District shifting Red Plan money
June 23, 2010 at 5:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
The changes, resulting from a series of revisions to the $296 million long-range building plan, will allow the district to shuffle money, scrapping some new buildings while throwing more money toward unexpected costs contained in other projects. Continue Reading
What a surprise. Things are costing much more – 11 million more – then predicted so they are just knocking 11 million dollars worth of planned inprovements off in other places to make sure it didn’t cost anymore? JCI sold naive school board members the moon, said it would cost a set amount and already we are seeing that they were off 11 million. And do the School Board members really think the public doesn’t realize the other things will still need to be done in the future – this of course means that the Red Plan is costing 11 million more so far (plus interest) . Dixon could sell this gullible school board anything but it is the people who are paying for this his slick pitch. Meanwhile, Dixon still is simply renting and is not a property owner in town and he doesn’t pay property taxes, so when all the damage is done, he will simply pack his suitcases, collect his rental damage deposit and head off to some other unsuspecting city.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Once again Mr. ‘Red Scam” Dixon has got away with pulling the wool over the eyes of the tax paying sheep of Duluth. How many extra home and property confiscations have occured over the original scam? How many of the people who have been bought out have relocated out of Duluth there-by lowering the tax base. If Mr. Dixon can relocate the technical classes to the new schools why won’t he move the administration offices to one of the schools saving tax payers millions.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Robert raised an interesting issue. Would be interesting to have some investigative reporting on the people who were bought out and forced to move because of the Red Plan. I watched the property transactions section of the DNT and often saw where ISD purchased homes from a homeowner and then you would sometimes see where the property owner’s new purchase was in the same columns postings. Every single time the property owner ended up purchasing a home 10 – 40,000 +more than the selling price to ISD 709. It would be interesting to hear if the District paid the difference to the property owner, because they would not have moved had they not been forced to move. It would be also interesting to see how many relocated out of the District. Also of interest would be if the Owners of the properties bought out had to sign a contract that they would not discuss it with the media. DNT? How about some investigative reporting? Also of extreme interest would be when were those “community involvement meetings” since last July that Dixon is stated in the DNT as saying were part of the Changes in the Red Plan. How about asking the District to state where and when exactly those meetings were held since last July, and how they “advertised” them to the public. I doubt they happened at all unless it was with a selected group behind “closed special meetings” like everything else they do. I would like to see documentation of those community meetings that changed the Red Plan. More Hogwash from the King of it.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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The District will be closing STC, one of ISD’s crowning achievements, to make way for having two partial programs one each located at the newly remodeled high schools. Firstly, the citizens were told that would never happen. (Guess what, more untruths stated by the snake oil salesman). But more importantly, two items come to mind. 1) How will the programs be chosen for each location, especially from the “equitable” prospective? And the biggest fallacy 2) Students will be driving TWICE the distance and thus waste TWICE the travel time when they have a STC class at the other school because , as the District states, they will not duplicate programs. So how is that, cost saving, “green”, and safe for students?
I will only comment on a single item, although many items NEED to be addressed on these newly found developments the school district are so innocently thinks are “AHA”! moments where the public who understands what the district has done (and is continuing to do) call them DUH! moments. Those DUH moments will be costing the citizens many, many extra dollars!
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Everyone unhappy with the Red Plan (not that I’m supporting it) needs to take a LONG hard look at every school board member they voted for before complaining.
Did you vote for liberal fools beholden to teachers unions?
Did you vote for your friends or the “cool” parents?
Did you vote for someone who had absolutly no foresight beyond the next election?
This deal with the Carlton School District really is no different than Duluth’s. As a high-school product of the early 90s it was clear that both districts were hurting, and things were only going to get worse. Yet school boards didn’t have the guts to make changes then, and voters kept electing fools.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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