicide. The letter does not include all of the details Ms. Stromgren added, which means she either has an inside source, or she is adding other things.

The letter itself does raise some real concerns, though at the same time, it goes without saying that this is an incredibly delicate issue. God only knows how the events in this boy’s life drove him to make such a tragic decision. Part of me thinks it is wrong for a woman who did not know him to make this a political issue at a School Board meeting, but if we’re to take the aunt’s letter at its word, it is hard to disagree with Ms. Stromgren’s notion that the letter asking the family to sign a statement “saying his suicide was not caused by bullying and is bad for the school and community” is tone-deaf at best. However, the aunt’s note is only one person’s perspective, and while I certainly don’t have any reason to doubt her, any ongoing investigation has to be very, very careful.

Unfortunately, in the meantime, rumor and hearsay will reign. (I’ve heard a few details that go beyond the narrative made public so far, but secondhand information on something with this much gravity will have no place on this blog.) It’s agonizingly difficult work, running about in the shadows trying to understand what happened and make sure it won’t happen again while also respecting the rights and privacies of everyone involved. I’m inclined to cut the District and the police some slack over the supposed “cover-up” and assume they’re doing all they can behind the scenes. That has to be frustrating as all hell for the family, and if you’re suspicious of anything Board-related as Ms. Stromgren is, it’s not going to be at all satisfying. If there aren’t any answers in a few months, then there may be cause for some real indignation.

For now, however, grief must take its course. My first instinct is to demand dialogue, especially for the sake of the boy’s friends, who need to make sense of this. To that end, I do think East erred if it tried to quiet any discussion of the incident. But it’s also not as black-and-white as some people would like to believe. Harry raises two key points in his piece on the issue: first, that copycat suicides do happen, and second, that the News Tribune’s decision not to cover the suicide suggests there may be good reason for not saying too much quite yet. I’ll add my own point that may illuminate the silence: if there was indeed a bullying kid, he or she obviously ought to be brought to justice, but the alleged bully is also a minor who must be considered innocent until proven guilty. It is our instinct to demand immediate action, but getting things wrong in a rush to condemn the perpetrator would be a terrible injustice to heap upon a story that is already a terrible tragedy. If rumors were to spread through the students that one among their number caused the death of another…well, just think about it.

In the end, that’s all I can really offer: a plea to think about it. Think about it from the standpoint of the boy we’ve lost, his friends, the school, the police, the family, and even a possible bully. That might seem like a frightening exercise. It is. Read the obituary. Write a check to the charities listed there. Look into those eyes. Imagine what might have been. But not for too long: the world moves on. The family may not think too highly of Duluth East right now, but East is more than a building, or its administrators, or the kids who are in it at any one time. This is a chance to leave a legacy; a tragic legacy, but one that transcends the horrors of the past and feeds into a community that can carry on with a higher mission. How are we going to stand up for Gregory Asher Nugent?

A New Counterweight: Duluth City Council Notes, 10/14/13

First off, I’ve gotten some very good responses from a number of people on my last post on charter schools. There will be a follow-up in the not-so-distant future. I appreciate the comments and welcome them from any perspective: please, make use of the comment boxes, or if you know me personally, get in touch through email or Facebook. I love the dialogue and I’m willing to answer to just about any sort of critique or question.

The Duluth City Council was in a rather festive mood as it kicked off its first meeting in three weeks. There was a warm energy in the council chamber at the start, and for good reason: as several Councilors noted, the city has won two major victories in recent weeks, with perpetual headache Jim Carlson convicted on 51 of 55 counts for his sales of synthetic drugs in federal court, and the city winning a substantial sum in a settlement with the Fon Du Luth Casino; while neither case is totally settled, things look good on both fronts for now.

The goodwill dissipated fairly quickly when Councilor Krug, who was absent at last week’s meeting, took the other Councilors to task for their inability to fill former Councilor Garry Krause’s vacant seat. (Details here, in last meeting’s write-up.) She wondered why, after Mr. Eckenberg announced his disinterest in filling the seat for only two meetings, they did not then appoint the other applicant to the seat, Mr. Radzak, whom they had all deemed qualified. She also opined that Atty. Johnson had erred; while he did correctly interpret the city charter, she said state statutes should have clarified the situation. Councilor Gardner agreed with her, and the two agreed to work to correct any future issues. Councilor Larson, with assist from Councilor Fosle and CAO Montgomery, updated the city on the efforts to re-route logging trucks off of Superior Street.

Councilor Krause’s seat came up again during the public comment session, as two citizens lashed out about the lack of representation for District Four. Former police lieutenant Peggy Johnson plugged the launch of the Duluth Police Foundation this Thursday at 5:00 at Clyde Iron. Mr. Rich Jaworski of the Duluth Children’s Museum and eight kids, most of middle school age, came forward to share the story of their radio conversation with astronauts aboard the International Space Station; the Councilors all melted into their sweetest smiles as the kids talked, and Councilor Julsrud snapped some pictures.

There were also two citizens who seemed rather confused over which political body they were speaking to. One man ranted about the luxurious expenses accrued by President Obama and IRS employees while the national debt grows, while our old friend Mr. Loren Martell shared some “facts” about the school board levies on this fall’s ballot. This is the City Council, not Congress or the School Board, people. But, hey, I guess they got themselves on TV.

After that, it was back to business. The consent agenda sailed through, 8-0, and a few resolutions were pulled back to administration. A resolution to appoint Mr.  James Williams as Director of Public Administration did draw some dissent from Councilor Fosle; while he was quick to say that he had no issues with Mr. Williams himself, he said the position was not necessary. He claimed it had been created a few years prior to give a former CAO a job, had an exorbitant salary, and just created more “top-heavy” bureaucracy. Councilor Gardner said she had been a bit skeptical as well, but had been reassured of the position’s value. Councilor Krug grumbled that the city should have made a stronger effort to retain the former occupant of the position, an African-American woman, and also complained of the lack of women in the Administration; CAO Montgomery countered both charges. The resolution passed with Councilor Fosle as the lone “no” vote.

Next up was a resolution authorizing the dumping of snow at a spot owned by the Economic Development Authority by the harbor, as has been done in recent years. Councilor Stauber announced his opposition, as he thought dumping snow filled with road salt next to a waterway was a bad idea; CAO Montgomery countered by saying the snowmelt at least filtered through the ground when dumped there, whereas it would go straight into the water as runoff if simply left where it was. Councilor Fosle also asked for updates on the search for a new spot to dump snow, and wondered why it all had to be put in one place. The resolution passed, 5-3, with Councilors Fosle, Gardner, and Stauber all opposed.

After Councilor Stauber shared a nice story about the Police Department’s bomb-sniffing dog, which had some grant money approved unanimously, the Council had another debate about the cross-city Duluth Traverse bike trail. Mr. Adam Sundberg of the biking group COGGS spoke in support of the measure, which accepted $2.4 million in grant money for the project. Councilors Larson and Julsrud affirmed their support and said this grant money offered a unique opportunity, while Councilor Stauber pressed CAO Montgomery on the $575,000 the city might have to pay in order to supplement grant money. CAO Montgomery explained that the city might not need to pay all of that money, and said it could be bonded or pulled from parks capital funds. Councilor Fosle echoed Councilor Stauber’s worries, saying “this whole trail thing is getting out of hand,” and wondered about future maintenance costs. He said the city already had bike trails, that the cross-city trail was not a practical commuting route, and wondered why bicycle trails were supported while things his constituents had told him they wanted, like ATV and snowmobile trails, were neglected. Rising to the occasion, he explained that he was simply trying to be the voice of people whom the other Councilors might not be hearing from. Councilor Hartman again tried to insist this was not a “trails versus streets” issue, while Councilors Krug and Gardner said the trail debate shouldn’t be seen as a zero-sum game between bikes and motorized recreation vehicles. The resolution passed, 6-2, with Councilors Fosle and Stauber in opposition.

Everything else on the agenda was either tabled or passed unanimously. In the closing comments, Councilor Julsrud brought forward a representative from the airport who will be lobbying for a new parking ramp in the coming meetings, and Councilor Stauber gave an update on school speed zones along city streets. A number of the Councilors said they were willing to work with Councilor Fosle on some sort of effort to satisfy snowmobilers and ATV riders.

This was an interesting meeting to watch, as the Council now lacks Garry Krause, who had been among its more active members. I’ve often described the Council as having a liberal-conservative split, but to the Council’s credit, the debates here often go beyond a simple left-versus-right war. While Councilor Krause was a well-spoken leader for the fiscally conservative minority who also was willing to compromise, I often sang his praises because he brought a different sort of opinion forward. I especially liked his characterization of himself as the defender of the “mundane and boring,” and his ability to raise some unique questions about the Administration’s new projects and march of “progress” helped make sure that the Council never fell victim to groupthink or narrow ideological divides.

With Krause now out of the picture, I wondered if anyone would fill that void; Councilor Gardner often does a good job of this from the liberal side, but I wondered if the more conservative members would be able to find their own counterweight. Councilor Stauber has a fairly similar temperament but is more soft-spoken and will retire in January, and I’ve had my doubts over Councilor Fosle. Councilor Fosle has never seemed very keen on compromise, and as I’ve noted numerous times, his criticisms can seem to come out of left field. More than once, I’ve had the impression that his sparring partners think he is just blathering so as to distract people from the issue at hand.

This time, however, there were real signs of maturation, and Councilor Fosle may yet emerge as a conscientious critic. Yes, his speeches still wander occasionally, and yes, some things he says come off as hyperbole. A few weeks ago, I called Councilor Fosle’s claim that the city should be worrying about heroin and ecstasy instead of e-cigarettes a “red herring.” After this past meeting, I’ll give him real credit: this wasn’t just some attempt to distract the debate. The last few minutes of the comments section were spent making plans to discuss the issues these drugs create in Duluth. Councilor Fosle is arranging for a number of community speakers at the next Council meeting, and described rises in the consumption of both drugs, often paid for by desperate people with food stamp EBT cards. He also suggested the Council educate itself on krokodil, a new drug which, if you haven’t heard of it, is absolutely frightening: as Councilor Fosle described in vivid terms, it is a cheap version of heroin that causes flesh to fall off, is often fatal, and is now on the rise. Councilor Fosle may frustrate at times, but he has a knack for picking up on things that other people don’t necessarily see, and talking to people who may not otherwise get a spot at the table. His concerns are genuine, and I’m curious to see how he evolves in future meetings. After a messy meeting last time around, the Council was back to looking like an effective, consensus-building body that also includes some diversity of opinion, and a quick glance at the other political bodies out there “operating” right now is a good reminder that we shouldn’t take this sort of thing for granted.

Charter Schools and the Ones Left Behind

My dad and I are in southern Wisconsin this weekend, visiting my grandmother for her 87th birthday. The impromptu family reunion has been a rewarding one, as I’ve been reunited with a cousin I hadn’t seen in about 15 years. My dad was the only one of my grandmother’s children to go to college, and without belaboring the details, let’s just say I grew up in an entirely different world from my cousin. It wasn’t the smoothest of meetings, especially since neither of us is all that extroverted, but we shared some laughs and found some common ground. I’m damn proud of that, and I wish I’d found a way to say more.

What on earth does this have to do with education? It’s simple. It made me wonder about her education, and even more importantly, about her 13-year-old son, whom she had while she was still in high school. I’ve never met the kid; he lives in Colorado, and my cousin doesn’t have custody over him. But I care about him. Who’s looking out for kids like him?

On the drive down, I found myself reading a Duluth Reader Weekly column under the tagline “Dish with Trish” advocating the selling of Duluth Central to the Edison charter school system for a new high school. Her experience in Duluth public schools was the polar opposite of mine, and she refuses to acknowledge them as a contributor to her education. She rushed her children out of ISD 709 and into Edison. Her argument is a sloppy one that relies on silly cherry-picked examples about kids holding open doors for her; it lacks anything resembling nuance. But that doesn’t take away from the sincerity of her perceptions. She clearly thinks Edison offers a better future for her kids, and for her, that is all that matters.

The argument in favor of charter schools is a pretty sound one. “Charter schools create competition, and competition is good.” That makes complete sense. Institutions that never face any competition can easily become stagnant or mediocre. But here’s the thing: charter school populations are entirely self-selected. Everyone there is there because they want to be there. No wonder people gush about the community and engaged families at charter schools: describing them that way is practically tautological. If you are an engaged parent, it also makes complete sense that you’d want your child in an environment entirely surrounded by other children of such parents. Add in the ugly class sizes in ISD 709, and it’s a slam dunk. What’s not to like?

However, this nation has made a commitment to universal public education. Unless you want to go and throw that out, you’re going to have to contend with the fact that there are quite a few people out there for whom education is not a priority. Perhaps their parents are unwilling or unable to support kids to the extent they need; perhaps it’s a conscious rejection, and most likely it’s a complex web of socioeconomic and family and psychological factors. It’s unfortunate in many ways, but that fact can’t be wished away. These kids are still going to go to school, and it’s going to fall upon the public schools to educate them. Because of that, public school test scores will always face some burdens, teachers will always be frustrated by certain kids, and while these kids are certainly not doomed to be disruptive or “bad,” they have an unfortunate tendency to become the face of public schools. Public schools will never be able to compete with charter schools on a level playing field. Ever.

If you pull the engaged families and students out of the public schools, it leaves the public schools in a downward spiral that’s hard to escape. If parents never think their kids are going to public schools, they don’t bother to support school levies, and the funding dries up. Parent volunteers disappear, and booster clubs that give private support to public school programs go the way of the dodo. Class sizes get even bigger, even more kids are pulled out, forcing even more cuts, leaving behind those kids who are all too often left behind by society. I’m not saying this is destiny; there are some exceptional individuals who come out of even the worst schools, and committed leadership can turn around struggling schools. But this is the exception, not the norm. Throwing up one’s hands and praying some good leaders will come along isn’t a winning strategy.

You would think that most liberal-leaning people respect the need to support the entire community, and to fight for public schools. (I won’t pretend to know Trish’s political allegiances, but aside from a few stray anarchists, social libertarians, and Harry Welty, I don’t think the Reader has ever run anything by anyone who isn’t somewhere on the leftward end of the political spectrum.) Duluth’s liberalism isn’t without its downsides (as with any political ideology), but it has allowed for relatively generous support for public institutions over the years. And yet, with our public schools going through a troubled time, the reaction of so many community-oriented people has not been to fight for that community, but to flee in search of something else.

I don’t say this in spite or judgment. It’s only human nature to care deeply about our children before anyone else, and I’m not among the cosmopolitan idealists who think we can or should get rid of that. When I try to weigh the moral implications of something, I often use my hypothetical future children as my test: would I let my children go here or do that? I certainly wouldn’t send them to one of the miserable inner-city schools I saw in Washington DC just to make a political point. (For new readers, I went to college in DC before coming home to the city I love most.) Duluth, however, isn’t there yet. Some perspective is in order: Duluth can still be rescued, if enough people pitch in and resist the atomizing tendencies that drive us all to pursue our own short-term personal interests at the expense of the communal good.

The problem with Duluth is that it’s small. Build a charter school and take 500 kids out of the Washington DC school district, and DCPS will keep on running (to the extent that it runs…) with fairly stable funding; there might be some ripple effects, but it isn’t going to reorder the entire situation. Take 500 kids out of a district that only has maybe 2800 high school students, and you have a potentially huge disruption. Duluth is small enough that the old cliché used by everyone from Marxists to Buddhists to Rand Paul (in very different contexts)—“we are all interconnected”—really is true. Charter school parents may not like to hear this, but in Duluth, it’s true: your choices affect everyone else. The good news is that, in a smaller community, a movement to change the course doesn’t take a whole lot of people. We can make this happen.

In a community of this size, it’s impossible to imagine a sustainable social fabric without public schools. To their credit, Duluth public schools have programs for the kids who aren’t on the fast track on college that teach them skills that will get them employed after their school days are over. I don’t know how well these programs work, but at least the effort is there, and that is essential. Students who aren’t going to college need to know that they aren’t failures, and that there is a group of people who care about their futures. By keeping everyone in the same building, we recognize that interconnectedness, even if they’re tracked into very different sorts of classes. Tracking can make sure that the highest achievers can get the courses they need to go to the best colleges (it worked for me), and the kids in the middle can find a happy medium, too. Money and support flows in to everyone, and not just the select few who already have strong support networks. If you get enough stakeholders on hand to fight the good fight, the class sizes will fall to normal levels, and these schools can reach their very real potential.

You might call that an idealistic stance, but it’s an ideal rooted in acceptance of reality. The people in public schools are going to be our neighbors. Some of them might even be our relatives. If you’re a liberal, the need here should be obvious, Red Plan rancor be damned: there is no other way forward if you really do support an equitable society. If you’re a conservative, giving these kids a chance can keep them off the welfare rolls, and creates at least an avenue to welcome their families into a community that will allow them to escape the pathologies of the past. Of course it won’t work out for everyone. Human nature is what it is, and people will make mistakes or not listen or face obstacles that simply cannot be overcome. But it is not destiny. And public education, for all its faults, is, from a societal standpoint, the only cost-effective way to keep it from being destiny.

Yes, this requires some active parenting. It requires a bit more engagement, perhaps, as people band together to fight for their kids and confront the bloated bureaucracy and inane love-and-happy-thinking education-speak that plague many school systems. But it’s worth it. It’s worth it for everyone that you share this community with, and for your own kids, too. Putting one’s children in a school that offers the whole gamut of students also broadens their horizons in ways that no self-selected charter school ever could. There is more to “diversity” than race or faith, after all. This is the world we live in. The empathy I feel for people from different backgrounds from mine does not come from the various service projects I’ve done among people from disadvantaged communities. It comes from living among them.

All of that said, I support the sale of the old Central High School to Edison. I can wish that all of the Edison parents are going to read my piece and change their minds, but I’m not delusional. Edison High is going to happen. I don’t like it one bit, but holding up some ideal in a desperate attempt to keep one’s hands off the inevitable is only going to hurt the district in the long run. Selling Central to Edison gives ISD 709 some chance to control the terms of the sale and cap enrollment, and I doubt it’s going to get a better offer for that financial black hole atop the hill. At the very least, Harry Welty’s lease idea could offer some sort of compromise. (Full disclosure: Harry and I did lunch after he read my last column on ISD 709.)

Antagonizing the charter school people even more certainly isn’t going to win them back, either. This is our future we’re talking about. We’re all in this together, even if we have some disagreements about methods. I hope Duluthians can come together and work some of these things out, perhaps over a drink or three. (I’d be happy to foot the bill, even on my underemployed recent college grad’s salary.) This town is unique because it has such a distinct communal identity; with enough effort, it has the potential to be exceptional. Getting there is going to require that people get out of their comfort zones, though. We’ll see if Duluth can pull it off.

The Duluth School Board Levy: A Manifesto

Disclaimer: when I launched this blog, I used its first post to say it wasn’t my intent to make this thing a call to arms for any particular cause. Today, I’m going to violate that principle for a cause that is, I believe, worthwhile. I’m going to do what little I can do to get the voters of ISD 709 to pass the operating levy that will be on the ballot this November.

Two of the biggest levy proponents out there are ISD 709 Superintendent Bill Gronseth and at-large school board candidate Harry Welty. I don’t really know either of them personally, though I sometimes read Welty’s blog and had a mini-dialogue with him last week, and Gronseth was the assistant principal at my high school once upon a time. But while both men have the same goal and seem to respect one another on some level, they are coming from radically different places.

Gronseth’s PR campaign for the levy has been relentlessly positive. A gaudy handout touting all the successes of ISD 709 came out in a recent Duluth News Tribune, and if you read it, you’d think there wasn’t much of anything wrong with the District. At Board meetings, Gronseth will acknowledge challenges, but will quickly try to turn them into opportunities for improvement, insisting the District is on the right path. I don’t think this is some cynical spin operation: Gronseth genuinely believes he can help guide this District to a better place, and that sort of positive message can be a real asset to a District trying to move past a divisive era. His pitch attempts to show the voters of Duluth that the District is moving past the Red Plan rancor, and that voters can have confidence in its administrators to keep the momentum going.

Welty, on the other hand, sees a rather different picture when he looks at ISD 709. His blog collects plenty of horror stories of troubles that afflict the District: a paltry general fund, sagging graduation and enrollment rates, a glaring achievement gap, classes with over 40 students, and anarchic west side schools. His campaign theme is “honesty,” which for him involves acknowledging everything that is wrong with the District, and then confronting it head-on. Without the levy, he argues, it will be near-impossible to do so. There is no scenario in which “starving the beast” leads to more sensible financial policy, and should the levy fail, the task of trying to build a decent District will take a herculean effort.

Both of them are part right and part wrong. Gronseth is right to see some real positives: for all of the turmoil, the test scores and post-secondary success of kids from the east side schools remain strong, and the recent turnaround at Laura Macarthur Elementary proves that demography need not be destiny, and that west side schools can succeed with strong leadership and innovative teaching. Having seen some truly dysfunctional public schools during my time in Washington DC, I can assure Duluth that its schools still have a long way to fall before they’re a total train wreck. But at the same time, Welty’s worries can’t just be swept under the rug; his concerns don’t come from nowhere, and as I argued last week, a longtime critic like him might be able to reach out to voters who are otherwise jaded with the District.

There are drawbacks to each man’s approach. Gronseth’s shiny packaging could easily come across as untrustworthy spin tactics, especially for voters who think the District took them for a ride with the Red Plan.  His unqualified optimism can appear naïve, and perhaps ignorant of the unfortunate but very real divisions that have sprung up over the past few years. Welty’s use of the sinking ship metaphor runs some risk of making the whole thing sound like a lost cause, especially as he repeats stories of struggling classrooms and announces his sympathies for voters who won’t support the levy under any circumstances. Both Gronseth and Welty are on to something, but neither one quite paints a complete picture.

You know what I would love to see? These two men go door-knocking together in support of the levy. It’s a naïve wish, perhaps, but these two men really do need each other. It will be hard to put a positive spin on Gronseth’s stint as Superintendent if the levy fails, and Welty has said quite clearly that his job will be a miserable one if he’s on a Board that has to make deep cuts.

There are risks for each of them. Gronseth has to admit that not everything is quite right, and while he’s done a good job of inviting citizens to learn about the levy and made himself available to speak to groups, this is a rather self-selecting approach; he’d have to go out there and meet face-to-face with people who do not like what he stands for. Welty might alienate his old Let Duluth Vote base, which includes (though is necessarily not limited to) a bunch of people who hate the notion of working with the Board so recently after the Red Plan was rammed through.

Still, if we take both men at their word (and I do), the risks are worth the potential rewards. Gronseth could prove he believes in community engagement in the fullest sense of the term, not just inside a pro-education echo chamber. Welty would show just how much he believes the good of the schools transcends any past divisions, even if it comes at some risk for his political career.

It would have been a real coup for ISD 709 if Art Johnston would have been willing to join this sort of effort. I had my criticisms of Johnston before he came out against the levy, but they had more to do with style than substance: I think he is a legitimate representative of a portion of the community that is understandably upset with the Board, and there is something to be said for holding true to one’s convictions. In the moments when Board debate ranges away from Red Plan affairs, he has come across as a well-informed, thoughtful man who raises some real questions. His stint on the School Board had real potential, and for a moment at the August meeting, when he found it within himself to praise Gronseth for putting the levy to a vote and noted how significant it was that the two of them had found common ground, I thought he might yet fulfill that promise. He could have transcended the pettiness of some of his critics, and such an act of humility might have bought him some good will in the eyes of other Board members, leading him to perhaps actually pass a thing or two. He could have even upped his odds for re-election, as he would’ve had an answer to the biggest criticism thrown at him: that he is too intractable, too zealous in his pursuit of purity, too willing to alienate people who were willing to work with him if only he’d concede a tiny bit of ground. (And I’m not just talking about Gronseth here; I’m talking about people like Welty and Loren Martell, with whom he has plenty of views in common.) Alas, Johnston has allowed his distaste for some small tax increases to overpower any desire to work with others, even though (according to Tom Kasper) he once thought those taxes might be necessary evils in order to stabilize the district’s general fund. Looking at the likely composition of the next School Board, he is doomed to remain a voice in the wilderness, even if he is re-elected and the levy fails. He will have been proven correct, but is that really any consolation to a man who truly does care about the fate of the schools?

So, there is my plea to the individuals most able to sway voters to the ‘yes’ side of the levy, if they so choose. Let’s see some real leadership here. I’ll try to do my part. I’m going to write a letter to the News Tribune that will make my pitch for the levy the only way I know how, with a story of my love for the schools that gave me a world-class education, and my sincere wish that, should I someday raise a family here, my children can have as good a time in Duluth public schools as I did, if not a better one. I’m going to email this post to Gronseth and Welty, and even Johnston. (What do I have to lose?) I want to believe in Duluth’s future. Is anyone with me?

Onward and Upward with Art Johnston’s Scorched-Earth Campaign: Duluth School Board Notes, 9/24/13

The ISD 709 School Board gathered for its monthly meeting for an unusual 4:30 start on Tuesday. The time, apparently, was not agreeable for Member Seliga-Punyko, who was absent; Member Westholm was also MIA at roll call, but snuck in fifteen minutes after the meeting had started. Many candidates in the upcoming election were on hand, including several of those who had lost in the primaries.

As usual, Member Johnston held up the minutes, this time catching a misprint and complaining that his point of order at the previous meeting, in which he asked Chair Kasper to reprimand Member Seliga-Punyko for impugning him, was not in the minutes. Member Miernicki pressed him on this contention, wondering what exactly Member Johnston had found so impugning about her words and reading back Member Seliga-Punyko’s quote, which did not mention Member Johnston by name. Member Johnston dodged the question, simply insisting that his point of order had to be in the minutes. It was not entirely clear what Member Miernicki’s motive was, except perhaps to extract a concession that the reprimand was not warranted. (One can only imagine what sort of reprimand would have been necessary had Member Seliga-Punyko been in attendance at this month’s meeting, given Member Johnston’s subsequent actions.)

The Board then congratulated an East High School student for an award she’d won on a paper about the dangers of texting and driving. The sole community speaker was Mr. Dick Haney, who came before the Board for a second time to ask them to approve an easement for a bike trail across the property of the former Central High School. In his report to the Board, Superintendent Gronseth talked about the positives at the start of a new school year, particularly the opening of the new Congdon Park and Myers-Wilkins Elementaries; he was pleased to announce the District was now “out of the construction business,” and could focus directly on student achievement. He invited the public to learn more about the levy options on the ballot in the upcoming elections, and said he was happy to speak to any groups with questions. Chair Kasper thanked him, and Member Miernicki waxed about the sense of community he saw at the opening of the new schools.

By in large, the Education Committee report consisted only of test score reports and grant announcements. Member Johnston, however, took a moment to show what a constructive voice he could have been on this Board had he not chosen to chain his reputation to his scorched-earth campaign against the Red Plan. He singled out the test score disparities between East and Denfeld High Schools, and Ordean-East and Lincoln Park Middle Schools, wondering why gaps in scores ranged from 33 to 50 percent, and asking what could be done about it. He also congratulated Laura MacArthur Elementary for its drastic improvement, and Supt. Gronseth agreed, and congenially told Member Johnston that efforts to fight the east-west achievement gap were ongoing. It would be interesting to hear more about those efforts, which are a serious issue for Duluth schools; it’s a topic that deserves a real debate. Sadly, Member Johnston thinks that raising hell over things that have already happened is a better use of his time.

The Human Resources action items sailed past the Board, 6-0, but the Business Committee report was another issue. First, a few items were hauled out for discussion; Member Westholm had some questions on snow removal contracts answered to his satisfaction, and Member Johnston relayed some concerns from parents about the cubbies being installed at Congdon, which Facilities Management Director Kerry Leider attempted to answer. As usual, Member Johnston pulled out a few items for his support, and as usual, he tried to make a motion to not approve change orders on the Long Range Facilities Plan, which was not seconded.

Next, the District looked to certify the maximum funding levy, which sets an upward bound on the amount of money the District is able to levy for taxes at the December meeting. This is standard procedure for school boards, and is the action recommended by the state Board of Education. Member Johnston, however, decided this would be a good time to inform the public that passage of the first levy question on the ballot would result in a six percent tax increase for Duluth taxpayers. He grumbled that he’d been told the District was going to “hold the line,” and that it was “inappropriate” to now raise taxes.

Supt. Gronseth, sounding as upset as he ever has, said the only “inappropriate” thing here was Member Johnston’s “unfortunate” comments. The tax hike, he explained, had nothing to do with the levy on the ballot, but came about due to the District’s inability to sell old school properties. Rather than further draw down the much-diminished general fund, the District was looking to raise property taxes somewhat, and could make up for it by under-levying once the properties have been sold. He said Member Johnston was “trying to confuse the issue.” The Superintendent’s alarm was understandable; the obvious conclusion to be inferred Member Johnston’s sudden stand on taxes was “if you don’t want your taxes to go up, don’t support the levy,” which, as both men know, would have grave consequences for school funding. This is what Member Johnston wants, now that he has reversed his past stance and come out against the levy.

(If he were to read this post, Member Johnston would likely claim that he simply ‘said what he said,’ and was trying to be transparent, and nothing more. Such a claim would, of course, be hopelessly naïve of how public perception works. Member Johnston might then claim that he has no use for politicking, as he has from time to time, yet he also often acts as the ultimate politician, manipulating words so as to divorce the “truths” he claims to uphold from a broader context. And, as later events proved, his interest in transparency is highly selective.)

Predictably, Member Johnston fired back, claiming he was the only person “talking reality,” and that the levy’s passage would mean a tax increase. Business Services Director Bill Hansen answered that it was still in flux, and Chair Kasper grew peeved at Member Johnston, as he repeatedly tried to throw questions at Mr. Hansen without waiting for the Chair to recognize speakers. Supt. Gronseth reiterated the fact that the first question on the ballot levies the exact same amount of money as the existing levy, and said Member Johnston was making things even more confusing as he pressed on and brought bonds into the issue.

At this point, the long-silent Member Wasson exploded. She said the District employed finance specialists who knew what they were talking about, and said she had some things to get off her chest now that her time on the Board is coming to the end. “To muddy these waters is absolutely crazy,” she said, and was “no good” if “we are at all serious about our jobs as School Board members. I’m appalled.” She said she was sure a certain, unnamed member would “find a way to have the final say, as he always does,” but she “guaranteed” that Mr. Hansen and Supt. Gronseth “have the right answers.”

In response, a simpering Member Johnston played the victim card, accusing the rest of the Board of “lacking in positive energy” and that they were acting as if “putting on a light [indicating his desire to comment] is something negative.” (Curiously, he did not ask Chair Kasper to reprimand Member Wasson, even though her attack was far more scathing than Member Seliga-Punyko’s at the August meeting.) He then asked whether the money making up the gap left by the unsold schools would come from the general fund or tax certifications; Mr. Hansen, reminding the Board that things were still in flux, said he anticipated it would come from the tax certification, as had been obvious from the beginning. This response did not satisfy Member Johnston, and he would repeat his initial question three times over the next few minutes, each time receiving a slightly different wording in response from a patient Mr. Hansen. The agendas at play were clear enough: Member Johnston wanted a soundbite in which a District employee plainly said taxes would go up; the District representatives were unwilling to oblige him.

Chair Kasper, the closest thing Member Johnston has to a sympathetic ear on the Board, then called him out for confusing everyone, including himself. He said that, in their many discussions over the years, the two of them had often agreed that a tax increase was a sensible way to avoid diminishing the general fund further. Tellingly, Member Johnston did not deny the charge, but instead whined that he’d thought those discussions had been confidential, a claim Chair Kasper quickly dismissed. It is a curious stance for Member Johnston, considering he purports to support transparency in the Red Plan debate, and a revealing one: he has reached the point where he is so zealous in his fervor to make his point that he wants to sweep his past ideas on what might actually improve the district’s financial situation under the rug. A man who once supported higher taxes as the least bad option has been born again as a man who refuses to see them budge—not out of some great philosophical change, but because he feels so wronged by his colleagues who either supported, or are simply aware of the reality of, a plan that already happened. He has no alternative proposal, and knows he will not sway the Board. I am genuinely curious to know he thinks he is achieving for the good of the Duluth schools.

Finally, Member Miernicki managed to get a word in edgewise, and pointed out that many people had turned on their lights to say positive things. He said that Member Johnston was “dealing with conjecture,” and that the “ping-pong match” between him and Mr. Hansen wasn’t going anywhere. He called the question, a parliamentary procedure designed to end the debate; his motion to do so passed, 5-1, ending the absurd charade.

The levy certification also passed, 5-1, and the Board also passed a utility easement at East High. Poor Mr. Haney, who’d endured the entire circus, then finally learned the fate of his trail easement; it passed, 6-0, though Member Wasson added that the District was waiting on the City Council to pass some zoning changes. An exhausted Board thus wrapped up its business. In the closing comments, Student Member Thibault proved himself the sanest person in the room, as he lectured the entire Board for its “name-calling” and “whispering,” its “childish” and “unprofessional” outbursts, which “damage the District’s reputation and hurt the community.”

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In case you didn’t notice, Harry Welty was kind enough to respectfully acknowledge my post about him, and a couple of subsequent posts on his blog referenced my points. This one seems particularly appropriate in the aftermath of this meeting. This post is already long, so I’m not going to try to continue the dialogue now, but I will do so later in the week.

A Long and Awkward Good-Bye for Councilor Krause: Duluth City Council Notes, 9/23/13

It was an odd night at City Hall. The crowd was modest in size, there were no citizen speakers, and there were no grave disputes between the Councilors beyond the usual, civil back-and-forth. Yet somehow, it also wound up being the ugliest meeting I’ve seen since I started attending them. It was also the end of an era, so to speak, as Councilor Krause’s resignation was set to take effect after the meeting; indeed, his departure was at the root of the evening’s troubles. The Council’s bloc of fiscal conservatives has now shrunk from three to two, but the frustrations had nothing to do with Councilor Krause’s principled stands, nor the ideology of his successor. In fact, thanks to a heap of Council confusion, he has no successor.

President Boyle began the night by convening a special meeting to appoint Councilor Krause’s replacement, in which Councilor Krause was not allowed to participate. (Councilor Krug was also absent, leaving the Council with seven voting members for the special meeting.) President Boyle announced that the Council had interviewed two candidates, Mr. Zachary Radzak and Mr. Gary Eckenberg, found them both impressive, and invited the Councilors to share their opinions on each.

Councilor Stauber went first, but instead of endorsing one of the two candidates, he shared his serious concerns about the selection process. He was upset there had been no public hearing, that the process was being conducted via resolution (and hence technically open to a veto by Mayor Ness), and thought it was pointless to appoint someone only until the November 5 election. Councilor Gardner defended the process, saying it had worked for past vacancies (including two for Councilor Krause’s 4th District seat in the past four years), and while she agreed there was room for improvement, she said it would have to do for this particular situation. She then endorsed Mr. Eckenberg for the position, as he is a past member of the Council and would be able to hit the ground running.

Next, Councilor Fosle demanded an answer as to when the appointed Councilor’s term would end. City Attorney Gunnar Johnson replied that the Council would sit the person elected in November at the next Council meeting; it was his interpretation that past Councils had violated the City Charter in not doing so. Satisfied, Councilors Hartman, Julsrud, and Larson all told Mr. Radzak he was an impressive candidate, but expressed their support for Mr. Eckenberg.

At that point, Mr. Eckenberg came forward, held a whispered conversation with Atty. Johnson, and then took the stand before the Council. He said he had been under the impression that the person appointed to fill Councilor Krause’s seat would stay on the Council until January, when the Councilor elected to the seat in November would normally take office. A one-month appointment, he said, made zero sense, and would not allow him to do anything of substance. The 4th District could survive for a month without representation. He thus withdrew his name from consideration.

This rather understandably threw off the entire meeting, and Councilor Boyle brought forward yet another confusing point: Councilor Krause’s name will appear on the ballot in November, and if he were to win, the seat would then be his. If that were to happen, the Council would need to go through the re-appointment process yet again. Councilor Fosle asked if the resolution could be amended to allow Mr. Eckenberg to serve until January, but Atty. Johnson said it could not, as that would be a violation of the Charter.

For his part, Councilor Stauber was rather pleased with this development. He agreed that a one-month appointment did no good, and that the Council could simply appoint someone to fill the seat if Councilor Krause were to win. This irked Councilor Gardner, who said there was nothing “simple” about the whole process. She accused Councilor Stauber of selective interpretation of the Charter, which insists that vacancies on the Council must be filled in a timely manner. She implored Mr. Eckenberg to reconsider his position, but Mr. Eckenberg politely declined, saying he had been misled about what he was applying for.

An exasperated Councilor Julsrud apologized to Mr. Eckenberg, and suggested the Council pull the measure and follow Councilor Stauber’s suggestion. Councilor Hartman disagreed, admitting a one-month appointment made “no sense,” but that, due to the Charter, “sometimes we have to do things that make no sense.” The Council, however, chose to make sense. It pulled the resolution, 4-3, with Councilors Fosle, Julsrud, Stauber, and Boyle in support. Councilor Krause’s seat will thus remain open until after the November election.

With this sloppy affair mercifully over, the Council kicked off its actual meeting, in which CAO Montgomery began by presenting Councilor Krause with a plaque thanking him for his service. Councilor Krause in turn thanked him, the Council, the City Hall staff, and the city employees who are on the front lines of resolving city problems. The consent agenda then passed, 8-0. A resolution creating a pedestrian underpass under Haines Road passed, 6-2, with Councilors Fosle and Krause complaining about unnecessary expenditures.

The major topic of debate for the meeting proper was a plan to finance a phase of construction of the cross-city trail. This particular section, extending from Canal Park to 30th Avenue West, would cost $1.3 million, though a chunk of that sum would be paid by federal and DNR grants. Once again, there was some exhausting bureaucratic wrangling, as the ordinance authorizing the bonds to pay for the project and the resolution awarding the contract were in an illogical order on the meeting agenda. Once Atty. Johnson resolved the confusion, debate ensued.

To no one’s great surprise, the Council’s three fiscal conservatives shared their doubts about the plan. Councilor Krause called Duluth a “large city with many cities in it,” whatever other people might try to say, and that the residents of his district appeared not to value the trail as much as the still-shuttered community centers. (This phase of the project is primarily in Councilor Krause’s district.) He and Councilor Stauber questioned the wisdom of incurring more bonding debt when the city had already taken on more debt over the previous year; CAO Montgomery countered by saying the city had reduced its debt since 2007. Councilor Fosle went so far as to challenge the Council’s power to use bonding to fund trails, but both CAO Montgomery and Atty. Johnson refuted his point.

Councilor Hartman pushed CAO Montgomery for more details on the other funding sources, and he replied by saying that roughly 70% of the project would be paid for in grants. The project, he argued, was a good way to leverage the city’s money, as it turned $450,000 worth of money into $1.8 million in trails, whereas using that same $450,000 on streets would only result in $450,000 worth of street improvements. He also noted the value of trails as a tourist attraction, and Councilor Hartman added that commuters using the trail reduced wear and tear on the streets.

Councilor Krause said all of this leveraging was well and good, but in the end it still added to city long-term operating costs, and he therefore could not support it. Councilor Stauber repeated his dissatisfaction, and Councilors Fosle and Gardner both complained about the inadequate map they’d been given of the plans. Mapping issue aside, both measures related to the cross-city trail passed, 5-3; predictably, Councilors Krause, Stauber, and Fosle were the dissenters.

The Council wrapped up its business with the unanimous approval of a zoning reclassification, and a brief but contentious meeting came to an end. In the closing comments, Councilor Hartman pleaded that Atty. Johnson inform the Councilors of changes in interpretation of the City Charter before the meeting if at all possible, as the evening’s developments had left them in a “very awkward position,” and “didn’t look good.” Once again, his closing comments accurately summed up the mood of the meeting, in which dysfunction over Councilor Krause’s seat overwhelmed any substantive achievements later on. It was also an unfortunate end to Councilor Krause’s tenure on the Council; while I have to respect him greatly for his reasoned critiques and attempts to compromise, this entire process was not pretty, and the timing of his departure was poor, to say the least. The eight-member Council will now have to press on without him, and must clearly find a way to streamline its process for appointing replacement Councilors. Duluth deserves something far cleaner than what it got in this meeting.

Comments on Duluth Primary Election Results

Ah, the joys of local politics: I turned on the TV to watch for immediate candidate reactions and such on the late local news, but everything had been pushed back due to President Obama’s speech. Turns out the network executives think the possibility of the U.S. blowing up some other country is more important than the fate of unserviced bond debts on city street repairs. Their loss, I suppose.

My pre-election comments on the candidates: City Council | School Board

Complete results are available here. Turnout was a bit on the low side (by Duluth standards), even for a local primary in a non-mayoral election year. You can look at past Duluth election results here.

City Council At-Large (Top four advance; numbers are percentage of vote, followed by total number of votes)

Barb Russ 35.8 (3943)

Zack Filipovich 28.0 (3081)

Ryan Stauber 20.8 (2295)

Ray Sandman 10.7 (1175)

Ray Whitledge 4.8 (525)

It’s no surprise to see Russ roll here, and with Filipovich in a comfortable second, it was a good day for the Duluth DFL. Stauber, though in third by a wide margin over Sandman, has to close a fairly substantial gap over the next two months, and as I explained in my initial comments, his campaign needs a much more polished and convincing pitch. It’s no great shock, but Whitledge struggled to garner much support, and since he was already such a niche candidate, I doubt his small number of supporters will sway the general election much. Conservative Duluthians will almost certainly unite behind Stauber now, and it will be interesting to see how much momentum they can generate, and who—if anyone—his supporters will pick with their second vote. Sandman made the cut, but has little hope of doing much else aside from conceivably playing a spoiler role.

School Board At-Large (Top four advance)

Annie Harala 25.8 (3028)

Harry Welty 19.1 (2246)

Nancy Nilsen 17.7 (2073)

Henry Banks 16.4 (1926)

Loren Martell 10.9 (1283)

Joshua Bixby 10.1 (1190)

Harala’s strong showing has her on the inside track for a seat on the Board; the margin was small enough that she isn’t a completely sure bet, but I don’t really see two of the other four finalists passing her. After Harala, it gets interesting. Perhaps it’s name recognition; perhaps it’s the strength of personal ties in a local election, but I was a bit surprised to see such a large gap between the two former Members (Welty and Nielsen) and the two insurgents (Bixby and Martell). I’d hazard to guess it will come down to a race between Welty and Banks for the second seat. Given her ties to the Red Plan, I don’t think Nilsen has a very high ceiling, nor is she likely to gain many votes from the supporters of Bixby or Martell—though, granted, she has surprised me somewhat already by finishing ahead of Banks in the primary. Banks has the DFL machinery behind him, which could help boost his turnout substantially. Welty, on the other hand, is by far the most likely to pick up any disaffected Bixby or Martell voters who didn’t already vote for him. On a night when most of the Red Plan critics didn’t do especially well, Welty had a strong showing, suggesting that the voters of Duluth did a pretty good job parsing out the intelligent critics with strong education backgrounds (Welty) from those who didn’t quite meet those standards (Martell). I ranked Banks ahead of him in my preview post, but with the semi-critical voice I supported (Bixby) out of the race, I am going to give Harry a chance to convince me. Ridiculous as he can be at times, I do think his heart is in the right place, and the Board could use a critic who is not Johnston-esque.

I voted for Bixby, but I’m not terribly shocked by his last-place finish. He’s new to the Duluth political scene, his campaign didn’t have a very big presence, and while I appreciated his nuanced stances, I can understand how some voters might come away unsure of what he actually stood for. I hope he continues his involvement in Board affairs, despite the loss. Martell, meanwhile, has been whacked in both elections in which he has run. We’ll see if he continues his monthly crusades at the Board meetings.

District 1 (Top two advance)

Rosie Loeffler-Kemp 53.7 (1086)

Joe Matthes 26.0 (526)

Marcia Stromgren 20.3 (410)

As expected, it was smooth sailing for Loeffler-Kemp, who cleared the 50% mark in the primary and would probably have to get herself caught up in some sort of scandal to lose at this point. Considering the opposition, Matthes had a reasonably good showing, though his odds of moving beyond this point are low. I was most interested by Stromgren’s low total here; after all, she did garner 46 percent of the vote in the general election for this seat four years ago, albeit against an incumbent (Ann Wasson) whose hands were all over the Red Plan. As with Martell, I’d say the writing is on the wall for her future in School Board affairs. They raised their ruckus, but as cathartic as that may have been, their anger probably marginalized them in the eyes of voters who saw them as extremists. Once a person has that label, it’s difficult to shed it, and unlike Welty, neither one of them showed much in the way of political savvy.

District 4 (Top two advance)

David Bolgrien 37.6 (463)

Art Johnston (I) 33.4 (411)

Justin Perpich 28.9 (356)

The race I named the most interesting lived up to its billing, with roughly 50 votes between each of the candidates. Considering how polarizing Johnston is, the odds are that the Perpich supporters are more likely to jump on the Bolgrien bandwagon. If I were a betting man, I’d say that Johnston needed to win this primary by a reasonable margin to retain his seat, and is now in serious trouble. But as in the all the races here, it’s hard to know what increased voter turnout will do in the general election; has Johnston already hit his ceiling, or are there a lot of disaffected people on the west side who will come out of the woodwork to support him in the main event? There are a lot of votes potentially up for grabs amongst the Perpich people, and to win them over, Johnston would probably have to change his tone somewhat. I don’t think he has much interest in doing that, which means that School Board meetings could be a lot more boring come January. A lot more boring, and a lot more constructive.

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Still, this is all idle speculation: the voters will decide things on November 5. We’ll see if there are any surprises in the meantime.

I had some ambitions of trying to tie the primary results to my “Duluth’s Future” post from a few weeks back, but I don’t think the results offer anything too conclusive, so I’ll wait until after the general election. There are some possible trends here, but nothing concrete. Stay tuned.