"Papers filed with the Minnesota Department of Education, which must sign off
on any charter school expansion plans, describe the financing behind the Twin
Cities German Immersion charter school. The $6.4 million bill TCGIS has agreed
to pay, over time, includes a $100,000 “development consultant fee” for
TenSquare. That is on top of a contract worth thousands of dollars per month
TCGIS has paid to TenSquare since 2013".

Article by Sarah Lahm, Progressive Magazine
https://www.laprogressive.com/nonprofit-charter-school-industry/

Progressive.jpg 164.87kb

Great read. Interesting that the story appears in the LA Progressive and not
in the PiPress or the Strib or on MPR. It makes you wonder why we bother to
vote for mayors and city councils and judges when it's the Piper Jaffrey-types
who are really calling shots. Private investors using public funds to finance
and receive healthy profits from “private property” real estate deals - how
cool is that?

HOOYAH! The Brainpower State

Jeffery, Thank you for posting the very interesting and informative charter
school article.

Jeffrey,

Thank you. This is vitally important information; it is chilling to see the
way in which our city was manipulated as part of a much larger national
agenda.

When I was preparing to vote on the historic designation of Saint Andrew's,
I was advised by the city attorney that I should not vote on ordinance.
The night before the public hearing, I had visited the site and run into
Father Forliti with whom I enjoyed a brief conversation about his years
growing up in the neighborhood and becoming its parish priest. This was
considered an "ex parte" violation of my responsibility not to have contact
with the parties in this matter prior to voting. To my knowledge, Father
Forliti was not a party to this matter, but so be it.

I was not required to recuse myself when I voted against the City's
providing tax exempt conduit bond financing to the Twin Cities German
Immersion School. I voted "no" for many reasons. But the main one was that,
in the course of tearing the Warrendale neighborhood apart, TCGIS refused
to take advantage of a pro bono professional study of whether it could have
met its development goals as or more cost-effectively through adaptive
reuse of the church. Tom Fisher, the retired dean of the U of M
architecture school offered this service in October 2018.

My city council colleagues chose to view St. Andrew's historic designation
as a "private property rights matter." There is NOTHING about TCGIS and
its choices that invokes private property rights. This is a public charter
school, spending public money to purchase and tear down Saint Andrew's, and
to replace it with a nondescript cardboard box of its new right-sized
school.

Worse yet, public charter schools are required to make no long term
commitments to the decisions they make. They have their own school boards
and administrators, who upon turnover, could make an equally disruptive
decision. Perhaps in a few years, the school might decide to expand to
grade 12; at that time, maybe a suburban location surrounded by green space
including playing fields would provide a much better learning environment
for its students.

Ironically, once it was rubble, Saint Andrew's was approved by the State of
Minnesota to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. Heaven
help us if we don't take this travesty as an object lesson in not being
"played" by forces far beyond Saint Paul,

Jane Prince

Rest of post

On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 10:16 AM Jeffery T <<email obscured>> wrote:

> ― 1 file link ―
>
> "Papers filed with the Minnesota Department of Education, which must sign
> off on any charter school expansion plans, describe the financing behind
> the Twin Cities German Immersion charter school. The $6.4 million bill
> TCGIS has agreed to pay, over time, includes a $100,000 “development
> consultant fee” for TenSquare. That is on top of a contract worth thousands
> of dollars per month TCGIS has paid to TenSquare since 2013".
>
> Article by Sarah Lahm, Progressive Magazine
> https://www.laprogressive.com/nonprofit-charter-school-industry/
> ― 1 file ―
>
> 📎 Progressive.jpg (169kb)
>
> http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/file/6YYv1ItBiNxXVjUggbReDxG7iUS-HV3-2L85Lvh/
>
>
>
> Jeffery T
> Saint Paul
> About/contact Jeffery T: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/jefferythole
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--

*Jane L. Prince*
Attorney
Weinblatt & Gaylord, PLC
5874 Blackshire Path
Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076
Phone:
*651-308-4984*Fax: 651-223-8282 or 651-451-5872

*NOTICE: This communication may contain privileged or other confidential
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People over property? Or profits over people?

Doing faith-based community organizing around housing, I get to see an
interesting perspective.

For instance, the most prevalent faith among people involved in housing, I
would say, isn't Christianity - it's the Free Market.

People used to laugh when people of faith got caught up in questions like 'how
many angels can dance on the head of a pin.' OK, that's pretty esoteric, but I
think in the future people will laugh at statements like '"he "Free Market"
will provide adequate housing for everyone," or "Rental property is an
investment like any other, and it's wrong to tell the investor anything about
their investment," or in this case, "This wonderful old building which has
meant a lot to a lot of people doesn't matter, because owners get to decide all
the things."

Free Market Fundamentalists take this to a crazy extreme. Should the City or
the State try to put any limits on what they can do, and they fly into a fury.
"MY PROPERTY" they cry.

But the rights of property are never unlimited. You cannot store nuclear waste
in your basement, I don't care how much money you could make. You can no longer
claim that the African people you 'bought' are your property.

Unfortunately, Free Market Fundamentalism is pretty powerful in the US right
now. Try these two - Corporations are People, and Money is Speech. The Supreme
Court's packed with these guys.

Recently MICAH took part in a screening of "Jim Crow of the North" which talked
about how houses used to be sold with racial covenants, banning anyone from
selling the home in question to a Black (or possibly Jewish or Mexican) person.
I'd love to stand that on it's head and ban owners from tearing down
neighborhood fixtures.

Councilmember Prince and others bring up a lot of things - what are charter
schools all about, what requirements for public good can be put on transactions
- yep, there's a lot of big things at play here. For housing that people can
afford, and neighborhoods with history, and schools that are a well funded
public trust that teach kids of all races equally well - many of these things
get in the way of profit. Who wins?

John,

While I mostly agree with your sentiment, I think you're missing something, and
in doing so, reinforcing the misbegotten notion that the historic St. Andrews
Church/TCGIS, 100% paid for with public funds, is somehow, someway, private
property.

“TCGIS is, in fact, a public charter school. Its $8.2 million acquisition and
renovation of the former St. Andrew’s Church and school in 2013 was funded
through low-interest conduit bonds issued by the city of St. Paul, bonds that
are repaid with lease aid from the state of Minnesota that currently sits at
$1,314 per student. With nearly 600 students projected next year, that figure
guarantees an annual public subsidy of more than $750,000 — well in excess of
their annual lease payments. In principle, the annual reserve that this excess
creates should go to maintaining the 92-year-old building the school purchased
with our tax dollars. Instead, that money has been held in reserve while basic
upkeep of the beautiful exterior is neglected — apparently so the school’s
officials could treat normal wear and tear as evidence of the historic church
“falling down.” These are gross exaggerations that TCGIS has repeated during
public meetings and in hearings before the St. Paul City Council. Such
behavior seems far more reminiscent of how one might expect a predatory
developer to behave, given the disdain the school has shown for any kind of
public process in the lead up to its March 2018 decision to demolish the
church.”

http://www.startribune.com/the-public-charter-school-at-st-andrew-s-should-be-listening-to-the-public/510690782/

How does some University of St. Thomas shell corporation manage to collect more
the $750,000/year in state welfare to acquire prime real estate a block or 2
from Como Lake and a priceless historic church building, and then, to assure
that it continues collecting the $750,000/year or more in state welfare for
years to come, bulldoze the priceless building and plop down some nondescript
“modern” gym-classroom-cafeteria, “multi-purpose” structure? Clearly, the
Mayor, City Council, judges and others that facilitated this travesty are in
the pockets of the Piper-Jaffrey-types and their lawyers who are the architects
and beneficiaries this charter school “lease aid” welfare scam.

Why 2020 Dems Should Target the Nonprofit Charter School Industry

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