Harry Welty

More than you probably want to know about Harry’s History with public education - in the first person.

I came to Duluth to teach in 1974.

I substitute taught all over for several years and taught in the Proctor, Superior, Wisconsin and the Duluth Schools.

I sent my first child to the Duluth schools in 1986. My younger child graduated from the Duluth Schools in 2003. The first now teaches in the Duluth Schools. The second, who wanted to get a GED now has a PhD in physics and chemistry and researches at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

I ran and lost campaigns for the School board in 1989, 1991, 1993. After losing the 1993 campaign I was critical to the passage of an excess levy that was used to end the School District’s flirtation with bankruptcy and which built a ten percent reserve fund.

I was elected on my fourth try in 1995 when two angels appeared and told me they would co-chair my fourth campaign if I did exactly what they told me instead of running an eccentric campaign. I agreed. I broke my promise. I met Mary Cameron in that election and worked harder to help her become Duluth’s first African-American School Board member than I worked on my campaign.

I was one of nine unanimous votes to welcome a charter school into Duluth which our teacher’s union rated the best applicant for such and experiment.

I was selected Chairman of the School Board in 1997. Four months later, when a Teacher’s Strike was imminent, I gave up my chairmanship when I became an obstacle to settling the contract. The strike was averted.

In 1997 I championed a second excess levy to add elementary specialists to the Staff. It passed because the School Board had honored its commitments in the 1993 levy referendum.

In 2001 I championed another excess levy but it failed in large part do the public’s distraction over the attack on 9-11 and the public’s anger over the threat to close five elementary schools instead of closing one highschool.

In 2001 I objected to the proposed closing of five neighborhood elementary schools because closing one of our shrinking high Schools would save them.

In 2007, retired from the Board, I objected to the new School Board authorizing a $259 million spending plan based on my long campaign to close one high school. My plan had been meant to save a million dollars for classrooms. The “Red Plan” was going to spend $259 million to accomplish the same thing and do it without a referendum. No other Minnesota City had ever denied a public vote on such a scale before. Every other Minnesota City would have held a referendum. As I predicted the Red Plan cost much more, just shy of half a billion dollars, and, as I predicted, was financed by diverting money from the classroom to pay off building bonds. The cost was ten million dollars every year for 25 years. That was and continues to mean one hundred fewer teachers every year. And that means huge classrooms until the Red Plan bonds are paid off when today’s first graders graduate from high school.

I organized Let Duluth Vote which petitioned for a referendum, was ignored, which offered a smaller building project, was ignored, and which took the District to court for authorizing the Red Plan without having conducted a competitive bid. We will never know how that case would have turned out because Johnson Controls and the School Board got our attorney disqualified on a technicality. Duluth’s citizens were no match for the thirtieth largest Corporation on the Fortune 500 list. Even so, Let Duluth Vote raised enough donations from over two thousand citizens to post a $100,000 bond for the trial. When Let Duluth Vote folded almost every cent was returned to our donors.

In 2007 my election was short-circuited by the publication of a last-minute smear by pro Red Plan supporters. It cost me enough votes to deny my side a majority on the School Board which would have offered a more modest building plan.

I was elected to the School board in 2013 after the Red Plan was nearing completion. I had hoped to find out whether the Red Plan’s builders had lied to Duluth and possibly force them to compensate us for driving 2,000 of 10,000 Duluth public school children away to other districts. The School Board majority denied me this public data. Then the majority fabricated a case against my only ally and tried to throw him off the School Board despite his popularity with the voters who elected him.

2017 a massive outpouring of Anti-Donald Trump voters voted me off the School Board. Ironically, I was the most outspoken anti-Trump politician in Duluth. I don’t think the voters knew this.

In 2019 Minnesota courts ordered the Duluth School District to pay an unprecedented $55,000 penalty to the school board member they failed to kick off the board. The court awarded this to him for ignoring a dozen of his data requests in violation of Minnesota’s Public Data Law.

In 2019 I began writing a book about my experiences with public education over a lifetime. It will be given to donors of the Welty for School Board campaign.

For those of you making bets here is my win loss record for the School Board to date:

• 1989 loss
• 1991 loss
• 1993 loss
• 1995 win
• 1999 win
• 2003 loss
• 2007 loss
• 2013 win
• 2017 loss
• 2019 ?

This all could make a very interesting book!

Harry Welty

After watching the School board like a hawk for thirty years and serving on it for twelve years I know that being only one vote out of seven means nothing. Majority’s make decisions. I will work to form a majority for any changes I believe are needed. As an example, from 2000 to 2004 I advocated the closing of one high school to save $1.2 million to spend in our remaining schools. I never was in a majority that approved such a change. Over the next ten years while off the School Board such a majority came into being. However, the justification for closing a high school was hidden in a $259 million ($491 million counting interest on the bonds) plan to rebuild almost all the Duluth Schools. That was not a savings of $l.2 million for the classrooms. Instead, it became a loss of $10 million classroom dollars each year (100 teacher’s worth of salary) until the bonds would be fully repaid nearly thirty years later. At no point from the beginning of the Red Plan until now has there been a majority to question this change. Now the damage is done and there is no turning back.

Today, with this sinkhole cemented into place, the best I can do with a cooperative majority is to seek stability and financing wherever it can be found. I will advocate for passage of any and all additional levy referendums. This time the voters will make the decision. I will hold down costs to keep the classrooms from getting any more crowded or driving out more Duluth Students to other districts. Currently, twenty percent of our school age population has left the District for greener pastures in the wake of the Red Plan.

Should I be elected it will only be for a four-year term bringing my total service to 16 years. But 2023 will still leave Duluth with six to ten years to retire the Red Plan’s annual ten-million-dollar hit. For the past six years I have argued that the Red Plan cost too much for Duluth taxpayers to allow our new schools to molder. We must now make the best of the Red Plan and protect this vast investment. What I can offer voters is a deep understanding of our District, common sense and plain-speaking leadership. Furthermore, I will fiercely advocate for equity and fairness for all our schools.

The following makes sense to me:

Spending 1 to 2 million to demolish (new) Central High School. It is only practical as a school and of no value otherwise. The $200,000 annual cost of maintaining this empty building drains our school’s maintenance fund. Furthermore, since anyone wishing to develop this land will use its unavoidable demolition to offer the school district a low bid it makes sense to do the demolition ourselves. This will make the land more valuable. This strategy will also bring an end the annual heating and maintenance costs.

However, I suspect that in the next decade or two Duluth may attract a much younger population of new families for which building a third high school will make sense. Our District held many land parcels for future use from the 1960’s through the year 2000. We should consider doing the same thing again. Buying a new site will be extraordinarily expensive and difficult in the future. Therefore, I will not be eager to sell the Central site for chump change. We can afford to sit on the land to see what develops.

As for Old Central where we house the ALC and our school administration this is another Red Plan headache. The Red Plan was going to fix the building for $18 million until the Red Planners abandoned the project. Today fixing Old Central is estimated to cost about $50 million. I propose to offer voters a referendum to keep the building in the School District’s care for that price. If such a referendum passes we will fix up Old Central. If it fails, I will look for any trustworthy custodian in the private sector to maintain the building for its historical value. Because our District lost 2,000 students in the wake of the Red Plan I believe we can house the Administration in sites all over the District. This will bring administrators closer to students and save money.

If you want to know what I think about other educational issues visit my eleven-year-old blog: www.lincolndemocrat.com. Simply type the keyword into its search function and see what pops up. I have probably already expressed an opinion about your concern.

Harry Welty