As voters in two southwest Minnesota school districts prepare to decide Tuesday whether to build new schools, the Worthington and Russell-Tyler-Ruthton school districts are battling a man some are calling a “bond wrecker.”
Opponents of the referendum in both communities brought Paul Dorr, an Iowa consultant who works to defeat school referendums across the Midwest. For at least 25 years, in nine states, people hired him to defeat their school district's bond proposals. It creates mailers, radio ads and Facebook pages telling residents to vote “no.”
In Worthington, schools have been growing by about 100 new students each year for the past 10 years.
“We really don't have any more space,” said Superintendent John Ludgard, pointing to a small classroom at Worthington Middle School that used to be a warehouse.
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A former warehouse, pictured on Jan. 7, 2019, has been converted into a classroom at Worthington Middle School.
Alex Baumhardt | APM reports
Tuesday's vote will be the fourth in less than three years on whether to raise property taxes to fund a new school.
Getting a school bond approved, especially in rural communities, can be difficult. Farmers end up paying a large portion of the tax increase because they own the most land.
“There's no more money on earth and now you're going to tax us? Take away what we've been trying to live on?” asks farmer Jolene Kuhl. “No.”
Dorr would not speak to MPR News for this story, but said his ultimate goal is the end of public education.
“I am fighting these purveyors of the moral destruction of Christianity which is the government school,” Dorr said in a YouTube video. “Furthermore, I fight them as I see no biblical warrant for their existence.”
Dorr was involved in the defeat of Worthington's last three bond votes, which took place in November 2016, February 2018 and August 2018. After one of last year's votes, people boycotted businesses that supported the school's campaign .
This comes as no surprise to people who have dealt with Dorr in the past. In Neligh, Neb., Dorr was hired to oppose a school bond in 2014. At the end of it, the superintendent resigned. Dorr and the group that hired him tried to recall the mayor and the City Council.
“It's been a long and difficult process to get back into our community,” said Stephanie Wanek, who was on the City Council there at the time.
According to campaign finance records, Dorr worked to help defeat at least 26 bond votes in Minnesota and another two dozen in Iowa. In Minnesota, 77 percent of the referendums he worked on failed. But of those districts he's engaged with here, more than half have moved on to a bond once he's out of the limelight.
Independent School District 518 Superintendent John Ludgard stands outside Worthington Middle School.
Alex Baumhardt | APM reports
In Worthington, he has received more than $23,000 for his work on the last three bond votes. Dor uses similar tactics wherever he goes. It starts by asking for a lot of data on everything from construction contracts to enrollment forecasts. He claims the school is not presenting the full picture of the tax impact and implies the superintendent and school board are deceiving the public.
“Is the Worthington ISD 518 school board trying to hide something from the media and voters?” Dorr asked, in a video posted on Facebook before the final vote in Worthington.
The mixed messages between the information the district was putting out and the information farmers were getting from the anti-bonding group, the Worthington Citizens Committee for Progress, confused some.
Kuhl, the farmer, said she was told by the commission that her taxes would increase by nearly $30,000 a year. In fact, he would pay just over $1,700 a year on $4.5 million worth of land, which would total more than $30,000 over the life of a 20-year bond.
Committee Chairman David Bosma said he has never given that number, but he believes such numbers were being thrown around in the wake of past votes on the bond referendum.
Just 65 miles away from Worthington, in a small rural town called Tyler, the school district is also seeking a property tax increase Tuesday, and Dorr has been recruited by a group there to defeat it. Like Worthington, the campaign against the bond began with a Facebook video that cast doubt on the school's administration. They singled out Superintendent Dave Marlette.
“They called me names, I think they called me Big Cheese Marlette,” Marlette said. “We're not going to go down in the mud with these guys, we just won't.”
In Worthington, Superintendent Langaard said if people vote no on Tuesday, precinct leaders will seek a fifth vote or make up what they can without asking voters.
Correction (2/12/2018): An earlier version of a photo caption incorrectly identified the orchestra at Worthington High School.
