Issue Position: Central High School/ Edison Sale

Issue Position

Over a century ago, my ancestors came from lands of oppression in Ireland. Here, these brave immigrants, living as Catholics in a Protestant Empire from the British, came to Ellis Island is search of the American Dream that we all take for granted. Among these dearly held beliefs involved the right to have their voices heard. For many years, my ancestors toiled in farmland across Midwestern-America before finally passing their citizenship exams, thereby allowing them the right to vote. My ancestors were finally given a voice through their representative, who, chosen by the people, would vote on party lines consistent with what the people clamored for.

Members of the DFL, by not listening to the people through influencing the results of a recent school board vote, has taken my ancestor's purpose in life in vein and thrown it to the ground with the force of a thousand rockets. In March 2016, Duluth School Board members considered a proposal allowing for the sale of the old Central High School in Duluth. Here lied a dilapidated, decaying, dying building, whose vacancy since 2011 left no student to graduate from this particular school. The taxpayer of Duluth, just to maintain a school that had no students, paid $170,000 per year. Furthermore, the Duluth School District in 2017 projects a deficit of $3.7 million. Edison Charter Schools has promised to pay $14.2 million for the building.

In March, you spoke in overwhelming numbers in support of the project. Nevertheless, your current state Representative Jennifer Schultz influenced four Union members to vote against the proposal through her words, causing the sale to become defeated. She alleged that "Duluth has the ability to only support two high schools;" yet you the taxpayer saw otherwise. Duluth has the ability to host three high schools. The public just said it could.

Once elected, I will use my voice to introduce legislation so that our taxpayers can have their school deficit wiped out; so that our taxpayers have a free choice to send their kids to whatever school they wish to go to.

Source