DECC sponsored $10,000 retreat, $1,500 Vista cruise for board of directors
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Thanks for the insightful look at these folks who make Duluth SO great and so “Duluth-y.” It’s literally a revolving door within certain sectors and social circles in this town… There is **a lot** more to this web of Duluth’s elite, political, and behind-the-scenes types than is obvious on the surface. It would make an interesting flow chart. It’s also nice that Minnesuing Acres invoices are remitted to a Minnetonka address… these are the people in town who scream how keeping things local is so important, and try to shame the public about their climate footprint– while they go and drive an hour for a questionable yet lavish “retreat.” Certainly there is a suitable “retreat” atmosphere a bit closer to town, or even (god forbid) IN town…? These folks are really something… Only by exposing them and their activities to the public at-large will their hypocrisy shine through. Thanks, Mr Ramos, for this narrow peek thru the curtains.
um… awkward… why would you edit my comment without any editor’s note or anything? You just casually removed a whole section of somebody’s free speech? [Ed. note: Unfettered free speech does not exist in our Comments section. When comments contain unsubstantiated statements about individuals, we remove them.] Authentic journalism would at least make note that you edited a reply. Are you scared that you won’t get interviews anymore if you allow the public to chime in with specific examples of truth?? Gotta wonder about your motives here, sir. Maybe your story is a quick band-aid to distract folks from the youngest Zaun being an ongoing conflict-of-interest mess for her majesty of Duluth…? Tell me, what are the ethics of the Mayor using a city prosecutor, who she as Mayor appointed, to [Ed. note: Claim removed due to being unsubstantiated and potentially libelous]? And almost getting away with it, again, until whistleblowers make the situation public the day before the hearing, and only then backing down? Is that ethical? You gonna publish anything about the details of that mess?
I’ve been struggling with this story because I have respect and in a few cases affection for many of the people in this story.
And I have experience: I’ve served on the boards of two non-profits in town, and we had “retreats,” events where we went home at dinner time and came back after breakfast the next day. So, like Hartman, I get the importance and power of the retreat. (As a catechist, I helped organize them, so I know doubly the power of the overnight, isolated retreat for cracking someone open to new ideas and new thinking.). So I want to say “Yeah, I get it.”
But — To serve on the board of the DECC is to exist in a weird place. Unlike serving on the board of Animal Allies or another non-profit, there is no “mission” here to motivate board members to want to be a part of the organization. Instead, there is synergy, between the DECC as, basically, a publicly subsidized business and (a) the organizations who rent it (representatives of whom serve on the board) and (b) the major employers in town, generally. (There are a few public servants on the board, and I thank them for their service. There are also some entrepreneurs.)
So what does a retreat become, in that light? When mission is not at the core of a board’s work, what is?
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Mostly, though, I think I resonate most with the critique offered in this article when I remember that the DECC receives nearly three million dollars in tourism tax support (and prior to 2019, it received more).
We give the DECC funding equal to half the amount raised ($7,250,000) from the local sales tax dedicated to street improvement (.5%). If we struck the DECC from the city budget, we could (perhaps) cut that sales tax to 0.3% instead of 0.5%. It’s not an insubstantial amount of money.
I get that DECC programming generates significant spinoff revenue — the old “for every dollar spent at the DSSO, there are $7 in economic activity at restaurants, hotels, etc.). So there might be good reason for the DECC to be financially unsustainable in itself. We don’t expect the Rose Garden or the Lakewalk to be financially- self-supporting.
But we would be mortified if the Parks & Recreation Commission of the City of Duluth chartered a cruise for itself with $1500 of tax money. It’s hard not to see the DECC board’s Vista trip as done with $1500 in tax money.
…
One step further: I feel sure that the parks commission would reject an offer to go on such a cruise. The optics would be bad, and I think they would know it. They are public servants.
I get why Hartman didn’t think the optics would be bad here. He generalized from the Glensheen Advisory Council to the DECC Board. I think it was a mistake, but I understand it.
If the DECC staff can be forgiven for falsely generalizing from past experience, I’m still annoyed by the board. Why no one on the DECC board didn’t think “Hey, what will the optics be like if we use $10,000 for an overnight stay at a resort?”
I’m afraid that the answer is, the DECC board didn’t think this was a bad idea because they don’t see their work on that board as public service, working to keep safe and wisely the city’s $3 million dollar annual investment in the DECC. I wish they did.
Always in appreciation for what you do, sir.
Hartman and co. didn’t think the optics would be bad, because he didn’t think the public would ever know… or that the public deserves to know. These people exist in a closed, tight-knit circle. The average tax-paying, blue collar resident who struggles with finances- means nothing to them. Let them all eat cake as the board floats the harbor cruise, then comes asking for more public funds.