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An Introduction to Let Duluth Vote

The voters of the Duluth School District trust that Governor Pawlenty’s administration will remain true to the Governor’s policy of supporting the voter’s right to vote in public referendums. Last year, Duluth rose to the occasion when the Governor demanded that Duluth hold a referendum on a $30 million sales tax to expand our Arena Auditorium

Today we need the Governor’s help more than ever. Our School Board, on a narrow 4-3 vote, is attempting to raise local taxes fifteen times greater than the DECC expansion without a public vote.  

Though many of us have received non committal answers to our letters from the Department of Education the process of comment and review has been a great mystery to us. We are grateful for our opportunity to speak to you today, especially as we have recently heard a troubling rumor that the Department is worried that the Duluth School Board will sue the state in the event of a negative review. Even in the unlikely event that the majority on the soon to be lame duck Duluth School Board will sue the state we hope that the Department of Education will rule in favor of Duluth’s voters traditional right to determine major school building projects.

This is not is a simply a local matter. Allowing the Duluth School Board to deny the voters their right to approve or turn down a building plan of this magnitude will set a terrible precedent for the entire state. If Duluth ’s School Board can raise $43,000 in taxes for each of its 10,000 students without the voter's consent what is there to stop other Minnesota School Boards from doing the same thing? If the same amount was raised per child by school boards for all 800,000 K-12 students in Minnesota , it would cost Minnesotans $34,400,000,000 (34 billion) dollars without any possibility of intervention by concerned voters.

We have prepared several critiques of the Red Plan which we will present today to help the Department of Education and the Pawlenty Administration guarantee that Minnesotan’s right-to-vote will not be compromised.