[Vision2020] Today's Latah eagle

[Tom Hansen]

Copied and pasted below is a letter submitted by Dr. Don Harter to the Latah
Eagle.

Dr. Harter suggests that if the MSD is successful in their defense, Dr.
Weitz will appeal the decision, effectively dragging this litigation through
court after court for the next couple years, thus suspending the 2007/2008
school budget.

Can't you just feel the love Dr. Weitz has for our children? 

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Printed From The Latah Eagle 
2007-07-05 
  
Harter: Time for MSD to Exercise Prudent Judgement 

Following is my viewpoint conditioned by experience as a certified
professional mediator. On June 29 District Judge John Bradbury ruled that
the lawsuit of Dr. Gerald Weitz threatening MSD's supplemental levy will
continue. On August 24 Judge Bradbury will hear the legal merits of his
lawsuit. In the June 30 Lewiston Morning Tribune Superintendent Candis
Donicht claims that the MSD feels very good about the 18 defenses it will
present on August 24. A summary of the 13 page decision of Judge Bradbury is
available at http://right-mind.us. Type Judge Bradbury in the search box.

I allege that these 18 defenses will be equally as ineffective as the
pathetic arguments presented by MSD on June 29. The MSD immediately should
initiate a compromise by entering into a binding legal agreement whereby Dr.
Weitz will drop his lawsuit. In turn, the Board must agree to re-run the
contested indefinite levy as an ordinary maintenance and operations levy.
Such a compromise would leave intact the 2007 - 2008 MSD budget of $20.4 M
submitted to the State Department of Education on June 27. This compromise
is identical to the one which Dr. Weitz offered to the MSD prior to the
election levy.

Even so, it now appears that the Board of Trustees is hell-bent on winning
on August 24 independent of the consequences of winning. If the MSD does win
on August 24 Dr. Weitz has the right to appeal. If so, his appeal could push
the case out by another 18 months. Such action will place the 2007 - 2008
budget in jeopardy, cost substantial legal fees, and further erode the
credibility of the Board of Trustees as perceived by its patrons. The time
has come for the Board of Trustees to initiate a compromise by exercising
prudent judgment.

Dr. Don Harter, Moscow

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Thoughts, Moscow?

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has
with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear,
maintain the principles that he believes, worship according to his own
faith, either one God, three Gods, no God or twenty Gods; and let government
protect him in so doing, i.e., see that he meets with no personal abuse, or
loss of property, for his religious opinions...." 

-John Leland, colonial-era Baptist minister and religious liberty advocate,
The Rights of Conscience Inalienable, 1791 pamphlet