ISD #2142 News: Feb. 17th, 2011

Articles from the Cook News Herald:
Full Article(s) Links Below:
http://www.cooknewsherald.com/page1.html

ISD 2142 board sets Orr School closing in motion
Summary:
 
The ISD 2142 school board at their regular meeting Monday at 5 p.m. in the District Office officially started the closing of the Orr School. The board, at their Jan. 31 meeting, had voted to combine the students of Orr and Cook in the Cook School for the 2011-2012 school year. This motion sets the process in motion. This includes publishing a notice of the hearing to be held in the Orr School for two weeks in the Cook News-Herald, the district's official newspaper. A judge will be on hand at that meeting where residents may speak on the closing. A court stenographer will take the minutes.

Some Orr Area residents upset with this.
 
Curriculum Report By Kevin Abrahamson on potential course offerings next year
 
Update by John Henry on construction - everything on schedule
 
Board Meeting scheduled in Babbitt in the B-E auditorium to discuss the school name and mascot which has been previously changed by the school board on a unanimous vote following a positive vote by the B-E & T-S student bodies for the change. This meeting will be held Thursday, March 3, at 7 p.m.
 
Field Township board amends P & Z moratorium for feedlots, wood processing... No school  
Summary:
 
The board had passed, at a special meeting Feb. 7, plans for a Planning and Zoning ordinance with a moratorium which allowed outhouses, hunting shacks, homes, but no school. This action seemed to those present to be a direct attack on the new school that is going up there. The moratorium passed by two Field Township Board members, Tom Chapman and Chairman Keith Aho, was passed at a special township board meeting that, apparently, few township residents knew about.

Ryan Hartway was first and spoke for a group, so he had eight minutes. He questioned how much the attorney cost, which was $200 an hour, and how it was paid for. Aho replied that taxes did. Hartway spoke of the township having to go to court at the township's expense. Hartway brought up Minnesota Statute 15-6 titled Interim Ordinance (Moratorium that made it clear that interim ordinances may not be arbitrarily adopted to discriminate against specific projects. Hartway noted that Gilchrist had apparently authored Statute 15-6. A 10-day notice is required for an interim ordinance to be adopted. Hartway said that Aho and Chapman didn't notify their local newspaper, but a Tower paper that agreed with them was at the meeting. He asked Aho if the township was prepared to battle legal costs and Aho replied they were. Hartway then submitted a Freedom Of Information Act request for all e-mails from 2006 to the present, all financial records from 2006 to the present and all telephone calls for the same period.

Other comments:

Mike Enzmann, who represents Field on the Hospital Board, asked Gilchrist if he would represent the board if they were sued over this. He added he wanted to bring a lawsuit against the Town Board over this moratorium.

Gilchrist said they should consider if the township were sued with challenges for arbitrary and capricious items.

Jenny Panichi spoke of the jobs the new school would bring. She said they would "lose out big time." She added she refuses to buy the Tower publication and wondered why it wasn't in the local paper. She said she thought the entire Field Township should vote on this.

Most in the audience against this moratorium. Aho had asked for a show of hands of those against the moratorium and most of the close to 100 in attendance raised their hands. The board then amended the ordinance to include small wood processing businesses and feedlots, but not a school.

Calls for the resignation of the entire board and the repeal of the moratorium went unheeded.

2011 School Board Meeting Calendar
Click Below For The .PDF File

2011 School Board Meeting Calendar