Responding to a call from the News Tribune to apologize for the bulldozing of private land this week, Duluth schools Superintendent Keith Dixon stepped up Friday.
"This morning Superintendent Keith Dixon left another message for (landowner Scott) Kuiti, acknowledging that bulldozing should not have happened on his property, offering an apology on behalf of the district, and extending another invitation to meet," district spokeswoman Katie Kaufmann said Friday in an e-mail to the News Tribune Opinion page.
"There is no question that the district should apologize for the bulldozing mistake," she wrote. "While we immediately owned up to the error and shared our regrets, we made a second mistake by neglecting in our conversations with Scott Kuiti to say those simple words which mean so much: 'We're sorry for what happened.' ... Facilities manager Kerry Leider is also contacting Mr. Kuiti to extend his apologies as well."
The News Tribune, in its editorial, "Let apologies follow shameful behavior," called on Kuiti to apologize, too, to School Board member Tim Grover. On Wednesday, when Grover drove past the bulldozing site -- between Kuiti's Piedmont Plaza building and the future home of Piedmont Elementary -- and when Grover stopped momentarily, Kuiti twice gave him the finger.
"I'm not ashamed to say I did that," Kuiti told the News Tribune Opinion page.
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But he should have been ashamed. And, after cooling down, he could have remembered he was an adult and apologized for such boorish behavior. However, as of mid-afternoon yesterday, that hadn't happened. Grover said he hadn't heard from Kuiti, and Kuiti didn't return a phone message from the News Tribune.
When Kuiti did return a message Thursday, he told an opinion page staffer he saw Grover smile and laugh when he approached the bulldozing site in his car, a detail published without challenge in the editorial. On Friday, Grover vehemently denied the allegation. "I did not laugh. I did not even smile," Grover said. "There was nothing funny or amusing about the situation."
Nothing funny or amusing at all -- especially not with an apology still outstanding.
