A forum open to all Duluth School Board candidates Friday evening remained friendly throughout, probably because the only candidates who showed up hold nearly identical views on the main issues of the election.
Harry Welty, running for the District 2 seat on the Duluth School Board; Deb Anderson and incumbent Tim Grover, both candidates for the District 3 seat; and Gary Glass, one of the candidates running for the At Large position, were all present at the forum, which was hosted at Duluth City Hall by the grass-roots political group Progressive Action.
All four have been passionate opponents of the long-range facilities proposal adopted by the Duluth School Board known as the red plan. They also have been united in their call for a referendum.
Judy Seliga-Punyko, Welty's opponent for the District 2 spot, and Bevan Schraw, Glass' opponent for the At Large position, were not at the debate. Both Schraw and Seliga-Punyko support the red plan and the board's decision to skip a referendum.
The justification behind the red plan dominated many of the questions.
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Candidates largely echoed one another's remarks about the unnecessary size and cost of the plan and the negative impact it will have on Duluth. They agreed something should be done to upgrade Duluth's schools, but on a smaller scale.
Some differentiation crept in when candidates were asked to answer a question about how many high schools were appropriate for Duluth.
Only Welty said he agreed with downsizing to two schools.
"It's no secret that I have always advocated for two buildings," Welty said. "But if our alternative is putting in the red plan, I would rather keep three high schools."
Anderson said there needed to be more "robust" discussion about the community's needs before she could make a decision, while both Glass and Grover said all three high schools should remain open.
A question on what limits would be placed on consulting firm Johnson Controls during the implementation process of the plan led to the most contentious part of the debate.
"We have pretty much given up control to them in the red plan adoption," Anderson said. "That is one of the problems I have with the current board; I never would have surrendered my power to Johnson Controls."
She stayed with that theme during her closing remarks.
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"If I had been on the board, I never would have allowed a process where the board sits back and lets an outside agency and the superintendent run a process where only a few community members are involved and most others are excluded from input," she said.
