[Vision2020] Today's Latah eagle

[lfalen]

I am not taking a position one way or the other on the lawsuit, but it seams to me that it would be best to hold a legal levy election. This would put an end to it and things can get back to normal.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: "Tom Hansen" thansen at moscow.com
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 15:35:50 -0700
To: "Moscow Vision 2020" vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Today's Latah eagle

> 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? 
> 
> -----------------------------------------
> 
> 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
> 
> -----------------------------------------
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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